Picture Of A Moral Illiterate In Action
Posted by Dirty Harry on Thursday, January 1st, 2009
My pal Robert Avrech does his year end round up and writes:
Attention! Did you know that Nazis are evil, that World War II offered moral absolutes? Did you know that sophisticated film reviewers consider this POV rather, um, unsophisticated? Well, check out the review of Valkyrie by Manolo Blahnik—I always call her that—at the, what a shock, NY Times.
It’s a war that offers moral absolutes (Nazis are evil) and narratives (Nazis are evil and should die) that seem easier to grasp than any current conflict. Truly, World War II has become the moviemaker’s gift that keeps on giving, whether you want it to or not.
“Whether you want it to or not???” One has to wonder how many more millions of innocents would’ve had to die at the hands of the Nazis and Imperial Japan for Manolo to find moral absolutes less simple-minded. As far as our “current conflict,” it takes a disturbing amount of “sophistication” to not understand the glaring moral difference between those who target the innocent and those who kill those who target the innocent.
And what a dull review. This angle has been played to death in examining WWII movies, especially looking back at those films made during WWII, which are much more emotionally complicated than these Lefties would ever let themselves admit.
Looks as though liberal film reviewers are going the way of liberal filmmakers and just phoning it in under the assumption “liberal” is good enough.
Can the New York Times go out of business fast enough?
Filed in General |
Jeffon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:02 am 1“Can the New York Times go out of business fast enough?”
Probably not. There gonna get a gubmint bailout soon.
Jeffon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:04 am 2Oops. I mean ‘They’re’. That just makes me look at stupid as the average journalist.
Mr Sideouson 01 Jan 2009 at 10:06 am 3Ive despised her reviews for years, all the way back to her LA Weekly days, when she announced she doesn’t understand the spiritual, but would rather believe in Marx and Freud.
That’s like bragging about having a brain tumor.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:09 am 4Wow if thats the way this idiot reviewed Valkyrie then perhaps out of spite I should see it? Maybe I will. I mean since its full of awful moral absolutes.
I think the way this whole issue is taken by the reviewer is proof positive that Leftists now days had they been faced with Hitler and his band of merry mischief makers would have rolled over on their backs and asked Uncle Adolf to rub their blubbery tumm tumms. But hey thanks for making it easier for ME to see this……we you know us “conservatives” who have a black and white view of the world needed a reason to see a film….and thanks to this review we now have one.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:11 am 5OK again the spam filter ate my comment…grrrrrrrrrr
Carolynon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:44 am 6moral absolutes….whether you want it or not…”
YOU? Who’s this “YOU” you’re talking about, NYT?
Just because your diapers are going damp at the thought of moral absolutes doesn’t mean you can blame your wet Pampers on ME. I’ve got no problem with moral absolutes. So man up, you jerks!
JohnLockeon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:45 am 7When I saw that headline with that picture, I was worried that you were talking about the movie itself. I’m planning on seeing it eventually, though I’m still concerned that someone somewhere in the process of making the film decided to draw a connection between Nazi Germany and modern America. If I hear that Hitler says “stay the course,” I’m out.
World War II has become the moviemaker’s gift that keeps on giving…
I want to be angry, but all I can think about when I read this line is cousin Eddie talking about Clark’s one year membership in the Jelly of the Month Club.
I guess that Christmas spirit hasn’t quite faded yet.
Johnny Ed's Babyon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:55 am 8The
times will do what the detroit 3 should have done - go chapter 11, have debt converted to equity and go on their merry way.
Hopefully the Sulzbergers will lose everything and get kicked out.
WW II has always been interesting for how people and actions are seen through the lens of time. Even They Were Expendable, made immediately after the war by people that were there (Ford and Montgomery) showed MacArthur as a hero when he was evacuated from Corregidor. But at the time he was called Dugout Doug for not being at the front lines and making sure there was enough food for his people on Corregidor. But by the time the movie was made he had returned to the Philippines and we had won the war in no small part due to MacArthur’s island hopping.
From what I read about Valkyrie the Nazisim of Cruise and the other good guys is downplayed and that their reasons for stopping Hitler are more self preservation than to stop the Holocaust. For people that had a real talent for killing people, you’d think they would have figured out a way to kill the bastard.
NeoConJedion 01 Jan 2009 at 11:24 am 9There’s an interesting piece about what Johnny Ed’s Baby speaks of in his post (No. 7).
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,473079,00.html
voodooon 01 Jan 2009 at 11:30 am 10I happened to watch a 1962 episode of Twilight Zone this AM. It was titled ‘Changing of the Guard.’ It was about an English professor with 50 years of tenure being put out to pasture. At being dismissed he begins to feel he lived for nothing and made no contribution.
As despair grips him the spirits of a number of his deceased students come to haunt his class room. They are mostly kids killed in action who died heroically. They tell their stories and relate how this English professor inspired them to valor, self sacrifice, and patriotism. He realizes that his life did mean something. He contributed to the lives of those that confronted evil head on.
I think it is safe to say the guard has changed in English departments across this nation – not to mention the script writers.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 11:37 am 11Well if the reviewer here is complaining about this can anyone imaginer her reaction if Nazi Germany existed today? She would be sending Hitler love letters. This is the proof that moral equivalency is alive and well on the left. This dingbat probably doesn’t even know who Staffenburg, Beck and their comrades were. I would bet she isn’t even sure what a Nazi is. What a ding bat.
MovieBobon 01 Jan 2009 at 12:02 pm 12I’m not sure where the vitriol is coming from here - aside from a reflex-reaction to seeing the words “war movie” and “New York Times” together, of course.
