Taking Sides

Rating:
Summary: THE GREAT MORAL DIVIDE...
Review: This is an ambitious film in which playwright and novelist, Ronald Harwood, adapts his own play of the same name for the silver screen. Having successfully written the screenplay for the film, "The Pianist", which was based upon the best-selling memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman, Harwood is no less successful here. With the deft direction of renowned Hungarian director Istvan Szabo and the thespian efforts of its stellar cast, the film thematically explores a number of moral issues, though in the end, it leaves it to the viewer to resolve them.

The film explores the aftermath of the fall of Hitler's Third Reich through the investigation by Allied Forces of world famous German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler (Stellan Skarsgard). This was part of an investigative effort to discover Nazi collaborators within Germany's artistic community in the belief that there had been collusion between politics and art for the sake of politics. It was also believed that by rooting out Nazi sympathizers and collaborators among its influential members that the Nazi ideology would die a natural death in Germany for lack of iconic leaders.

Wilhelm Furtwangler undergoes a series of interrogations by a Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel), a narrow-minded American officer, who has been given orders by his superior officer to find this musical icon guilty of war crimes at any cost. Furtwangler is suspected by the Americans of having been an influential Nazi sympathizer who, through his music, renown, and virtuosity, swayed the German people to march to Hitler's tune through their love of music, so deeply imbedded in the German psyche.

Arnold, a claims examiner for an insurance company in his former civilian life, approaches his subject with all the disdain and disrespect he can muster. Thorough, yet loutish and seemingly culturally ignorant, the loud-mouthed Arnold is worlds apart from his targeted subject. Deeply affected by newsreels of the death camps in which millions were brutally killed, Arnold approaches Furtwangler as if the conductor had been an integral part of the final solution.

Arnold's German secretary, Emmi (Birgitt Minichmayr), whose father was executed by the Nazis for an aborted plot to assassinate Hitler, and another Allied Forces officer, Davis Wills (Moritz Bliebtreu), a secular German Jew whose own parents died in Hitler's camps, are present during Arnold's impassioned interrogation of Furtwangler. Arnold's examination of the
hapless Furtwangler sets the stage for the moral issues with which all the parties grapple and the viewer is left to ponder.

Harvey Keitel is excellent as the self-appointed avenging angel who sees things only in black and white absolutes. Birgitt Minichmayr is outstanding as the conflicted secretary, whose remembrance of her own interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo causes her to lose regard for Arnold. Moritz Bliebtreu is compelling as David Wills, who remembers Furtwangler as having been instrumental in inspiring his love of music and deplores the tenor of Arnold's interrogation. It is Stellan Skarsgard as Furtwangler, however, who steals the show. His sensitive and complex portrayal of the seemingly morally ambiguous Furtwangler is pure cinematic artistry.

Based upon true events, the film does not resolve the moral issues for the viewer. There is, however, a very telling vintage clip that follows at the conclusion of the film that shows the real Wilhelm Furtwangler with Adolf Hitler. What transpires is quite interesting and subject to interpretation. It is also consistent with the moral ambiguity of the film. One will have to decide for oneself what spin one cares to place on what one sees and decide which side of the moral divide one places Furtwangler, as well as oneself. All in all, this is a compelling and complex film. Bravo!




Rating:
Summary: Asking the Right Questions: First Step Toward the Truth
Review: This profound film, played by the very able actors, asks two important questions, which had been almost invariably played down and silenced for 60 years after the WWII -- until now. 1) If most of the Germans didn't know what horrors were perpetrated by the Nazis, how come the same innocent Germans knew very well, at the same time, that they had to save their favorite Jews? 2) A genius conductor, Wilhelm Furtwaengler, has never become a member of the Nazi party, and actually saved many Jewish musicians, apart from giving us the best existing performances of Beethoven and many other masters. Not a genius at all, Herbert von Karajan has been an enthusiastic Nazi party member and the favorite musician of the Nazi regime, he never saved anybody but his own precious skin, and bored to death generations of classical music lovers. How come the post-WWII crowd of anti-fascist communists, gays and atonalists, taking over all musical institutions, has boycotted Furtwaengler until his death and beyond, but immediately embraced and befriended von Karajan, making "little k" rich, famous, and one of their self-appointed elite? If you can find an answer to the second question, you know an answer to the whole of the 20th century.