Another Reader Dispute
"Young people uneducated about the Holocaust will take as fact what they see in The Reader," director Rod Lurie (Nothing But The Truth) writes on the Huffington Post. "And that would be a damn shame. For this film gives ammunition to Holocaust negationists, to the Archbishop Williamsons of the world, to the people who would tell us that the Shoah is a mass exaggeration.
"Ron Rosenbaum has already written a brilliant piece in Slate, taking the film to task for more or less exonerating the German population for their part in the Final Solution. Several others have written about the inappropriateness of trying to solicit a kind of sympathy for an SS guard. Others have attacked it for using sexuality to soften and evoke pity for the lead character.
"What I would like to explore are the film's versions of certain 'facts' presented in the film that serve to diminish the culpability of the SS...if you can imagine such a thing.
"First up is the notion that Winslet's Hanna Schmitz would ever have been allowed into the SS. In the trial portion of the film (especially well done) we learn the SS was 'recruiting" guards and Hanna volunteered her services. (She was working in Siemens -- the giant electronics company that used Jewish slave labor). Hanna is an illiterate. Furthermore, her work ethic was driven by efficiency -- doing her job and duty -- and not anti-Semitism.
"The problem here is every person, man or woman, who was in the SS was intimately indoctrinated into the teachings of several rabid Jew haters including Julius Streicher in Der Sturmer. In fact, that newspaper was required reading for the SS on Hitler's orders. One was not entering a job when they came to the SS. They were turning themselves over to an ideology with cult-like obedience. This was especially true of those who were entering the Totenkopf -- i.e., the 'deaths head' -- tasked with being guards at the camps.
"Of course there were some members of the SS who were not educated (though Germany was easily the most literate European country at the time). There may have been a Hanna or two. But is that not the primary tool of the Holocaust denier? To turn the exception into the rule? I am sure the makers of this film are not deniers. But they are helping those who are.
"Because Kate Winslet's Hanna Schmitz character is not presented as an anomaly, those uneducated on the Holocaust will assume her character is an accurate portrayal of a member of the SS. Indeed, this depiction leads to the kind of ignorant statement made in this excerpt from a letter to the Los Angeles Times defending the film:
"'Is it all that wrong to realize that maybe the murdered were not the only victims of that situation? To anyone watching the movie with an open mind, Hanna is a sad victim, an illiterate working as a guard, merely following orders, either her rationality suspended and/or her judgment colored by the atmosphere of the Third Reich."
"No, Hanna is not a victim. But The Reader helps to foster the notion that she and her contemporaries may have been.
"Indeed, Winslet herself said this on The Charlie Rose Show of the people who entered the SS: 'These were young men and women who didn't know what they were getting into.' And Reader director Stephen Daldry himself has said that the 'Holocaust was started by normal people.'
"It is a shocking lack of understanding of one of the most important and horrible moments in human history."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on February 13, 2009 at 7:03 AM
comment #1
JHR
says ...
I am not a big fan of THE READER, but these attacks on the film are way off target.
For one, Hanna Schmitz IS presented as an anomaly in the film - everyone assumes she can read (and write), including the boy...it never occurs to anyone to question her abilities.
How is Hanna portrayed as a victim of the Nazi regime? To me, she is a despicable human being who made horrible choices. And the idea that her seduction of an underaged boy invokes viewer sympathy? I was disgusted by her actions - felt zero sympathy for her. Hanna was pathetic.
Most of all, how does this film give credence to Holocaust deniers? I don't see it that way at all...the raving against this film is really hard to understand.
Posted by JHR
at February 13, 2009 7:40 AM
comment #2
actionman
says ...
"Ron Rosenbaum has already written a brilliant piece in Slate, taking the film to task for more or less exonerating the German population for their part in the Final Solution. Several others have written about the inappropriateness of trying to solicit a kind of sympathy for an SS guard. Others have attacked it for using sexuality to soften and evoke pity for the lead character."
I don;t think The Reader did any of the above. This film is becoming extremely misunderstood.
Posted by actionman
at February 13, 2009 8:07 AM
comment #3
Lev Lewis
says ...
This is getting ridiculous.
Posted by Lev Lewis
at February 13, 2009 8:26 AM
comment #4
Sabina E
says ...
Oh yeah, don't worry, guys, YOUNG PEOPLE WON'T BE WATCHING THIS FILM because they'll be too busy watching Friday the 13th remake and other crappy movies!!!
Those critics need to calm down and take a chill pill. the attacks on the movie are just ridiculous.
Posted by Sabina E
at February 13, 2009 8:30 AM
comment #5
alynch
says ...
Because Kate Winslet's Hanna Schmitz character is not presented as an anomaly, those uneducated on the Holocaust will assume her character is an accurate portrayal of a member of the SS.