Does anyone really want to argue that WWII is still the “go-to” war for Hollywood is because it’s the last war that - as far as the overwhelming popular culture is concerned - didn’t come with any of those messy taints of doubt or moral uncertainty? You get absolute evil in The Holocaust, larger-than-life heroes in Patton etc., and literally the entire world split into two distinct camps. And so long as you don’t bring up anything unpleasant - like Japanese Internment (snarky/ironic “unpleasant?” followed-by-smiley reply from one of the usual suspects in 3, 2, 1…) or the fact that Stalin was always and WOULD ALWAYS be Stalin whichever side he fought on - you get a moving, reality-based, solid-calibre war film without too much heavy-lifting (on behalf of the audience) required nealry every single time.
Haumeaon 01 Jan 2009 at 12:26 pm 13“Does anyone really want to argue that WWII is still the “go-to” war for Hollywood is because it’s the last war that - as far as the overwhelming popular culture is concerned - didn’t come with any of those messy taints of doubt or moral uncertainty? You get absolute evil in The Holocaust, larger-than-life heroes in Patton etc., and literally the entire world split into two distinct camps.”
It’s also the last war where we saved commie bacon. Not coincidentally. Hollywood only suffers from “moral uncertainty” whenever a war doesn’t advance the cause of communism/socialism.
Otherwise: hey, look at Iraq. Absolute evil in Saddam’s mass murder, larger-than-life hero in GWB, and world about as split as it was during WWII. Oh, Bush didn’t raise taxes and no commie tyrant was strengthened. Silly me, of course there’s doubt there.
Do liberals ever stop deceiving themselves and others?
billypaintbrushon 01 Jan 2009 at 12:36 pm 14DH is right about the superficiality of this Times reviewer. Clicked through and tried to listen to her conversation with AO Smith. Couldn’t get through it with all the giggling (from both of ‘em), but I’m just being so, like, judgmental, you know.
Eric Kendallon 01 Jan 2009 at 12:48 pm 15Manohla Dargis’s review really is an appalling exercise in moral illiteracy. If you read the last paragraph, you’ll see that she clearly believes that a perspective on the conflict that incorporates “moral absolutes” merely “transforms World War II into a boy’s adventure,” as she puts it.
“Truly, World War II has become the moviemaker’s gift that keeps on giving, whether you want it to or not,” she writes. And why would you not want such a “gift”? It is because, intellectually, Dargis and her companions at the New York Times live in a moral universe of ambiguity and nuance where absolutes don’t exist—except where the decidedly unambiguous sins of the United States and Western civilization are concerned, of course. It is because they live in a mental landscape in which all war is evil, and in which all those who engage in war are equally guilty. And for people like that, World War II and Nazism represent something truly disturbing—an unwelcome hint that their entire worldview might not make sense.
Nickolas Dilmoreon 01 Jan 2009 at 12:53 pm 16I find it ironic that MovieBob brings up Japanese internment during WWII, considering it was one of the lions of liberalism behind it, namely FDR.
MovieBobon 01 Jan 2009 at 1:16 pm 17Nickolas
“I find it ironic that MovieBob brings up Japanese internment during WWII, considering it was one of the lions of liberalism behind it, namely FDR.”
Y’know what’s great about this? Even if I WAS a “liberal” and you weren’t just making a huge supposition based - one imagines - on the notion that there can ONLY ever be two sides of anything… you STILL wouldn’t be using “ironic” correctly
Harry R. Wilkenson 01 Jan 2009 at 1:39 pm 18Unfortunately little is known in the USA about the real resistance against Hitler, despite a much better and more realistic movie, about the carpenter Georg Elser (starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as well as US actors, released 1989) who nearly succeeded in killing Hitler when it was still time. Maybe you can find/rent his movie under http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097417/
Robert J. Avrechon 01 Jan 2009 at 1:59 pm 19Harry:
Thanks so much for the link and for further commenting on this shocking and rather depressing, ahem, intellectual development, by a film reviewer.
One should be aware that the “intellectual” war against the moral imperatives of World War II, and the horrors of Nazism, and Imperial Japan, both genocidal ideologies, allows the chattering classes to enable and in some cases support Islamo Nazis against Jews in Israel.
Holocaust denial is rampant in the Arab Muslim world, in fact PLO President Abbas’ Ph.D from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, maintains that world-wide Jewry conspired with the Nazis to start WWII, and most Jews died of disease. But, according to this “moderate” Arab leader, there was no Holocaust.
The broken morality, perfectly on display in the NYT film review, further allows the liberal mind to focus on so-called global warming rather than the true evil confronting western civilization: Caliphite Islam.
wfon 01 Jan 2009 at 2:34 pm 20“Does anyone really want to argue that WWII is still the “go-to” war for Hollywood is because it’s the last war that - as far as the overwhelming popular culture is concerned - didn’t come with any of those messy taints of doubt or moral uncertainty?”
Yes, and a good thing, too. But the “overwhelming popular culture” exemplified by Manola Blahnik would clearly like to change that.
The reality is something else. Many conflicts since WW2 have been clearcut affairs, including Korea, Vietnam and both Iraq wars. Liberals cannot admit that “messy taints of doubt or moral uncertainty” can happily coexist with the fact that our side and only our side deserved to win. So they lie and build strawmen. The generations who fought these wars knew that shit does happen in wartime and our side must occasionally get its hands dirty. Our liberal elites flatter themselves (and insult them) by pretending they discovered a great secret. In the end the liberal version does not lead to nuance, not even relativism, but moral inversion.
By the way, thanks to the proponderance of liberals in education and the media, even historical illiterates have heard of the Japanese internment. Frankly, though it was deeply wrong it is pretty insignificant next to everything else the allies had to do to survive. Yet there are at least three movies about the subject. Which is quite enough.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 3:01 pm 21LIke I said pretty soon these leftists will be embracing Hitler as a misunderstood guy. You all just watch. It is already happening. Digusting ain’t it?
