The infamous and virtuosic Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl made the two documentaries she became legendary for, “Triumph of the Will” (1935) and “Olympiad” (1938), nearly 90 years ago. She herself lived to 101 (she died in 2003). The controversy that has surrounded her first reared its head more than six decades ago, catching fire in the mid-1970s, when Susan Sontag published her influential and accusatory essay about Riefenstahl entitled “Fascinating Fascism.”
Ever since then, there has been a hot-button ferocity to what we might call The Riefenstahl Question. That heightened quality — like the question itself — refuses to die. The question is: Is it fair to brand this Nazi filmmaker a Nazi collaborator? She made her films for Hitler, who she was personally chummy with, so there’s no doubt that on some level she made a deal with the devil. But what was the deal? What, exactly, did she know?
The debate about Leni...
Ever since then, there has been a hot-button ferocity to what we might call The Riefenstahl Question. That heightened quality — like the question itself — refuses to die. The question is: Is it fair to brand this Nazi filmmaker a Nazi collaborator? She made her films for Hitler, who she was personally chummy with, so there’s no doubt that on some level she made a deal with the devil. But what was the deal? What, exactly, did she know?
The debate about Leni...
- 8/29/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Leni Riefenstahl, who died in 2003, aged 101, remains forever Google-able as “Hitler’s favorite director” for her daringly innovative documentaries The Triumph of the Will, about the Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934, and Olympia, about the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Acclaimed and infamous in equal measures —was she a pioneering genius, a Nazi propagandist, or maybe both? — Riefenstahl remains a subject of fascination and debate over whether her talent can be separated from her political views.
What exactly those views were, what Riefenstahl knew about Hitler and the Holocaust and when she knew it, is key to this debate and the subject of countless books and documentaries. It’s the question at the center of Riefenstahl, the new documentary from German filmmaker Andres Veiel (Black Box Brd).
The documentary screens out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, the same festival where Leni Riefenstahl won a gold medal for The Triumph...
What exactly those views were, what Riefenstahl knew about Hitler and the Holocaust and when she knew it, is key to this debate and the subject of countless books and documentaries. It’s the question at the center of Riefenstahl, the new documentary from German filmmaker Andres Veiel (Black Box Brd).
The documentary screens out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, the same festival where Leni Riefenstahl won a gold medal for The Triumph...
- 8/29/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
On November 20, 1945, in Nuremberg, Germany, once prime real estate for torchlit Nazi pageantry, currently reduced to ruins by Allied bombing, the International Military Tribunal, an unprecedented experiment in transnational jurisprudence, convened in the city’s Palace of Justice, one of the few buildings left standing. The four victorious powers — the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union — had hauled the loser, Nazi Germany, before four judges and a global jury to be held accountable for violating a series of recently devised additions to the criminal code — crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, criminal conspiracy, and war crimes.
Twenty-one Nazi leaders were in the dock, defendants whose names most Americans had become familiar with in the years since 1933. The accused included Reich Marshall Herman Göring, Hitler’s brutal second in command; Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who in August 1939 negotiated the pact with the Soviet Union that ignited the conflagration; Rudolf Hess,...
Twenty-one Nazi leaders were in the dock, defendants whose names most Americans had become familiar with in the years since 1933. The accused included Reich Marshall Herman Göring, Hitler’s brutal second in command; Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who in August 1939 negotiated the pact with the Soviet Union that ignited the conflagration; Rudolf Hess,...
- 2/4/2023
- by Thomas Doherty
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Marvin J. Chomsky, the Emmy-winning director and producer who helmed episodes of beloved TV shows like “Roots” and “Star Trek,” died Monday, his son Peter Chomsky confirmed to Variety. He was 92.
A prolific director of the small-screen with a career spanning four decades, Chomsky won four Emmys over the course of his career, all for his work on various miniseries or television films: “Holocaust” in 1978, “Attica” in 1980,” “Inside the Third Reich” in 1982 and “Peter the Great” in 1986. He was additionally nominated for four other Emmys, and won two Director’s Guild of America awards out of four nominations.
Born in 1929 in New York City, Chomsky got his start in television as an art director and set director, before scoring his first directing credits in 1964, helming three episodes of medical drama “The Doctors and the Nurses.” Over the course of the 60s and early 70s, he directed episodes of numerous well-known and popular television series,...
A prolific director of the small-screen with a career spanning four decades, Chomsky won four Emmys over the course of his career, all for his work on various miniseries or television films: “Holocaust” in 1978, “Attica” in 1980,” “Inside the Third Reich” in 1982 and “Peter the Great” in 1986. He was additionally nominated for four other Emmys, and won two Director’s Guild of America awards out of four nominations.
Born in 1929 in New York City, Chomsky got his start in television as an art director and set director, before scoring his first directing credits in 1964, helming three episodes of medical drama “The Doctors and the Nurses.” Over the course of the 60s and early 70s, he directed episodes of numerous well-known and popular television series,...
- 3/30/2022
- by Wilson Chapman
- Variety Film + TV
If one daydreams about what film, music, Hollywood, London and all ports in between felt like in the ’60s and ’70s, writer-director Andrew Birkin’s new memoir, “Pov: A Life in Pictures,” is a dreamscape of glorious days and nights and legendary personalities. Starring Birkin’s famous model-actress-singer sister, Jane Birkin, along with her famous husbands, plus filmmakers from Walt Disney to Stanley Kubrick (for whom he worked for two years) and festooned with pop stars such as the Beatles and Slade as well as Hitler’s architect Albert Speer thrown in for good measure, the tome is a swirling kaleidoscope that Birkin paints with vivid colors. Here are a few edited entries that should give the reader a feel for what the era hath wrought, courtesy of Birkin’s sharp eye on the swinging times all those years ago.
What follows are some excerpted scenes from the book.
By...
What follows are some excerpted scenes from the book.
By...
- 3/17/2022
- by Andrew Birkin
- Variety Film + TV
It’s not always easy to predict who among the famous and shamed will rise from the ashes of scandal. But there may be no case of reputation rehabilitation more dramatic or surreal than that of Albert Speer, the German architect who served as a key member of Hitler’s cabinet during World War II. In the Nuremberg trials, Speer escaped a sentence of execution. After 20 years in prison, he became a best-selling author and TV personality. He also came pretty darn close to receiving the big-studio bio-pic treatment.
The quietly stunning Speer Goes to Hollywood (named best documentary at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s ...
The quietly stunning Speer Goes to Hollywood (named best documentary at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s ...