That's idiotic. Hanna is not in any way portrayed as some sort of universal representation of the German people. She was presented as an anomaly. If she was being put on trial alone, there might be some small credence to this argument, but she was put on trial alongside a dozen other women.
Posted by alynch
at February 13, 2009 9:02 AM
comment #6
MindlessObamaton
says ...
DirtyMoon has it right. No young people would watch this except maybe to see Kate naked, which is always worth it. I haven't even seen it and I've had a screener for months now. Part of my mother's fmaily was killed in the Holocaust and I still can't get up the energy to watch this thing.
Posted by MindlessObamaton
at February 13, 2009 9:26 AM
comment #7
Phatang!
says ...
Wow. Comment unanimity! I completely agree with all of the above. And I think it's nearly 100% certain that not a single "young person" uneducated about the Holocaust will see this movie.
To me, the fundamental lesson that I did find very moving about The Reader (despite its flaws) was that NOTHING good can come of the holocaust, and in particular there's no catharsis to be experienced from the study of it, that it's a black hole. Where other movies on the subject inevitably move toward some imposed sentimentality, this treated the holocaust like a black hole, in which even a young boys love affair becomes a source of hollowness.
Posted by Phatang!
at February 13, 2009 9:29 AM
comment #8
Floyd Thursby
says ...
Beyond Kate's performance, the most admirable thing about THE READER is its refusal to be judgmental about the characters and their actions. Stanley Kramer would have Hanna experience an epiphany during the trial and recognize her guilt. Because some viewers are so used to being told how to respond and what to think, they see something like THE READER as a Rohrschact test into which they can pour their emotions.
Meanwhile, a few prognosticators see THE READER as possibly pulling a best picture upset. The only other Oscars it might win are actress and cinematography, so how could it win the big one?
Posted by Floyd Thursby
at February 13, 2009 11:24 AM
comment #9
clancy
says ...
Floyd T. You are, sorry, a monumental ass.. It is "admirable" that the movie is not judgmental about an SS guard? have you lost your ind.
The Lurie piece is terrific, by the way. Things I never thought about. There is stuff that Jeff leaves oiut concerning the Lena olin scene at the end of the film that was eye-opening.
Posted by clancy
at February 13, 2009 3:47 PM
comment #10
polarbear2
says ...
I'm not unsympathetic to Lurie's and Rosenbaum's concerns about Holocaust revisionism; but I don't like being treated like an idiot. No Stephen Daldry blockbuster is ever going to change anyones mind about Hitler and the Holocaust.
From Rosenbaum's article,it is clear that he has problems with every Holocaust film ever made, and would rather the subject be left untouched as a source of popular entertainment. If that is true, then he is just picking on "The Reader" as the most recent example. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't comment on his opinion. But I did think he is awfully rough on "Life is Beautiful" (So sue me. Benigni makes me laugh. I'm not proud of it; but it's comedy. Who can explain how it works.)
Posted by polarbear2
at February 13, 2009 3:52 PM
comment #11
Calraigh Bracken
says ...
Phatang, that's a really great comment and perfectly describes the intent of the book and the film, I feel and the overall gestalt you're left with, after watching it.
Posted by Calraigh Bracken
at February 13, 2009 6:37 PM
comment #12
Phatang!
says ...
Thanks, Calraigh Bracken...
And I do in fact plan on suing polarbear2 for liking "Life Is Beautiful." I just don't understand a world in which that's okay for a person to admit.
Mostly, this "Reader" hate seems so odd to me, because it was the one nominated movie I didn't find objectionable (I didn't see "Ben Butt," but I'm comfortable assuming its trash). It's actually nice to be defending a movie for once!
Posted by Phatang!
at February 13, 2009 9:53 PM
comment #13
Gordon27
says ...
"It is "admirable" that the movie is not judgmental about an SS guard? have you lost your ind."
I think he phrased it badly, but his point is, there's no big Hollywood moment where the audience is told / beaten-over-the-head-with exactly how to feel about everything. You don't need a movie to out-and-out tell you that a person partially responsible for the murder of 300 people who expresses no guilt, or even serious emotion, over it is a monster. (or, for that matter, a person who deliberately has sexual affairs with people that she is in total control over.)
Posted by Gordon27
at February 15, 2009 5:07 PM
comment #14
Gordon27
says ...
"There is stuff that Jeff leaves oiut concerning the Lena olin scene at the end of the film that was eye-opening."
I believe that Lena Olin's mother was a survivor of the church fire, not Lena Olin herself. The people who are attacking this movie seem to be as soft with their facts as Roger Ebert!
Posted by Gordon27
at February 15, 2009 5:11 PM