Glenn Kennyon 01 Jan 2009 at 3:44 pm 22Come on, guys. The indignation here, and at Avrech’s, is based on an almost entirely willful misreading of the review. Early on, Dargis says the filmmakers “aren’t interested in delivering a history lesson” and that “slick, facile entertainment” is the name of their game. She correctly notes that the real von Stauffenberg “hated Hitler but worshipped the Reich [and] sacrificed himself on the dual alter of nationalism and militarism,” and opines that he’s too complex a character for this film. A film that she clearly says “TRANSFORMS [emphasis mine] World War II into a boy’s adventure.” Which, say what you will, it certainly was not in reality.
Dargis is the same moral illiterate, by the way, who in her review of ‘The Reader” balks quite ferociously at the notion that “illiteracy [could be] an excuse for barbarism.” Which I’m sure doesn’t interest you cherry pickers a bit.
PerfectTommyon 01 Jan 2009 at 3:46 pm 23Because strapping bombs to children is such an ambiguous moral choice.
Nicol Don 01 Jan 2009 at 4:19 pm 24I think it is safe to safe that the left’s move to see Hitler as a “complex and nuanced guy” is directly associated with the increase of people realizing the Nazi’s were socialists.
The more people realize the National - Socialists- were more of the left than the right, the more you will see art and arguments that try to see Hitler as more “3-dimensional”.
Disgusting, but guaranteed.
Supramom2000on 01 Jan 2009 at 4:23 pm 25Nicol, that is a very scary thought. Repugnant, in fact.
Leslie Bateson 01 Jan 2009 at 4:49 pm 26Liberals have a problem with reality because in reality they are in the suck with the bad guys.
Leslie Bateson 01 Jan 2009 at 4:50 pm 27Sorry.
That should read “in the sack”, but it still works.
A Conservative Teacheron 01 Jan 2009 at 5:00 pm 28You have to wonder who she thinks the good guys and bad guys are in our current conflict. Or is there no good and evil, only a dull twilight of gray in her world? But her world is the real world, so there is good and evil, she just must be on the wrong side and so be unwilling to see that.
Glenn Kennyon 01 Jan 2009 at 5:16 pm 29I too, find Nicol D’s thought repugnant. Possibly not for the same reason Supramom does.
whiskeyon 01 Jan 2009 at 5:19 pm 30My response to MovieBob is that WWII, no less than all other wars, was and is morally complex.
Rich, elite Liberals formed pacifistic resistance to doing anything about either Adolf or Tojo until it was too late. With Stalin’s alliance with Hitler 1939-1940, Liberals and Leftists supported Hitler and opposed the Allies. Including Woodie Guthrie. Who made a record that received a DAR award for urging American backing for Hitler.
More to the point, MovieBob wants it would seem a morally pure, Platonic ideal of the West, pure in every means and motive. The Allies pursued a bloody daylight and night-time bombing raid strategy against Germany that cost the British alone 50,000 men, to no real effect for most of the war. Dresden was flattened, and while it’s unlikely 200K were killed the likely real number of 35K was no laughing matter, and the military usefulness of the raids was questionable. Disasters at Slapton Sands (E-boats among the D-Day trainees, killing nearly a thousand), Omaha Beach, Tarawa, Wake, the bloody attrition warfare at Okinawa, the dropping of the A-bomb to bring the war to a swift end (by killing about 150K Japanese) are all morally complex issues.
War in every time of human history is the most complex and least morally pure endeavor in human action.
Both Dargis and MovieBob seem to want a West that does not act unless it is morally pure in a un-achievable Platonic sense.
Bound up in this is the fantasy of ultimate power and control of the West, that it can afford idealism in it’s own defense. History and the spread of nukes suggest this is not so, and Dargis and MovieBob both drink of a deep fantasy of absolute power and control of the West.
After all, no one has made films criticizing Stalin’s obsessive destruction of Berlin that cost SOVIET lives to the tune of 400K. In taking a city that could merely have been beseiged at far lower cost in lives. [Ike avoided racing to Berlin because he understood the futile meatgrinder reality of urban warfare.]
In short terms, Dargis and MovieBob let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
mjkon 01 Jan 2009 at 5:30 pm 31I’ve always said that WWII movies are so popular because what they do is they distill humankind down to the basest of basest levels. What would you do if your neighbours were disappearing in the night? What would you do if your government was preaching hatred and intolerance? What would you do if you had to choose between doing what was right (and being thrown in a concentration camp or killed) and doing what was wrong, but being comfortable and unbothered?
Would you massacre people wholesale? Would you hate someone simply for being a Jew or a gypsy? Would you stand with a man who claimed that you were the be-all and end-all of human superiority?
Wars and other crises make us do what is in our basest nature to do.
Nickolas Dilmoreon 01 Jan 2009 at 5:41 pm 32MovieBob–
Yeah, I dunno where I was going with that. Still hung over.
pandaxon 01 Jan 2009 at 6:22 pm 33MovieBob shows up to lecture us on what is real (in his world)
Your view is exactly what’s wrong with liberal Western thought (I’m not saying you are but sound like one an awful lot). You demand moral prefection on our side or somehow the whole purpose is suspect and cast in doubt. I think the best way to sum up World War II is to paraphase from an excellent book on World War II called the Great Crusade by H.P. Willlmott. At the end he says that while the cost of World War II was staggering, that compared to the death and destruction of a German and Japanese victory perhaps it wasn’t that great a price to pay. That Bob is were your arguement comes apart because for all your whining about how we weren’t prefect in our conduct you never consider what would have happened if we hadn’t fought with warts and all.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 6:47 pm 34Hey guys whenever Movie Bob posts just remember you are about to enter Bobbers world…cue twighlight zone music….
maatkareon 01 Jan 2009 at 7:16 pm 35I’m not defending the review, but there is a glut of WWII/Holocaust movies right now–Boy in Striped Pajamas, Valkyrie, The Reader, Defiance, Good. And in a way it IS an easy cinematic trope–you know immediately who the good/bad guys are, you know the outcome, you don’t need to do any backstory and as a filmaker you don’t have to work too hard to establish the heroism/villainy of anybody. I’ll bet the average American has a better grasp of the pre-WWII era than middle east history of the same time. We KNOW the world of the Nazis and their evil–most of the filmaker’s work is done. I think people here are perhaps making too much of a meal of the review, but hey–Harry excepted, the opinions of reviewers matter about as much to me as the personal opinions of the 10 o’clock weatherman on my local news station. (Is it going to rain tomorrow? Fine. Now shut up.)