- 11/4/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
It’s not always easy to predict who among the famous and shamed will rise from the ashes of scandal. But there may be no case of reputation rehabilitation more dramatic or surreal than that of Albert Speer, the German architect who served as a key member of Hitler’s cabinet during World War II. In the Nuremberg trials, Speer escaped a sentence of execution. After 20 years in prison, he became a best-selling author and TV personality. He also came pretty darn close to receiving the big-studio bio-pic treatment.
The quietly stunning Speer Goes to Hollywood (named best documentary at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s ...
The quietly stunning Speer Goes to Hollywood (named best documentary at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s ...
- 11/4/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Biographical pictures and historical dramas can often go the way of cinematic hagiography, particularly when the subjects are involved in the project’s development. In one of the most extreme examples of such a scenario, Albert Speer, aka “Hitler’s architect,” had dreams of making his life story, consisting of delusional self-mythologizing as a “good Nazi,” into a Hollywood feature backed by Paramount Pictures. As Nazi Germany’s Minister of Armaments and War Production and close friend to the Führer, Speer oversaw 12 million slave laborers, 2.5 million of whom died, yet he evaded a death sentence during the Nuremberg Trials and received just 20 years in prison. While his proposed film was never made, the new documentary Speer Goes to Hollywood explores the process and proves more successful as a look into denial of a horrific reality than the title’s conceit of a Nazi attempting to break into the studio system.
- 10/28/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Speer Goes to Hollywood director Vanessa Lapa on Albert Speer: “The dissonance, the clash that occurs between what we know and the book and what we hear on the tapes, it’s mind-blowing and very disturbing.” Photo: Walter Frentz Collection, Berlin
In 2014, I met Vanessa Lapa at Film Forum in New York with her co-producer Felix Breisach for a conversation on The Decent One (Der Anständige), based on previously unseen family diaries, photographs and private letters found in Heinrich Himmler's home. We spoke about Marlene Dietrich singing as a marker of time in her documentary, if Hannah Arendt's Banality Of Evil works here and how the writings were obtained, transcribed and put on film. Now in the fall of 2021, Vanessa joined me on Zoom to discuss Speer Goes To Hollywood, co-written with Joëlle Alexis, and her take on the interviews done by Andrew Birkin with Albert Speer...
In 2014, I met Vanessa Lapa at Film Forum in New York with her co-producer Felix Breisach for a conversation on The Decent One (Der Anständige), based on previously unseen family diaries, photographs and private letters found in Heinrich Himmler's home. We spoke about Marlene Dietrich singing as a marker of time in her documentary, if Hannah Arendt's Banality Of Evil works here and how the writings were obtained, transcribed and put on film. Now in the fall of 2021, Vanessa joined me on Zoom to discuss Speer Goes To Hollywood, co-written with Joëlle Alexis, and her take on the interviews done by Andrew Birkin with Albert Speer...
- 10/27/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Mort Sahl, a trailblazing political satirist whose biting wit and uncompromising intellect broadened the world of conventional standup comedy, died Tuesday in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 94.
The New York Times confirmed his death with his friend, Lucy Mercer.
In 1953, when Sahl first appeared at the Hungry i, a San Francisco folk singer’s hangout, he was an unknown with little stage experience. But his rapid-fire monologues about politics, social trends and fads quickly earned him the nickname “Rebel Without a Pause.”
“The three great geniuses of the period were Nichols and May, Jonathan Winters and Mort Sahl,” Woody Allen told New York magazine in 2008. Allen credited Sahl’s intellectual brand of humor for getting him into comedy. “He was the best thing I ever saw,” Allen said in another interview. “He totally restructured comedy. He changed the rhythm of the jokes.”
In 2011, his live 1955 recording “Mort Sahl at Sunset...
The New York Times confirmed his death with his friend, Lucy Mercer.
In 1953, when Sahl first appeared at the Hungry i, a San Francisco folk singer’s hangout, he was an unknown with little stage experience. But his rapid-fire monologues about politics, social trends and fads quickly earned him the nickname “Rebel Without a Pause.”
“The three great geniuses of the period were Nichols and May, Jonathan Winters and Mort Sahl,” Woody Allen told New York magazine in 2008. Allen credited Sahl’s intellectual brand of humor for getting him into comedy. “He was the best thing I ever saw,” Allen said in another interview. “He totally restructured comedy. He changed the rhythm of the jokes.”
In 2011, his live 1955 recording “Mort Sahl at Sunset...
- 10/26/2021
- by Rick Schultz
- Variety Film + TV
Film won best picture at Israeli Film Academy awards automatically making it Israeli Oscar submission.
Eran Kolirin’s Let It Be Morning will be Israel’s submission to the 2022 Oscars after it won best film at the Israeli Film Academy annual awards, known locally as the Ophirs, on Tuesday (October 5).
The Israeli production unfolds against the backdrop of a Palestinian village situated in Israel close to Jerusalem that is suddenly cut off from the city by an unexplained army roadblock.
Israeli director Kolirin adapted the mainly Arab-language feature from the 2006 novel of the same name by celebrated Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua.
Eran Kolirin’s Let It Be Morning will be Israel’s submission to the 2022 Oscars after it won best film at the Israeli Film Academy annual awards, known locally as the Ophirs, on Tuesday (October 5).
The Israeli production unfolds against the backdrop of a Palestinian village situated in Israel close to Jerusalem that is suddenly cut off from the city by an unexplained army roadblock.
Israeli director Kolirin adapted the mainly Arab-language feature from the 2006 novel of the same name by celebrated Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua.
- 10/5/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
A rather pedestrian presentation of a potentially fascinating story, Vanessa Lapa’s “Speer Goes to Hollywood” expands on a little-known footnote to the Hydra-headed history of the post-war fates of top Nazi lieutenants. It is based on the 1972 recordings of conversations between Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, friend and wartime munitions minister, and screenwriter Andrew Birkin (the Kubrick protegé who co-wrote “The Name of the Rose” and directed “The Cement Garden”) as they collaborate on a screenplay based on Speer’s memoir “Inside the Third Reich.” But Lapa’s embellished archival doc falls some way short of the cinephile/history lover’s catnip that tantalizing summation promises.
For one thing, here Speer does not, in fact, go to Hollywood. The conversations were recorded in the Heidelberg home where he lived following his release from prison after serving the 20-year sentence handed down at the Nuremberg trials. That Speer did not...
For one thing, here Speer does not, in fact, go to Hollywood. The conversations were recorded in the Heidelberg home where he lived following his release from prison after serving the 20-year sentence handed down at the Nuremberg trials. That Speer did not...
