Good German
John Anderson's 12.21 Washington Post piece about the difficulty of selling nice Nazis reminded me of Marlon Brando's Christian Diestl in The Young Lions. It's a 1950s "sell" job, all right -- a sanded-down, somewhat romanticized but still tolerable idea of what a decent WWII German soldier might be like, one who believes at first in National Socialism and later not so much. But I like this scene for the quiet conviction Brando brings to the words "I would do it." This scene isn't bad either.
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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on December 20, 2008 at 1:45 PM
comment #1
lazarus
says ...
Never less than believable, and it's this, more than the iconic roles, that make him the best.
Amazing how many accents the man attempted over the course of his career, too. I'm sure he could have done the slight British, general "European" accent that most other films feature and been fine. But he always aims for a legitimacy that most don't reach, and whether the German accent is perfect or not, he SEEMS like a real person.
Posted by lazarus
at December 20, 2008 4:38 PM
comment #2
Edward
says ...
I love the expression on his face when the woman wants to know how many Frenchmen he's killed. He takes a beat then speaks.
Posted by Edward
at December 20, 2008 5:58 PM
comment #3
T. Holly
says ...
Wells might like the idea of how difficult it is to sell nice Nazis, but the piece is actually about why
". . . the film biz never learns, despite the lessons from Brooks, Lubitsch and a few others."
And seriously answers it, despite being funny.
Posted by T. Holly
at December 20, 2008 7:46 PM
comment #4
thatmovieguy
says ...
If only I could find a nice, interracial Nazi to love me. Oh, Santa -- are you listening?
Posted by thatmovieguy
at December 20, 2008 10:13 PM
comment #5
thatmovieguy
says ...
I look forward to the reviews on DEFIANCE. It went over like a lead balloon at the press screening a couple weeks ago, except for one critic who instantly put it in her Top 10 list. Her defense: "It was about Jews who fought back." So apparently for her, subject matter alone is enough to forgive a multitude of melodramatic sins.
Posted by thatmovieguy
at December 20, 2008 10:21 PM
comment #6
T. Holly
says ...
It'll go on my top 10 because I remember Aline Kominsky Crumb's Nazi fantasy in Self Loathing Comics Volume 2.
Posted by T. Holly
at December 21, 2008 12:12 AM
comment #7
BurmaShave
says ...
I think it was a lot easier to sell good Nazis back then than it is now, as the culture was a lot more homogenized and segregated and willing to accept the errant ways of the Third Reich. Furthermore, you had a generation that had fought these people first-hand and knew them to be human, allowing films like LIONS and THE DESERT FOX to succeed.
Posted by BurmaShave
at December 21, 2008 2:12 AM
comment #8
MindlessObamaton
says ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21hoffman-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
Posted by MindlessObamaton
at December 21, 2008 8:08 AM
comment #9
T. Holly
says ...
What the hell is Burma talking about?
Posted by T. Holly
at December 21, 2008 3:17 PM
comment #10
T. Holly
says ...
He's saying nothing's really changed because "confusion is at the heart of it all. As soon-to-be-defeated movie villains, Nazis are always portrayed as vaguely superior, because it's far more satisfying for us to vicariously defeat smart guys than evil dopes. They also provide audiences with objects of guilt-free hatred, and as such have become ubiquitous: There have been Nazis in movies just about as long as there have been Nazis."
Any more questions the piece answers?
Posted by T. Holly
at December 21, 2008 3:34 PM
comment #11
BurmaShave
says ...
Yeah I was pretty drunk when I got home and wrote that, and also I was apparently having a stroke.
Posted by BurmaShave
at December 21, 2008 5:18 PM
comment #12
love
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Posted by love
at March 5, 2010 9:04 PM
comment #13
janee
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Posted by janee
at May 19, 2011 5:12 AM