IMHO Valkyrie was a perfectly adequate movie, but I do qualify that by saying I know pretty much nothing about the real incident. Cruise is bearable, and the supporting cast is wonderful (Terrence Stamp’s voice is still such a pleasure–I’d pay to hear him read the proverbial phone book). It’s nicely shot, and by the end you really feel for the doomed bastards. One does wonder why the wanna be assassins waited so long to strike, why they went through the years of Hitler becoming chancellor, Nuremberg Laws, etc., . In any case, too bad they didn’t sack up sooner, would’ve spared us all a lot of grief.
And whiskey, unless I’m much mistaken, those well-known liberal leftists Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh also admired Hitler and National Socialism (they both accepted medals from him). That fucker suckered a lot of people.
Charles Delacroixon 01 Jan 2009 at 7:22 pm 36Interesting thread. NeoConJedi, thanks for the linked review, I really think it’s pretty much on target. Same with Stephanie (21) along the same lines. I went to Valkyrie and although I liked it at one level, finally lost interest and split, to see another movie, because, I realize now, of exactly these things. The Tom Cruise character and the other conspirators seem to operate very openly, with almost no indications that a totalitarians might look rather askance at being overthrown. The Nazi Party’s approach to dealing with its opposition seemed to be a whole lot more laissez faire than its reputation. And Stephanie, my take on Hitler in this movie was that he was “bad” because that’s sort of the felt intense from-behind lead-up … but when we meet him he’s a pretty reasonable guy much of the time.
mjk: I just could not agree more about the cultural significance of WWII for most of us at least. But one of the really striking features of the Tom Cruise character in Valkyrie is exactly that none of those moral dilemmas seem to crop up. He seems as open as his views in Nazi Germany as just about anyone is in the good ol’ USA.
I’ve been re-reading Winston Churchill’s account of the lead-up to WWII and the early WWII period in The Gathering Storm. He is clear and strong in his views of what was necessary; but he is also very articulate regarding the choices faced by the democracies in the pre-War era.
In particular, Churchill’s portrait of Hitler and Nazism is realistic and uncompromising. There is also a strong sense of genuinely tough choices in doing what had to be done to oppose him. Very different from the sense of the times in Valkyrie, at least what I saw of it.
MovieBobon 01 Jan 2009 at 8:12 pm 37whiskey
“My response to MovieBob is that WWII, no less than all other wars, was and is morally complex.”
You’ll get no argument from me there, friend - but what you and I are aware of has little if anything to do with the subject at hand, namely WHY World War II remains the favored war of Hollywood. My personal opinion is that it’s all about the Nazis - so perfectly mythic, ghastly and (all-importantly) theatrical a set of villians that if they hadn’t existed we would’ve had to make them up. With THEM as the enemy, any opponent looks like a morally-righteous crusader straight out of a Greek poem, even Stalinist Russia.
“More to the point, MovieBob wants it would seem a morally pure, Platonic ideal of the West, pure in every means and motive.”
Man. For a guy so quick (and yet so thorough) to judge, you’re a spectacularly lousy reader of people. Then again, remembering whom I’m talking to, I suppose I should just read on and find out how THIS particular subject relates to the elaborate conspiracy (do I have this right, Whiskey?) by upper-class women, homosexuals and the Disney Princesses product-line to create a harem-culture for “Big Men”
I don’t spend a lot of time, honestly, “wanting” The West to be anything other than ’still around.’ Though, if asked, I’d be of the opinion that The West (and America in particular) should act in time of war either with overwhelming and decisive force or not at all - there’s no reason to spill American blood fighting door to door in Iraq or ANYWHERE where we see a clear and present danger when we can re-draw the map from above.
Pandax
“You demand moral prefection on our side or somehow the whole purpose is suspect and cast in doubt.”
See above. I’m not talking about MY opinion, I’m talking about why WWII is the “popular” movie-war. Moral perfection? Please. Perfection is a scientific impossibility in nearly all things, and morality is a fantasy we sell ourselves so that we can feel “better” than all the other animals
Nicol Don 01 Jan 2009 at 8:17 pm 38Uhhh…just to be clear…because some said my thought was disgusting or repugnant…I do not think it is a good thing that people will portray Hitler as more complex. Just that as more people realize he was a socialist…that is the way it will be.
Again, it is a disgusting thought but that does seem to be where we are headed. Look at a film like the Black Book even. We are on that path.
Stephanieon 01 Jan 2009 at 8:33 pm 39I think Nicol is correct. I love seeing leftists get their underroos in a bundle over it.
The Almighty Turtleon 01 Jan 2009 at 8:58 pm 40JE’B:
“From what I read about Valkyrie the Nazisim of Cruise and the other good guys is downplayed and that their reasons for stopping Hitler are more self preservation than to stop the Holocaust.”
This was actually quite true. Stauffenberg, Rommel, and the other members of the July plot were usually not Democratic-Republicans, but actually supporters of the old Imperial order. Their alliance with Hitler was purely self-interest, and they saw the Fuhrer as the person who could lead Germany to victory and thus prepare it for the resurrection of the Kaiserreich. Hitler saw them as the most skilled of his military corps, necessary for waging war, but to be disposed of at the soonest convenient time. It is telling that Rommel, Stauffenberg, etc never had any real quarrel with Hitler when he was riding to victory, only when he had begun to fail them.