- 3/10/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Sir Ian McKellen is 80 years old; Dame Helen Mirren is 74. Individually, these veteran thespians, each with decades of work on stage and screen under the belts, are capable of out-acting, outrunning and outgunning performers one third their age. This is not disputable. They can both go big, broad, and Full Metal Bard when needed, or be very subtle and nuanced. Whether these two are in big-budget blockbusters or quaint period-piece dramas, they are respectively dynamic as hell. Put them together, and theoretically it’s like pairing the immovable force with the irresistible object.
- 11/14/2019
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75.
Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday.
His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.
More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.
Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday.
His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.
More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.
- 7/24/2019
- by Chris Morris
- Variety Film + TV
Tom Steyer, the liberal billionaire who has gotten more than 6 million Americans to sign a petition calling for the impeachment of President Trump, was a target of the alleged MAGABomber, Cesar Sayoc. Last Friday, postal authorities intercepted an improvised explosive device mailed to Steyer, similar to those sent to more than a dozen prominent Trump critics.
Far from taking the presidential high road, Trump blasted Steyer on Twitter on Sunday after seeing the Democrat interviewed on CNN. “He comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic,” Trump tweeted, “who should be...
Far from taking the presidential high road, Trump blasted Steyer on Twitter on Sunday after seeing the Democrat interviewed on CNN. “He comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic,” Trump tweeted, “who should be...
- 10/31/2018
- by Tim Dickinson
- Rollingstone.com
In “Suspiria,” Luca Gaudagnino’s gory but imperiously lofty matriarchal horror film, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), a doe-eyed lass who grew up on a Mennonite farm in Ohio, joins a dance troupe in West Berlin housed in a building of somber high-ceilinged marble that looks like it was designed by Albert Speer in the ’30s. Susie, young and naïve, is a fearless dancer. During her audition, she improvises a routine by snapping her head back and forth and jutting her limbs out with scissory percussive aggression. That, as it turns out, is just what Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), the austere director of dance at the academy, is looking for.
The dancing in “Suspiria,” which is a major part of the movie, has so much snap and thrust and rhythm you might call it an art-conscious cousin of the pop choreography of Bob Fosse. Only there’s a crucial difference. Fosse’s bopping,...
The dancing in “Suspiria,” which is a major part of the movie, has so much snap and thrust and rhythm you might call it an art-conscious cousin of the pop choreography of Bob Fosse. Only there’s a crucial difference. Fosse’s bopping,...
- 9/1/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
HBO’s sci-fi western “Westworld,” is the heavy favorite to win for contemporary and fantasy production design. The question is whether two nominations for both its western theme park and futuristic programming center actually doubles its chances — or cancels it out. Competition comes from the dystopian minimalism of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the richly Gothic “Penny Dreadful” (nominated last year), and the Vatican beauty of “The Young Pope.”
Meanwhile, the royalty glam of Peter Morgan’s “The Crown” is the heavy favorite to win for period production design, with competition from the Old Hollywood trappings of “Feud: Bette and Joan,” the nightmarish ’80s sci-fi of “Stranger Things,” the alt history of “The Man in the High Castle” (nominated last year), and perennial contender, “Masters of Sex.”
The Dueling Dystopias
The imagination and scope of “Westworld” was unrivaled. In re-imagining Michael Crichton’s adult theme park gone berserk, Jonathan Nolan and...
Meanwhile, the royalty glam of Peter Morgan’s “The Crown” is the heavy favorite to win for period production design, with competition from the Old Hollywood trappings of “Feud: Bette and Joan,” the nightmarish ’80s sci-fi of “Stranger Things,” the alt history of “The Man in the High Castle” (nominated last year), and perennial contender, “Masters of Sex.”
The Dueling Dystopias
The imagination and scope of “Westworld” was unrivaled. In re-imagining Michael Crichton’s adult theme park gone berserk, Jonathan Nolan and...
- 8/7/2017
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Several days prior to the "The Memory of Justice" (1976) screening of the newly restored film at the New York Film Festival, on September 27, Professor Regina Longo, Cinema Studies faculty at Purchase College, Suny, moderated a discussion with Oscar-winning director Marcel Ophüls.
From the New York Film Festival: "The third of Marcel Ophüls’ monumental inquiries into the questions of individual and collective guilt following the calamities of war and genocide, 'The Memory of Justice' examines three of the defining tragedies of the Western world in the second half of the 20th century, from the Nuremberg trials through the French-Algerian war to the disaster of Vietnam, building from a vast range of interviews, from Telford Taylor (Counsel for the Prosecution at Nuremberg, later a harsh critic of our escalating involvement in Vietnam) to Nazi architect Albert Speer to Daniel Ellsberg and Joan Baez."
Conversation Highlights
On "The Memory of Justice"
Making the film -- it was not sense of mission. I didn’t think I had to teach other people what the Holocaust was about or what other aspects of World War II were about. It was my job to make an audio visual form of storytelling of contemporary events. I don’t want to change the world. I think that’s much too big a job.
On Interviewing
I don’t script in advance at all. I don’t know what people will tell me in advance and they usually know in advance why you want to see them. it’s often the things that surprise me, that tend to surprise the public. I think the films I’ve tried to do, only come to life when the interviews become conversations.
React to what the person has told you as quickly as possible and get away from the prepared questions. If you don’t respond to their thoughts, what he or she has just told you, you never get a conversation, you get only an interview.
I try to get away from the idea of talking to a person (the subject) before the interview otherwise you have to explain too much. Well, you talk to the person on the phone beforehand when you set up an interview, but I don’t talk about the subject matter. You need to communicate minimal information. It’s the details of the answers, even if they go into a tangent. To me, it’s the spontaneity. Anything that interferes with spontaneity is bad.
I’m rather a passive interviewer. I don’t interfere very much.
Role of Editing
The role of editing is really doing all the work that is necessary like when you do a narrative film. The structuring work is done in the editing room on the basis of the rushes. There are some ideas beforehand.
All films should be narratives whether fiction or not. Storytelling is awfully important. A story with a beginning, middle and end.
On Objectivity
I’ve become more and more convinced that objectivity (in documentaries) doesn’t exist. This includes journalists, even in local news, reporters who report about a fire, some of them go to the fire chief for their information, others will tend to try to get a story with the victims. The choices you make, as an observer of events, are based on your own life and your own interests.
The question is, who narrates and from what point of view.
“Why must there be exceptions?” Marcel Ophüls asks one of his subjects in "The Memory of Justice."
The many ways in which Ophüls’ subjects justify their actions in this film allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. The film examines the collective versus individual responsibility, a theme further underscored when Ophüls, an exile from Nazi Germany interviews his wife, a German woman, who recounts her membership in the Hitler Youth.
