From: Adam
To: Sam and Eric
Subject: Had enough of Hitler
Thanks guys for finding the time to post and get the discussion(s) going. In addition to my hellish excursion to the DMV trying to get Illinois license plates, I've been at home with a sick 10-month-old and busy getting ready for my weekend jaunt to Ft. Lauderdale to "work" at the NHL All-Star Game. No, I'm not prostituting myself. I put work in quotes because watching hockey and interviewing athletes isn't really work. I leave Friday morning and don't return until Monday night, so I don't expect to have a new post up until Tuesday.
I should probably start by following through on my promise to discuss 'Max' and 'The Pianist,' even though the two of you have yet to see either. There is, of course, an interesting connection between the two films in that 'The Pianist' is about the effect of Adolf Hitler's ambition and hatred, while 'Max' attempts to show us the cause -- or, at least, the beginnings -- of his ambition and hatred. The trait that makes 'The Pianist' such an amazing experience is precisely what makes 'Max' a mostly forgettable one; namely, Roman Polanski allows the harrowing subject matter -- the true story of famed Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman's (Adrien Brody) evasion of the Nazi's in the Warsaw ghetto -- to speak for itself, while 'Max' director Menno Meyjes can't avoid mucking things up with melodrama, essentially reducing the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust to a missed encounter between a bitter, struggling artist named Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor) and his Jewish mentor/art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack).
Premiere's Glenn Kenny articulates my point much better than I could in his take on 'The Pianist': "Reporting from Cannes last May, a misguided Hollywood Reporter correspondent complained of this film that it “recounts its tales of horror and triumph, but never makes the viewer experience them.” In a way, I must agree with Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt; the cinema is indeed an insufficient instrument for making one experience the humiliation, oppression, and terror of life in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. I should expect that one might be grateful for that. I only cite this comment because it is the most boneheaded out of many boneheaded things that have been said about this masterful film-a more common (and really, when you get right down to it, more hateful) snipe is that this whole, you know, Holocaust theme has been cinematically done, you know, to death. Jeez, I can't figure out how some people think. But such displays of ignorance, aside from being frightening, underscore just how necessary this film's existence is."
I wasn't surprised to learn that Kirk Honeycutt reacted to the film in that way, feeling like it was lacking some kind of emotional resonance, because I, too, was struck by how Polanski never tries to up the emotional ante of the story. There are no scenes of Szpilman longing for his family members who were sent to the concentration camps, or any heart-warming reunions; no final scenes of closure such as we find in Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' between Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley. Like Kenny, however, I think Honeycutt missed the point of the film completely. 'The Pianist' is about survival, and Polanski quite meticulously and gracefully shows how Szpilman miraculously manages to do just that. Maybe Honeycutt has been so brainwashed by Hollywood that he needs a heroic score and sentimental speeches to feel something, but simply watching a woman (unsuccessfully) trying to find water for her baby before being loaded onto the trains, or watching Nazi soldiers randomly pull a group of Jews out of a lineup and shoot them in the head, was enough for me to feel the horror. Adrien Brody is amazing as Szpilman, matching Polanski's subtlety note for note. It's also worth pointing out that Brody and Polanski believably pull off Szpilman's piano playing without a lot of editing or trick photography. It really looks like Brody is fingering every note, which adds another layer of authenticity to the story. (For the opposite effect, see Woody Allen's 'Sweet and Lowdown,' where Sean Penn's guitar playing is so obviously fake that it becomes an unbearable distraction.)
I had a number of problems with 'Max' and to speed up the proceedings a bit I'm afraid I'm just going to have to catalog the major flaws one by one. 1) John Cusack's accent, or lack thereof: why is it that every German in the film speaks English with a German-flavored accent, while Cusack talks like the Chicago-born guy that he is? Did the filmmakers somehow think that Cusack is such a wonderful, big-time actor that audiences would buy him -- nay, prefer him -- to speak in his normal tongue? Not me. 2) The ending: without giving away anything too specific, Meyjes wants us to believe -- and I'm speaking here of the movie world, not the real world -- that the young Hitler's political ascension began only after he missed his shot at art stardom. But even though Rothman finally does praise Hitler's work near the end, Meyjes makes it explicitly clear that Hitler really isn't that good. He's lazy, unemotional, and he more or less just mimics artists who have come before him. So even though he does finally get inspired by his desire to return Germany to its past glory, I was never convinced that his work would withstand more than one or two showings before being dismissed and forgotten. 3) Did I mention the ending?: Meyjes rips off Coppola's Baptism sequence in 'The Godfather' by intercutting a rousing anti-Semitic speech by Hitler with Rothman and his family worshipping at their synagogue. The juxtaposition of the soothing Jewish chants with Hitler's terrible wailing is effective. The problem is that Rothman's faith has never been a significant issue leading up to this point. He is a Jew, yes, but not a devout one, which makes the sequence feel forced. The conflict inherent in Hitler's hatred for the Jews, but apparent regard for Rothman, isn't sufficiently explored enough to give the juxtaposition at the end any real power.
For what it's worth, I seem to be in the minority here. I suppose I am crazy for criticizing any film with this line of dialogue: "Hitler, come on, I'll buy you a lemonade." I'll have some comments on your posts and 'Confessions' before I take off tomorrow.