The fact is that the old Monarchists were not too far below the Nazis on the morality scale, and the millions Hitler killed in planned acts of genocide did not warrent a response from them- only defeat did. This is why I am always edgy about people portraying the July plotters as heroes (heroic? Certainly. But more akin to Anti-Heroes then anything else).
“For people that had a real talent for killing people, you’d think they would have figured out a way to kill the bastard.”
The one thing the old Monarchists could not figure out was that they had begun to loose the support of the military- something that was the key to any successful coup against Hitler. They failed to grasp that the military had abandoned them once before (choosing to follow the Civilian leadership in capitulation rather then the OBL planning an apocalyptic Endkampf in 1918) and that they would again. As for how Hitler survived, it was pure chance: an aide moved the suitcase to the other side of a thick wood table, and the thickness of the table absorbed most of the blast directed the Fuhrer’s way.
Supramom2000on 01 Jan 2009 at 9:12 pm 41Nicol, I was not trying to say your thought was repugnant, I was referring to Hitler being portrayed as anything other than the most evil of men to ever walk the earth.
Sorry for the confusion. I was just so appalled that nuance and “grayness” could even be applied to Hitler.
NickMon 01 Jan 2009 at 9:23 pm 42Guys: I was watching a couple of History channel documentaries on the plot against Hitler by the Military & I was surprised how often their efforts to ‘blow Hitler Up’ failed…a couple even vowed to blow themselves up WITH Hitler but He was always passing through too fast; makes me wonder if they REALLY had the courage of their convictions…couldn’t find ONE guy who was willing to draw a pistol & shoot him & face the consequences or do a suicide bombing to take Hitler with him? Maybe their nerve failed at the last moment?
ModDemon 01 Jan 2009 at 9:37 pm 43If you read Manohla’s entire review she makes a lot of good points. The main one is that the movie is pretty simplistic. She writes of the Cruise character:
“He’s a complex character, too complex for this film, which like many stories of this type, transforms World War II into a boy’s adventure with dashing heroes, miles of black leather and crane shots of German troops in lockstep formation that would make Leni Riefenstahl flutter.”
Hopefully, that is an obvious point, which [you will note] leads to the next sentences quoted above about ‘moral absolutes’. Stauffenberg was indeed morally complex. And yet his complexity resides only with his character in the movie and with no one else. Sure Hitler and Goebbels were evil. Most Nazi’s were pretty evil too but alas Stauffenberg presents the complexity of someone who was a Nazi a Reich lover but a Hitler hater. In short, he was not really a hero.
Anyway, Manohla’s last sentence is questionable, I agree. But there are a lot of people who have burned out on WWII movies. Especially when the history is so good, so rich, so interesting and the movies about the war are often formulaic and simple.
Glenn Kennyon 01 Jan 2009 at 10:22 pm 44No, Nicol, I didn’t find it repugnant because I thought you approved. I find it repugnant because it’s a baseless slander that you get off on propagating.
Although it is kind of amusing to see Stephanie express delight at “leftists” getting their “underroos” in a “bundle” over it. Almost a tacit admission that Nicol’s prediction doesn’t hold any water, but that it’s okay, because anything that upsets liberals is completely above board regardless of being disgusting and baseless.
maatkareon 01 Jan 2009 at 11:57 pm 45A previous post was devoured. Perhaps I should have avoided the f-bomb.
I really don’t think anyone on the left is going to try to ‘gray’ Hitler. Besides, didn’t he ban Labor Unions? They’ll never go for a guy who did that.
I think perhaps too much of meal is being made of the review, and I agree with ModDem’s final sentence. Boy in Striped Pajamas, Defiance, Valkyrie, Good–there’s a lot of WWII this year. In some ways it IS an easy theme–you don’t need to provide a lot of backstory (most people know events leading to WWII far better than the origins of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan), heroes and villains are abundantly clear, and everyone knows the ending. Thematically, it’s easy. I saw Valkyrie yesterday. It’s…adequate. Cruise is fine, but the supporting cast makes the movie. (I would pay to hear Terrence Stamp read the proverbial phone book) I freely admit I knew nothing about the incident besides what a trip to Wikipedia told me, but the ‘heroism’ of the plotters pales when you look at how long they waited and the reasons they finally took action. (thank you Johnny Ed and Turtle for putting it succinctly.)
whiskey–didn’t those well know liberal leftists Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh express profound admiration for Hitler and receive medals from him?
wfon 02 Jan 2009 at 2:54 am 46Whiskey,
while area bombing was costly in lives (not least to the bombers) and did not end the war by itself as many had hoped, it was far from ineffective. Only in 1943 did the German economy convert fully to war production, which partly masks the results of bombing. You cannot destroy entire cities, dislocating hundreds of thousands of workers, without having a big effect. The dispersal of production in smaller facilities (partly underground) hurt productivity a lot. Bombing made it possible to destroy the Luftwaffe in the air before the invasion. It tied down ten thousand heavy aa-guns and their crews which could have been used on the front. In any case, once the bomber fleets had been created, they were going to be used - in 1943 you could not afford to write these resources off. It is also inconceivable that on the day of the invasion Germany alone of all European countries would be untouched by war while French roads, bridges and railways had to be bombed.
You are well informed. The casualty figures for Dresden have been wildly exaggerated (by the communist regime as well as the extreme right). Other cities suffered just as much. Of course, people far removed from the war can ask the question whether it was “necessary” this late in the war. On the other hand, countless allied and soviet soldiers would die in the next 12 weeks. Every day cost lives. Germany was still firing V2 against cities. The battle of the bulge - causing the worst losses on the Western Front - had just been wrapped up. How could a responsible leader “hold back” in such a situation?