The New York Film Festival runs from September 25 – October 11. http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2015/
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting at Purchase College Suny, and presents international seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
From the New York Film Festival: "The third of Marcel Ophüls’ monumental inquiries into the questions of individual and collective guilt following the calamities of war and genocide, 'The Memory of Justice' examines three of the defining tragedies of the Western world in the second half of the 20th century, from the Nuremberg trials through the French-Algerian war to the disaster of Vietnam, building from a vast range of interviews, from Telford Taylor (Counsel for the Prosecution at Nuremberg, later a harsh critic of our escalating involvement in Vietnam) to Nazi architect Albert Speer to Daniel Ellsberg and Joan Baez."
Conversation Highlights
On "The Memory of Justice"
Making the film -- it was not sense of mission. I didn’t think I had to teach other people what the Holocaust was about or what other aspects of World War II were about. It was my job to make an audio visual form of storytelling of contemporary events. I don’t want to change the world. I think that’s much too big a job.
On Interviewing
I don’t script in advance at all. I don’t know what people will tell me in advance and they usually know in advance why you want to see them. it’s often the things that surprise me, that tend to surprise the public. I think the films I’ve tried to do, only come to life when the interviews become conversations.
React to what the person has told you as quickly as possible and get away from the prepared questions. If you don’t respond to their thoughts, what he or she has just told you, you never get a conversation, you get only an interview.
I try to get away from the idea of talking to a person (the subject) before the interview otherwise you have to explain too much. Well, you talk to the person on the phone beforehand when you set up an interview, but I don’t talk about the subject matter. You need to communicate minimal information. It’s the details of the answers, even if they go into a tangent. To me, it’s the spontaneity. Anything that interferes with spontaneity is bad.
I’m rather a passive interviewer. I don’t interfere very much.
Role of Editing
The role of editing is really doing all the work that is necessary like when you do a narrative film. The structuring work is done in the editing room on the basis of the rushes. There are some ideas beforehand.
All films should be narratives whether fiction or not. Storytelling is awfully important. A story with a beginning, middle and end.
On Objectivity
I’ve become more and more convinced that objectivity (in documentaries) doesn’t exist. This includes journalists, even in local news, reporters who report about a fire, some of them go to the fire chief for their information, others will tend to try to get a story with the victims. The choices you make, as an observer of events, are based on your own life and your own interests.
The question is, who narrates and from what point of view.
“Why must there be exceptions?” Marcel Ophüls asks one of his subjects in "The Memory of Justice."
The many ways in which Ophüls’ subjects justify their actions in this film allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. The film examines the collective versus individual responsibility, a theme further underscored when Ophüls, an exile from Nazi Germany interviews his wife, a German woman, who recounts her membership in the Hitler Youth.
The New York Film Festival runs from September 25 – October 11. http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2015/
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting at Purchase College Suny, and presents international seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com, http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
- 9/27/2015
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
Part I. A Filmmaker’s Apotheosis
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
- 7/8/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
'Downfall' movie: Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler 'Downfall' movie: Overlong and overwrought World War II drama lifted by several memorable performances Oliver Hirschbiegel's German box office hit Downfall / Der Untergang is a generally engrossing psychological-historical drama whose emotional charge is diluted by excessive length, an overabundance of characters, and a tendency to emphasize the more obvious aspects of the narrative. Several key performances – including Bruno Ganz's now iconic Adolf Hitler – help to lift Downfall above the level of myriad other World War II movies. Nazi Germany literally goes under In Downfall, which by the end of 2004 had been seen by more than 4.5 million German moviegoers, Nazi Germany is about to lose the war. In his underground bunker, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) grows increasingly out of touch with reality as he sees his dream of Deutschland über alles go kaput. Some of those under his command are equally incapable of thinking coherently.
- 5/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Fighting, dying, hoping, hating … great sports films are about far more than sport itself. Here Guardian and Observer critics pick their 10 best
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• Top 10 silent movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. This Sporting Life
Lindsay Anderson brought to bear on his adaptation of David Storey's first novel, all the poetic-realist instincts he had been honing for the previous decade as a documentarian in the Humphrey Jennings mould. (Anderson had won the 1953 best doc Oscar for Thursday's Children.) Filmed partly in Halifax and Leeds, but mainly in and around Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club, one of its incidental attractions is its record of a northern, working-class sports culture that would change out of all recognition over the next couple of decades.
The story of Frank Machin, a miner who becomes a star on the rugby field,...
• Top 10 superhero movies
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10. This Sporting Life
Lindsay Anderson brought to bear on his adaptation of David Storey's first novel, all the poetic-realist instincts he had been honing for the previous decade as a documentarian in the Humphrey Jennings mould. (Anderson had won the 1953 best doc Oscar for Thursday's Children.) Filmed partly in Halifax and Leeds, but mainly in and around Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club, one of its incidental attractions is its record of a northern, working-class sports culture that would change out of all recognition over the next couple of decades.
The story of Frank Machin, a miner who becomes a star on the rugby field,...
- 11/25/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Blandings Acorn Media
Kieran Kinsella
Prepare to be amused because on 3 September, Acorn Media are releasing the BBC’s hysterically funny Blandings on DVD. The six-part character-based comedy is based on the Blandings Castle stories by P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster). Like most of his work, Blandings pokes fun at the aristocracy and the class divisions that formed the backbone of Downton Abbey-era Britain.
Timothy Spall (The Syndicate) is the king of the castle as it were. He plays Lord Clarence Emsworth — the pig-loving, Lord of the Manor who dreams of leading a quiet life. His biggest problem is his domineering younger sister Connie, Lady Keeble (Jennifer Saunders). Widowed some years before, she has taken to creating and enforcing rules in the Blandings Castle. While Connie is a stickler for the rules, Clarence’s second son Freddie Threepwood is anything but. He is a profligate who can’t behave...
Kieran Kinsella
Prepare to be amused because on 3 September, Acorn Media are releasing the BBC’s hysterically funny Blandings on DVD. The six-part character-based comedy is based on the Blandings Castle stories by P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster). Like most of his work, Blandings pokes fun at the aristocracy and the class divisions that formed the backbone of Downton Abbey-era Britain.
Timothy Spall (The Syndicate) is the king of the castle as it were. He plays Lord Clarence Emsworth — the pig-loving, Lord of the Manor who dreams of leading a quiet life. His biggest problem is his domineering younger sister Connie, Lady Keeble (Jennifer Saunders). Widowed some years before, she has taken to creating and enforcing rules in the Blandings Castle. While Connie is a stickler for the rules, Clarence’s second son Freddie Threepwood is anything but. He is a profligate who can’t behave...
