Filmmaker Michael Tucker views the scene’s 17 pages through the lens of the philosophy and psychology of suspense, noting how the introduction of instability (here in the form of Nazis approaching an idyllic farmhouse) makes us yearn for a return to stability. That ratchets up in intensity when—following Hitchcock’s decree that you tell the audience there’s a bomb under the table long before it goes off—Tarantino pans down to reveal that there are Jewish refugees hiding beneath the farmhouse’s floorboards. There are countless subtle shifts in the scene (like when Landa pulls out his cartoonishly large pipe) and unlikely ratchets in tension, such as when Landa grabs the farmer’s daughter’s hand when he asks for a glass of milk. Also, just the creepiness of him drinking all that milk anyway.

It’s a smart analysis of the video that also ropes in plenty of archival footage of Tarantino describing the scene himself, which is always revealing and suspenseful in its own way. There’s something vaguely unsettling about the way that guy talks.

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[via Laughing Squid]