This is the same “proportionality” nonsense that some try to impose on Israel. But I´m also happy to talk about proportionality. Why are 25,000 civilians killed in a city an unforgettable tragedy making Dresden a household word while the 60,000 merchant seamen drowned in the Atlantic are not? Look up the WW2 casualty figures for countries like Poland, or some that technically didn´t even fight, like Czechoslowakia or the Netherlands. They were utterly devastating, and almost all civilians.
We probably agree on most points, it´s just that I am getting sick of the whining about the bombing campaign by people who would have lost us that war and every other one. People who still don´t understand that we live in a world where 800,000 can be massacred with machetes in a couple of days.
wfon 02 Jan 2009 at 3:22 am 47maatkare -
Besides, didn’t he ban Labor Unions? They’ll never go for a guy who did that.
Yes, but the workers loved him. You see, he was for the little guy. His party was a worker´s party. Hitler would ban those who competed with him for the hearts and minds of the worker, but he wasn´t inimical to their goals. The nazis created not only jobs but all kinds of laws to protect the safety and health of workers. Many of these laws still exist today. Every profession was organized into associations, shielded from competition, highly regulated, subservient to the state. Of course, this had nothing to do with freedom.
While most on the left sincerely despise the nazis, they are not above using similar rhetoric or suggesting similar techniques for maintaining control.
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 6:16 am 48From MovieBob:
“Does anyone really want to argue that WWII is still the “go-to” war for Hollywood”
Yep, I do. The Left in the USA were opposed to entering WWII so long as their friend Joe Stalin was allied with Hitler.
“is because it’s the last war that - as far as the overwhelming popular culture is concerned - didn’t come with any of those messy taints of doubt or moral uncertainty?”
No, “moral certainty” here. It was only when Hitler invaded Russia that the Left “discovered” the great moral certainty of fighting the Nazis.
And the Left has been fighting them ever since. It’s hard to imagine what Ho’wood would do without Nazis, Nixon, Rednecks and Republicans! There’d be no villains.
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 6:27 am 49“You have to wonder who she thinks the good guys and bad guys are in our current conflict.”
I don’t have to wonder. It’s not exactly rocket science. To Ho’wood, the bad guys are ALWAYS the capitalists (unless they’re Republicans, Rednecks or Nazis — the only other acceptable villains).
Since America is the only capitalist nation (even though we aren’t; we are a “mixed economy”) in this current conflict America is the villain. Islamists killing three K people in NYC was only “chickens coming home to roost”. Just ask Reverend Wright. Getting rid of Saddam (a mass murderer) was the invasion of a sovereign nation of Imperialist Dog Bush!
All the Ho’wood tag lines come straight out of the Communist playbook.
But do not despair. Soon we will have “The One” at the helm and if you’re not careful, you’ll get whiplash over how suddenly “The American President” is the ideal of the world and we’ll start seeing films about what a wonderful country America is. There will be no homeless, no poverty, the tides will retreat, Iraq will become a war of liberation, Nazis will be rooted out (from the Senate and House - Attention, Mr. Alda, you’re gonna get lots of roles soon playing (who else?) slimey Republican senators. Since purges are difficult to pull off in America (even today as we head over the Leftist cliff), so the only way to get rid of the dissenters is with propaganda.
The Chinese are envious of us. We live in “interesting times”.
Stephanieon 02 Jan 2009 at 6:37 am 50Firstly Maatkare stop being an apologist for socialists…..its boring.
Secondly: The Lord Mayor of Leipzig, Carl Goerdler was a Conservative, General Beck. Most of the July plotters were part of the old Conservative orders. Aristocrats or Military men. They are still unsure of Rommel was even a member of the plot. My feeling is, Rommel knew about it and because he didn’t say a word he got the ax. A little word of advice: My Dad always said that just because a man wore a German Army Uniform did not make him a Nazi. If we were speaking of black uniforms and deaths head insignias then we would be talking fanatic dyed in the wool Nazis. However The average German soldier was just a guy who got himself into a pretty poor situation. If he was on the eastern front he was caught between worse and horrible. At least in the west the guy had a chance should he be captured. After traveling through what was East Prussia and Silesia I have come to respect the Germans more than I had before. A little known factoid, the Russians butchered 2 Million German civilians in their invasion of the East. 2 Million. We propped them up with the Marshall plan and they were the only ones to pay back the freaking loan, but, our wonderful Soviet Allies enslave them.
misterdon 02 Jan 2009 at 7:48 am 51Hrm. As I understand it, this movie features “good” Nazis trying to kill the evil leader Nazi. How exactly is this a moral absolute?
maatkareon 02 Jan 2009 at 8:34 am 52Stephanie–I am hardly apologizing for socialists. I am a capitalist to the core of my hard working, avaricious little heart. And Nazis are the easiest of film villains, to the point of almot being boringly so. In a lot of ways, they’re overesposed because their evil is so iconic. But quite frankly, I’ll never shed a tear over German suffering during WWII, or the “average German soldier.” War sucks, they suffered, but they did vote Hitler in, they signed up for conquest, and paid the consequences. If only the plotters had sacked up sooner, we might have been saved the trouble of kicking German ass–AGAIN.
Bennett Marcoon 02 Jan 2009 at 8:35 am 53Stephanie:
The Russians butchering 2 million German civilians when they overran the Reich is an example of a “disproportionate response,” since the Germans butchered approximately 17 million Russian civilians.
Templaron 02 Jan 2009 at 8:48 am 54MovieBob:
I don’t spend a lot of time, honestly, “wanting” The West to be anything other than ’still around.’ Though, if asked, I’d be of the opinion that The West (and America in particular) should act in time of war either with overwhelming and decisive force or not at all - there’s no reason to spill American blood fighting door to door in Iraq or ANYWHERE where we see a clear and present danger when we can re-draw the map from above.