- 8/25/2013
- by Edited by K Kinsella
From Casablanca to The Killing – the elements of a great script are essentially the same. John Yorke – who is responsible for some of the most popular recent British TV dramas – reveals how and why the best screenwriting works
Once upon a time, in such and such a place, something happened." In basic terms that's about it – the very best definition of a story. What an archetypal story does is introduce you to a central character – the protagonist – and invite you to identify with them; effectively they become your avatar in the drama. So you have a central character, you empathise with them, and something then happens to them, and that something is the genesis of the story. Jack discovers a beanstalk; Bond learns Blofeld plans to take over the world. The "something" is almost always a problem, sometimes a problem disguised as an opportunity. It's usually something that throws your...
Once upon a time, in such and such a place, something happened." In basic terms that's about it – the very best definition of a story. What an archetypal story does is introduce you to a central character – the protagonist – and invite you to identify with them; effectively they become your avatar in the drama. So you have a central character, you empathise with them, and something then happens to them, and that something is the genesis of the story. Jack discovers a beanstalk; Bond learns Blofeld plans to take over the world. The "something" is almost always a problem, sometimes a problem disguised as an opportunity. It's usually something that throws your...
- 3/16/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Eva Braun was the most intimate chronicler of the Nazi regime, capturing Hitler's private life with her cine-camera. But it was only the obsession of artist Lutz Becker that brought her films to light. Robert McCrum and Taylor Downing uncover the story of the footage that shocked the world
Lutz Becker was born in Berlin, he says, "during the anno diabolo, 1941. Mine was the generation that was sent into a dark pit." Meeting this survivor of the Third Reich, now in his 70s and living in Bayswater, London, it's hard to suppress the thought that Becker, a distinguished artist and film historian, has conducted most of his life in a circle of hell.
Becker's childhood passed in the fetid, terrifying atmosphere of Berlin's air-raid shelters as the Allied raids intensified and the city was reduced to burning rubble. He recalls the radio announcements – "Achtung, achtung, ende ende, über Deutschland sinfe bender.
Lutz Becker was born in Berlin, he says, "during the anno diabolo, 1941. Mine was the generation that was sent into a dark pit." Meeting this survivor of the Third Reich, now in his 70s and living in Bayswater, London, it's hard to suppress the thought that Becker, a distinguished artist and film historian, has conducted most of his life in a circle of hell.
Becker's childhood passed in the fetid, terrifying atmosphere of Berlin's air-raid shelters as the Allied raids intensified and the city was reduced to burning rubble. He recalls the radio announcements – "Achtung, achtung, ende ende, über Deutschland sinfe bender.
- 1/27/2013
- by Robert McCrum
- The Guardian - Film News
Nathaniel, here, returning to home base. I'm baaaa--aack. Did you miss me? I shan't take another day off until late October so I'm all yours again! But before we get started again, hugs and kisses and floral bouquets and firm handshakes to Leslye, Melanie, Beau, Jose, Ja and Matt for filling in for the week.
The internet moves with such speed -- except while visiting relatives in internet challenged rural Utah -- that if you're gone for a week you can totally miss seismic events. Here are some webthingies I'm so so glad people alerted me to so that I didn't miss them in my spotty connectivity travels. I'm sharing them on the off chance you missed them. No one should have to!
Revenge came out on DVD! - a magical elf in PR made sure I received mine. Thanks you! The cover of the Season 1 box is Emily in...
The internet moves with such speed -- except while visiting relatives in internet challenged rural Utah -- that if you're gone for a week you can totally miss seismic events. Here are some webthingies I'm so so glad people alerted me to so that I didn't miss them in my spotty connectivity travels. I'm sharing them on the off chance you missed them. No one should have to!
Revenge came out on DVD! - a magical elf in PR made sure I received mine. Thanks you! The cover of the Season 1 box is Emily in...
- 8/31/2012
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Provocative Danish director Lars von Trier has made some brilliant films and some very stupid comments. So it comes as no big surprise that his latest project, an innovative user-generated film competition entitled "Gesamt," comes with a caveat.
Von Trier is known for films like "Antichrist" and "Melancholia" -- works as devastatingly stunning as they are emotionally devastating. At Cannes last year, he made waves during a press conference by stating, when he said: "I understand much about [Hitler], and I sympathize with him a little bit." While the New York Times referred to the statement as "jokingly" spoken, Von Trier's upcoming project casts more doubt upon this hope.
When expressing frustrations with the co-producers of "Melancholia," von Trier relayed his feelings to the Guardian: "If you are so g*ddamn clever, why the f**k don't you do the film yourself?" Now he challenges the public to do just that,...
Von Trier is known for films like "Antichrist" and "Melancholia" -- works as devastatingly stunning as they are emotionally devastating. At Cannes last year, he made waves during a press conference by stating, when he said: "I understand much about [Hitler], and I sympathize with him a little bit." While the New York Times referred to the statement as "jokingly" spoken, Von Trier's upcoming project casts more doubt upon this hope.
When expressing frustrations with the co-producers of "Melancholia," von Trier relayed his feelings to the Guardian: "If you are so g*ddamn clever, why the f**k don't you do the film yourself?" Now he challenges the public to do just that,...
- 8/14/2012
- by Priscilla Frank
- Huffington Post
With either gearing up for their next outings and, in one’s case, having a fair share of future projects to choose from, it’s becoming more and more clear that Martin Scorsese and Lars von Trier will never make their own Five Obstructions. (Read here to know why this should be a huge disappointment.) In a weird way, though — i.e., I have a habit of reading too much into announcements — the latter’s newest enterprise might be a way of fulfilling this creative desire.
A press release from the Copenhagen Art Festival has announced Gesamt, von Trier‘s challenge to anybody (anybody!) with the right creative impulse: take “six great works of art,” create a film or audio recording that takes direct inspiration from it, and submit your work for this project. Director Jenle Hallund will help shape the final piece, picking the best titles and creating something.
A press release from the Copenhagen Art Festival has announced Gesamt, von Trier‘s challenge to anybody (anybody!) with the right creative impulse: take “six great works of art,” create a film or audio recording that takes direct inspiration from it, and submit your work for this project. Director Jenle Hallund will help shape the final piece, picking the best titles and creating something.