Typical, decadent child of the latter-day West. Wanting everything and risking nothing.
Moral perfection? Please. Perfection is a scientific impossibility in nearly all things, and morality is a fantasy we sell ourselves so that we can feel “better” than all the other animals
No, the idea that morality is a “fantasy” is a lie sold on the desire of persons such as yourself to feel better about behaving like animals. Your denial of morality is itself an implicit admission that moral laws exist.
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 8:50 am 55Meatkaare — there are lot of names associated with NOT being against Hitler soon enough. I believe Joseph Kennedy might be added to your (capitalist) list.
Zsuzsaon 02 Jan 2009 at 8:56 am 56Having read the original review, I think only the last sentence is questionable. Other than that, it summarized most of my complaints about the movie, namely that it was far too simplistic.
And the truth is that Valkyrie, unlike most WWII stories, isn’t a black and white morality tale. It’s much closer to a black and black tale. We have Hitler versus other Nazis. Suppose that you were an American or British spy in Germany at the time and learned of Valkyrie. Would you help the plotters or not? Maybe even try to warn the government? On the one hand, you could kill the most evil man who ever lived. On the other, though, you would end up with a cadre of Nazi officers in charge. While they are presumably less evil than Hitler, that leaves a lot of room for them to be pretty evil. And they might be far more competent at prosecuting the war.
Mr Sideouson 02 Jan 2009 at 8:57 am 57For me, Hollywood and the chattering classes love WWII because we were fighting on the “right side”, ie with Russia.
Look how the left throws the term “Nazi” around. Nazi to them means anyone who is standing in the way of their precious world order, oppressing women and minorities, laughing at homosexuals and stealing lollipops from children.
The US had it right that time, fighting with the USSR to save Europe from Republicans.
Zsuzsaon 02 Jan 2009 at 9:03 am 58Oh, and as far as WWII being the last “morally pure” war? Whether it was or not has nothing to do with its image as such in pop culture. Yes, a lot of liberal icons supported Hitler and admired what National Socialism did. Once we prosecuted the war, we had to a lot of morally questionable things. But ultimately the Holocaust changed all that. The perception became that anything done to stop Hitler was justified. All opponents of entering the war morphed into right-wing isolationists. Not saying that’s fair, but that’s how it is.
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 9:04 am 59I saw “Valkyrie”. It was neither good nor bad. Cruise was okay, not bad, not good. Bill Nighy was (as always) excellent. Like a poster above, I could watch and listen to Stamp read the phone book — as he basically did in one of the “Star Wars” prequel sequels. Kenneth Branagh is getting old without every having met his real potential. Wonder why. Anybody know?
So far as the film went, I was uncomfortable with the “moralists” as they did not decide to kill Hitler after the Soviet victor at Stalingrad made it obvious Germany was going to lose the war. Where were they when Hitler first started slaughtering the Jews? (Where were we? We didn’t fight until Hitler invaded the USSR. When they were allies, our Lefties kept us out of it just like they sided with the Viet Cong in Vietnam and the Chicoms in Korea. Where are are Lefties now when Hamas is doing the same thing?).
Secondly, I found the ineptness of the conspirators off-putting. Lots of questions there. Shouldn’t Stauffenberg have changed strategies once he realized the meeting was not going to be in the bunker. (The explosives expert had said the bunker walls would contain the explosion and that is why so small a bomb would do the job.)
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 9:05 am 60Drat. Should have proof read better. Meant to write “they did not decide to kill Hitler UNTIL after the Soviet VICTORY at Stalingrad…”
Sorry. Will try to do better.
maatkareon 02 Jan 2009 at 9:54 am 61Growltiger–ah yes, Joe Kennedy–bootlegger, adulterer, matchless ambitious scumbag who used his family like pawns–*sigh* is there anything rancid he didn’t stick his paws in??
ModDemon 02 Jan 2009 at 10:00 am 62Growltiger
>Nazis, Nixon, Rednecks and Republicans! There’d be no villains.
I’m wondering if you watch movies much lately? A lot of movies these days [and TV] have islamic and arab villains. And there are also bad capitalists who are not necessarily ‘Republicans’ unless you think that is what they mean.
Also your right wing rhetoric is as silly as some left wing rhetoric at Daily Kos who insisted Bush was a fascist.
Take note. If you want to make a better argument against the crazies on the left you won’t do it with crazy right wing viewpoints. For instance, Hollywood doesn’t use ‘communist’ tag lines. They use capitalistic tag lines. They want money. And they don’t care if it comes from conservatives or liberals.
maatkareon 02 Jan 2009 at 10:08 am 63Growltiger–Joe Kennedy! Ah yes–so many reasons to despise that man, from his bootlegging to his shameless use of his children as pawns.
Jack Marinoon 02 Jan 2009 at 11:31 am 64Wait till i get funded again and make movies, the villains will be nazis, commies, che, castro, liberals, democrats, EPA nut jobs, Algore, Pelosi, FDR, every vile socialistic treasonous progressive loser that was very elected and of course the CLINTONS. I will expose the entire leftist extortion racket and the party of death crowd and they will all be hits. Then I will make comedies showing the insanity of their entire agenda. Rush Limbaugh’s audience, talk radio and mel gibsion’s audience will pay to see the truth of what is the real evil attacking America. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Growltigeron 02 Jan 2009 at 11:36 am 65Mod Dem wrote –”Growltiger … I’m wondering if you watch movies much lately? A lot of movies these days [and TV] have islamic and arab villains.”
Might I prevail upon you to list them?
The only film I saw in the last four years that had Islamic villains (other than “An American Carol” with was a comedy and actually made the inept villains likable) was the Will Smith film (the title of which eludes me) but was excellent so far as “thrillers” go.
I’d also like to know which TV shows use the non-traditional villains (Nazis, Nixon, Rednecks and Republicans). I seem to have missed them all including the pilot of “24″ which had Jack fighting African warlords instead of Islamic terrorists.