- 8/13/2012
- by [email protected] (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
The German word “gesamt” means “total,” but it can also mean “aggregate.” It’s also the name of Lars Von Trier‘s newest project. According to a press release, von Trier is asking anyone within earshot to submit work for the film, which will ultimately be cobbled together from entries by Danish director Jenle Hallund. The rules are pretty simple. Each participant can submit up to 5 minutes of material (but can submit as many times as he or she wants) by September 6th, 2012. Von Trier and the production have offered these 6 iconic artworks as inspiration: James Joyces’ “Ulysses“ August Strindberg’s play “The father“ The Zeppelinfield in Nuremberg, designed by Hitler’s main architect Albert Speer Paul Gauguin’s painting “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” (See below) The collected improvisations of Cesar Franck The collected music of Sammy Davis, Jr. But none of them should directly be in your final...
- 8/13/2012
- by Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
In 1936, Berlin hosted the Olympics and Hitler asked director Leni Riefenstahl to film them. The result was a cinematic coup, but with sinister overtones
'The English attack, but the Germans are still in the lead," says the commentator as two Olympic rowing fours skim over the rippling water. "The English raise the tempo … They want to win again. But Germany is stronger. Germany wins!" The victorious boat glides past the spectator stands, and the four German athletes stick their arms out straight, just above head-height, in a proud Nazi salute.
This was the Berlin Olympics of 1936, immortalised in two films by the controversial director Leni Riefenstahl. Olympia Part I: Festival of the Nations and Part II: Festival of Beauty, both released in 1938, represent a tremendous aesthetic and technical cinematic achievement.
But they also represent something far more sinister. As Londoners obliged to pay extra taxes for the 2012 Games have been repeatedly told,...
'The English attack, but the Germans are still in the lead," says the commentator as two Olympic rowing fours skim over the rippling water. "The English raise the tempo … They want to win again. But Germany is stronger. Germany wins!" The victorious boat glides past the spectator stands, and the four German athletes stick their arms out straight, just above head-height, in a proud Nazi salute.
This was the Berlin Olympics of 1936, immortalised in two films by the controversial director Leni Riefenstahl. Olympia Part I: Festival of the Nations and Part II: Festival of Beauty, both released in 1938, represent a tremendous aesthetic and technical cinematic achievement.
But they also represent something far more sinister. As Londoners obliged to pay extra taxes for the 2012 Games have been repeatedly told,...
- 6/14/2012
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
[1] Lars von Trier's official job may be directing, but it seems his true calling lies in stirring up controversy. Earlier this year, the filmmaker once again sparked outrage at the Cannes press conference for Melancholia when he stated [2] that he "sympathize[d] with [Hitler] a little bit," even though he was "not against Jews." Though von Trier issued an apology soon afterward, the damage was done and the director was banned [3] from the festival. His latest move isn't likely to endear him to his critics, either. Von Trier is now saying that he's "not sorry" about the Nazi remarks after all -- or for that matter, about anything he's said or done. Read on after the jump. Von Trier discussed the incident in an interview with GQ [4] (via IFC [5]): I'm not sorry... I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear that it was a joke. But I can't be sorry...
- 9/20/2011
- by Angie Han
- Slash Film
For the record, Lars von Trier says he's not an anti-semite, does not agree with the Holocaust, and is not Mel Gibson. But the provocative filmmaker, banned from the Cannes Film Festival for his bizarre Hitler-sympathizing press conference rant, isn't exactly crying over the situation, either.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, von Trier reiterated that he wasn't pro-Hitler, unless Hitler made a good film. When asked whether his future films will be banned from the festival, von Trier argued for art over politics.
"I hope not because even if I was Hitler, and I must now state for the record I am not Hitler, but even if I was Hitler, and I made a great film, Cannes should select it," he said. "And I have to say I'm a little proud of being named a persona non grata. I think my family would be proud. I have a French order.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, von Trier reiterated that he wasn't pro-Hitler, unless Hitler made a good film. When asked whether his future films will be banned from the festival, von Trier argued for art over politics.
"I hope not because even if I was Hitler, and I must now state for the record I am not Hitler, but even if I was Hitler, and I made a great film, Cannes should select it," he said. "And I have to say I'm a little proud of being named a persona non grata. I think my family would be proud. I have a French order.
- 5/22/2011
- by Jordan Zakarin
- Huffington Post
Lars von Trier and his inexplicable finger tattoos at the 64th Cannes Film Festival I've remained quiet when it comes to the now infamous Lars von Trier, Cannes Film Festival press conference following the first press screening of Melancholia held Wednesday, May 18, but as the entire scene seems to have played itself out, at least for now, I felt it was finally time to talk about it. Of course, before I get ahead of myself, I am not a supporter of Hitler (something I never thought I'd have to write), I do not condone von Trier's comments, but at the same time I think this has just as much to do with his comments as it does with journalistic ethics.
For me it began with a Breaking News email from The Hollywood Reporter with a headline that read "Lars von Trier Admits to Being a Nazi, Understanding Hitler". I saw it and,...
For me it began with a Breaking News email from The Hollywood Reporter with a headline that read "Lars von Trier Admits to Being a Nazi, Understanding Hitler". I saw it and,...
- 5/21/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
What makes a celebrity into a scoundrel? The answer may seem simple — do what Mel Gibson did! Or Charlie Sheen! Or Lindsay Lohan! Or Arnold! — but when you really think about it, the answer isn’t simple at all. A lot of celebrities do a lot of bad things. They cheat on their wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends. They consume alcohol and drugs in volumes that would cripple a horse (I can think of one prominent actress who became a junkie just at the moment when she hit her It Girl fame, although it never did become public). They go to rehab,...
- 5/21/2011
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW - Inside Movies
AP reported that Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier is no longer allowed at the Cannes Film Festival after a rambling speech about being a Nazi and sympathizing with Adolph Hitler. Von Trier won the Palme D’or Award, the festival’s highest honor, back in 2000 for Dancer in the Dark.
Festival President Gilles Jacob said his remarks “stained the reputation for the festival”. Von Trier’s film Melancholia remains in competition due to the industry’s respect for the work, though we highly doubt voters won’t be swayed by this PR disaster.
The statement also said Cannes ”provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. [The board] profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over...
Festival President Gilles Jacob said his remarks “stained the reputation for the festival”. Von Trier’s film Melancholia remains in competition due to the industry’s respect for the work, though we highly doubt voters won’t be swayed by this PR disaster.
The statement also said Cannes ”provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. [The board] profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over...
- 5/20/2011
- by Catherine
- Movie Gnome
Lars von Trier’s comments during the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday have indeed created a situation. By stating that he understood Hitler, even in jest, is a joke all too unfunny.
This is what von Trier stated:
“The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
This is what von Trier stated:
“The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
- 5/19/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Magazine
Lars von Trier’s comments during the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday have indeed created a situation. By stating that he understood Hitler, even in jest, is a joke all too unfunny.
This is what von Trier stated:
“The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
This is what von Trier stated:
“The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
- 5/19/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Network
Due to controversial remarks made by Lars von Trier during a press conference to promote his latest film, Cannes Film Festival organizers have declared the Danish director "persona non grata," effectively banning him from the competition. Yet his film, Melancholia, will be allowed to remain in competition. Talk about sending mixed messages.
Yesterday at Cannes, in response to a question about his German heritage, von Trier responded in a somewhat rambling manner to reporters, saying he used to believe he was a Jew, though he later learned he wasn't.
"I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German," said von Trier. "Which also gave me some pleasure . . . What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. But I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end.
Yesterday at Cannes, in response to a question about his German heritage, von Trier responded in a somewhat rambling manner to reporters, saying he used to believe he was a Jew, though he later learned he wasn't.
"I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German," said von Trier. "Which also gave me some pleasure . . . What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. But I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end.
- 5/19/2011
- by Theron
- Planet Fury
Last night, after a well received screening of his new film Melancholia at Cannes, director Lars Von Trier, along with the cast of his film, held a press conference to discuss the movie with the assembled journalists. This sort of thing happens every day at film festivals and is usually quite dull. Not so the melancholia conference, where Lars Von Trier declared himself to be a Nazi.
Twice.
In a moment that will go down in press conference history, the director declared:
For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew, then I met [Danish director] Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. No, that was a joke, sorry… But it turned out I was not a Jew…
I really wanted to be a Jew but then I found out I was really a Nazi. Because my family was German, which also gave me some pleasure.
Twice.
In a moment that will go down in press conference history, the director declared:
For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew, then I met [Danish director] Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. No, that was a joke, sorry… But it turned out I was not a Jew…
I really wanted to be a Jew but then I found out I was really a Nazi. Because my family was German, which also gave me some pleasure.
- 5/19/2011
- by Ben Mortimer
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Lars von Trier said he was sorry "if he hurt someone" with his remarks claiming to be a Nazi at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, but the Festival's directors weren't exactly buying the apology. And now he's going to be very sorry for his bizarre rant.
The organizers of perhaps the world's most prestigious film festival announced early on Thursday that von Trier is now a "persona non grata" at Cannes, meaning that he has been banned from the festival.
Their official statement, via Deadline:
The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. The Festival’s Board of Directors, which held an extraordinary meeting this Thursday 19 May 2011, profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of...
The organizers of perhaps the world's most prestigious film festival announced early on Thursday that von Trier is now a "persona non grata" at Cannes, meaning that he has been banned from the festival.
Their official statement, via Deadline:
The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. The Festival’s Board of Directors, which held an extraordinary meeting this Thursday 19 May 2011, profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of...
- 5/19/2011
- by Jordan Zakarin
- Huffington Post
You can say this for Lars Von Trier: he doesn't believe in treading lightly. If today wasn't so busy I'd spend a few hours digging up the director's old comments from Cannes press conferences and correlating their level of pseudo-outrage to the quality of the film he's promoting. His latest movie, Melancholia, premiered at Cannes today and the reviews are (perhaps predictably) mixed, with some of the most telling comments coming in the form of negative reviews from normally sympathetic fans. (There are also some significant raves.) 'Sympathetic' is the byword for Lvt today, as the press conference for Melancholia featured the director baiting the press with statements about feeling that he understands Hitler and being a Nazi. Depending on how you look at it, press-baiting may not even have been his goal -- it is more like the Nazi comments grew out of an attempt at a joke that,...
- 5/18/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
Update: von Trier has issued an apology at the behest of the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival.
“If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize. I am not antisemitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi," the director said in a statement.
Previously:
Lars von Trier has a hit with his new movie at Cannes, but it was his press conference that is making headlines.
The maverick Danish director, who is receiving accolades for his Kirsten Dunst-starring apocalyptic tale "Melancholia," is no stranger to outrageous statements -- in 2005, he said President Bush dreams of being spanked by Condeleezza Rice -- shocked the assembled press with his answer to a question about his interest in the Nazi aesthetic.
"The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for...
“If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize. I am not antisemitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi," the director said in a statement.
Previously:
Lars von Trier has a hit with his new movie at Cannes, but it was his press conference that is making headlines.
The maverick Danish director, who is receiving accolades for his Kirsten Dunst-starring apocalyptic tale "Melancholia," is no stranger to outrageous statements -- in 2005, he said President Bush dreams of being spanked by Condeleezza Rice -- shocked the assembled press with his answer to a question about his interest in the Nazi aesthetic.
"The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for...
- 5/18/2011
- by Jordan Zakarin
- Huffington Post
"The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [Danish and Jewish director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn't so happy about being a Jew.
"That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I'd been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
"So, I, what can I say? I understand Hitler. I think he did some wrong things but I can see him sitting in his bunker. I'm saying that I think I understand the man. He is not what we could call a good guy,...
"That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I'd been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew, but anyway, I really wanted to be a Jew and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because my family is German. And that also gave me some pleasure.
"So, I, what can I say? I understand Hitler. I think he did some wrong things but I can see him sitting in his bunker. I'm saying that I think I understand the man. He is not what we could call a good guy,...
- 5/18/2011
- by Courtney Enlow
Getty Lars von Trier
Danish auteur Lars von Trier has provoked controversy at Cannes before, but it usually stems from his films. This time it’s from comments he made at a press conference for his film “Melancholia,” which is premiering at the festival.
When a reporter asked about his German roots, von Trier answered: “I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German,...
Danish auteur Lars von Trier has provoked controversy at Cannes before, but it usually stems from his films. This time it’s from comments he made at a press conference for his film “Melancholia,” which is premiering at the festival.
When a reporter asked about his German roots, von Trier answered: “I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi, because, you know, my family was German,...
- 5/18/2011
- by Julie Steinberg
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
You know what a press conference with Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg doesn’t need? Barely sensical Nazi jokes from Lars Von Trier. The Melancholia director made his beautiful stars visibly uncomfortable earlier today when he decided to talk about how he “understands” Hitler, among other Nazi things. Fyi, the man who raised Von Trier was Jewish, though Lars later learned he was actually the product of an affair his mom had with her German employer:
The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew,...
The only thing I can tell you is that I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew, then later on came [director] Susanne Bier, and suddenly I wasn’t so happy about being a Jew. That was a joke. Sorry. But it turned out that I was not a Jew. If I’d been a Jew, then I would be a second-wave Jew, a kind of a new-wave Jew,...