In case you’ve missed the “Nixon and Nazis as villains” films, I suggest you see “Frost and Nixon” ,”Valkyrie” and “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” all playing currently. While you’re at it, rent “Sum of All Fears” (where Clancy’s Islamic terrorists were converted into Neonazis).
“For instance, Hollywood doesn’t use ‘communist’ tag lines. They use capitalistic tag lines. They want money. And they don’t care if it comes from conservatives or liberals.”
We’re not talking about conservatives and liberals; we’re talking about Lefties and Non-Lefties and using propaganda as entertainment. Since you think Hollywood only “wants money”, you might check out “Valley of Elah”, “The War”, “Rendition” or any of the Anti-Iraq films that bombed at the box office these past five years. Losing their shirts didn’t keep these capitalists from spitting them out like ash from Vesuvius.
And since you’re convinced Hollywood isn’t into communist tag lines, please be sure to see the hagiography “Che” playing at a multiplex near you.
The Constant Gardner” and “Michael Clayton” might be worth your while as research for your thesis on Hollywood doesn’t villainize capitalists and/or capitalism.
And as far as attacking my “your right wing rhetoric” as “as silly as some left wing rhetoric at Daily Kos who insisted Bush was a fascist,” I’m just just pointing out the facts. Instead of ad hominem attacks, you might try doing the same. So far as using Daily Kos as a contrast to make your point, DHP readers recognize the strategy, and it doesn’t work here. Maybe you should go on back to Daily Kos and rant about right wing wackos there.
Glenn Kennyon 02 Jan 2009 at 12:10 pm 66Growltiger’s point about the ineptitude of the conspirators portrayed in “Valkyrie” is well-taken. Even if one isn’t sufficiently versed in the actual history so as to be dubious about Stauffenberg and company, said ineptitude actually has disastrous results for the film’s third act, when Cruise’s Stauffenberg is strutting around barking orders and refusing to believe that he has not, in fact, killed Hitler. One actually begins to admire Tom Wilkinson’s character for being a deft enough operator to at least temporarily save his own neck. Which I really doubt is what the filmmakers actually wanted.
I cite this concordance as an historic occasion of liberal and conservative finding common ground! (Cue trumpet fanfare, unfurling of flags, etc.)
The Almighty Turtleon 02 Jan 2009 at 12:21 pm 67Stephanie:
“Secondly: The Lord Mayor of Leipzig, Carl Goerdler was a Conservative, General Beck. Most of the July plotters were part of the old Conservative orders. Aristocrats or Military men”
That is true. However, you are missing something: the disparity between their definition of Conservatives and the modern, American definition.
The fact is that they have more in common with Hitler and Stalin then they do with us, just as we are more closely related to FDR, LBJ, and Wilson then we are to them.
The “Conservatives” you mention did not believe in individual liberties, private enterprise, representative government, or limited federal power.
They were reactionary, militarist, and tyrannical in the mold of Otto Von Bismarck, and they were hardly saints.
They were not Nazis (at least, not ideologically), but they were hardly better.
They were supporters of the old Imperial Order, and they had a lot of blood on their hands.
It is worth noting that they helped to plan and carry out the bloodiest conflict in world history to that point in time (WWI), had committed numerous atrocities (Rape of Belgium, Burning of Kalisz, use of famine in ethnic cleansing, helping the Turks kill Arab, Armenian, and Greek minorities, etc), and had even planned to fight to the very last drop of German blood in an apocalyptic and savage battle rather then accept defeat or the blame that accompanied it (what did they plan to do? The answer is in the history books, for Hitler planned his brutal Endkampf from those plans drawn up in 1917 and 1918).
The world was only spared the horror of a German campaign in 1919 and 1920 by the Civilian government, which chose to undermine the military dictatorship of the 3rd OHL and surrender to the Western Allies in an attempt to save Germany from its regime.
And the “Conservatives” you mention were no nice guys either.
Goerdeler advocated open genocide against Poland in 1919 in the name of retaining Germany’s WWI conquests in the East, and while he was sympathetic to the Jews, he remained a Monarchist and an Anti-Slav to his very end.
Stauffenberg himself was in love with the Reich, and subscribed wholeheartedly to the idea of “Lebrenasum” and believed that Slavs (and Poles in particular) were only good for slave labor.
Beck had absolutely no problem with Hitler’s racism, his murders, or his aggression. He only had problems when he thought Hitler was being aggressive BEFORE he thought they were ready, and because he was trying to cut in on the power of his beloved military aristocracy.
Rommel, while certainly more chivalrous and honorable then many, was nevertheless an authoritarian to the core and a person who believed strongly in cleaning out “living space” by ethnically cleansing Poles and Italians (!!!) from various territories near Germany.
And the list goes on and on.
Were they Nazis? No. Were they probably better then the Reich? Yes. Were some of the July 20th plotters as pure as driven snow? Yes.
But the fact remains that the real powerbrokers of the plot were supporters of an ideology only slightly better then Nazism, and we almost certainly would have had to deal with them eventually had they succeeded.
Harry R. Wilkenson 02 Jan 2009 at 1:51 pm 68This is a very intelligent comment, much more intelligent of the stuff you normally can read here in Europe…
pandaxon 02 Jan 2009 at 2:19 pm 69Moviebob
“I’m not talking about MY opinion, I’m talking about why WWII is the “popular” movie-war. ”
That’s the problem with all your posts Bob you present your opinions as fact. Your whole post is why you think WWII is the popular movie war. Simply because you say so doesn’t make it true. Once again you ignore the opposite end of the spectrum, Hollywood for the past forty years has not shown much in the way of nuance in it’s war movies. War is bad and is never worth fighting the best you can do is hope to survive. Strange your how you don’t factor that in to your opinion