- 5/18/2011
- by Anthony Miccio
- TheFabLife - Movies
Until I run out of cool giftable stuff to tell you about or until we run out of days till Christmas, I’ll be sharing some neat-o things that your geeky pals might enjoy, or that you might want to give to yourself, if you’ve been especially good this year. Students of history and World War II buffs will love this new blu-ray edition of the classic 1970s ITV documentary that looked back at the war in obsessive detail using tons of footage from the era as well as interviews with participants and high-ranking eyewitnesses: Albert Speer, Jimmy Stewart, Alger Hiss, Curtis LeMay, aides to Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler, and many more. I’ve never seen this series, but the British Film Institute ranked in No. 19 in its 2000 list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes ever, and it’s still considered the definitive TV documentary series on the war.
- 12/10/2010
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Joseph Kosinski’s follow up to the 1982 cult classic Tron is an electro-gothic sci-fi adventure continuing the story of videogame and software designer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Tron: Legacy largely takes place in a ‘bio-digital’ world of wonder where a young man – Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) – searches for his missing father who disappeared mysteriously one night in 1989.
The first thing you’ll notice in Tron: Legacy is the daring computer-animated version of a young Jeff Bridges. It is both freaky and brilliant in its application and was always going to be a gamble to undertake and deliver.
Directors obsessed with technological advances have been banging on about photo-realism for ages. Here, the bar is raised incredibly high, yet it still looks peculiar and unconvincing – especially when he’s talking.
There’s plenty of homage paid to Lisberger’s work and more than vague echoes in the narrative itself. There’s...
The first thing you’ll notice in Tron: Legacy is the daring computer-animated version of a young Jeff Bridges. It is both freaky and brilliant in its application and was always going to be a gamble to undertake and deliver.
Directors obsessed with technological advances have been banging on about photo-realism for ages. Here, the bar is raised incredibly high, yet it still looks peculiar and unconvincing – especially when he’s talking.
There’s plenty of homage paid to Lisberger’s work and more than vague echoes in the narrative itself. There’s...
- 12/5/2010
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
British film-maker and Mile End resident, Danny Boyle, has been chosen by the 2012 Olympic committee to be artistic director of the opening ceremony.
Also helping out is Billy Elliot director, Stephen Daldry. The team was unveiled at 3 Mills Studio near the Stratford location of the Olympics this very morning.
“It’s a completely unique opportunity to contribute to what I’m sure are going to be a fantastic games. I’m really excited to be involved,” said Boyle.
It’s a busy time for the Lancashire-born Oscar winner. He’s putting the finishing touches to his man-cuts-off-his-own-arm-with-a-pen-knife-while-trapped-by-a-boulder flick, 127 Hours and he’s returning to the National Theatre with a new production of Frankenstein.
The opening ceremonies of the Olympics have become an attraction for artistic talent. One only has to remember that incredible opening at the Beijing opener where Bjork warbled while wearing a stadium-sized flowing blue dress. Chinese director Zhang Yimou oversaw that.
Also helping out is Billy Elliot director, Stephen Daldry. The team was unveiled at 3 Mills Studio near the Stratford location of the Olympics this very morning.
“It’s a completely unique opportunity to contribute to what I’m sure are going to be a fantastic games. I’m really excited to be involved,” said Boyle.
It’s a busy time for the Lancashire-born Oscar winner. He’s putting the finishing touches to his man-cuts-off-his-own-arm-with-a-pen-knife-while-trapped-by-a-boulder flick, 127 Hours and he’s returning to the National Theatre with a new production of Frankenstein.
The opening ceremonies of the Olympics have become an attraction for artistic talent. One only has to remember that incredible opening at the Beijing opener where Bjork warbled while wearing a stadium-sized flowing blue dress. Chinese director Zhang Yimou oversaw that.
- 6/17/2010
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
What makes a great critic? As we launch our third Young Critics' Competition, Guardian reviewers offer some expert advice – and reveal the writers who first inspired them
'A critic is more than a spectator' Michael Billington, theatre critic
I started reading reviews avidly in my teens. I'm still haunted by a phrase Harold Hobson used about Waiting for Godot in the Sunday Times: "If you have only 15 shillings left in the world, go and see Waiting for Godot. If you have 30 shillings, see it twice."
But the critic who really obsessed me, and most of my generation, was Hobson's great rival, Kenneth Tynan at the Observer. What Tynan showed is that criticism is principally about writing well. Open his collected reviews on any page and you find the phrases lock perfectly into place. Here's one example, from a 1956 review of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory: "Puffing on a cheroot,...
'A critic is more than a spectator' Michael Billington, theatre critic
I started reading reviews avidly in my teens. I'm still haunted by a phrase Harold Hobson used about Waiting for Godot in the Sunday Times: "If you have only 15 shillings left in the world, go and see Waiting for Godot. If you have 30 shillings, see it twice."
But the critic who really obsessed me, and most of my generation, was Hobson's great rival, Kenneth Tynan at the Observer. What Tynan showed is that criticism is principally about writing well. Open his collected reviews on any page and you find the phrases lock perfectly into place. Here's one example, from a 1956 review of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory: "Puffing on a cheroot,...
- 5/25/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Ferry Apologizes for Nazi Comments
British rocker Bryan Ferry has apologized "unreservedly" for praising the Nazi propaganda machine. The Roxy Music singer, 61, was recently quoted in an interview with German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag as saying, "My God, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves. Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful." The comments have caused outrage in Ferry's native Britain, and have raised questions over the star's modeling contact with retail chain Marks And Spencer, which was founded and owned by Jewish immigrant Michael Marks. In a statement, Ferry says, "I apologize unreservedly for any offence caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were made solely from an art history perspective. I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi regime, and all it stood for, evil and abhorrent."...
- 4/17/2007
- WENN
'Devil's' due on Canal Plus
CANNES -- Bavaria Media Television hit the ground running at MIPTV Monday closing a day-one sale of big-budget docudrama Speer and Hitler -- The Devil's Architect to French pay-TV company Canal Plus. The three-part miniseries, from award-winning director Heinrich Breloer (The Manns), reassesses the role of Albert Speer, who besides designing many of the Third Reich's buildings was also Hitler's close friend and minister for war production. Sebastian Koch plays Speer, while Hitler is portrayed by Tobias Moretti, who was in Cannes for a preview screening of 30 minutes of footage from the first episode. Budgeted at 12 million, The Devil's Architect has already been sold to BBC1 in the United Kingdom and to a slew of channels in Eastern and Central Europe. The MIPTV deal was signed by Canal Plus COO Rodolphe Belmer and Bavaria Media TV chief Oliver Schuendler.
- 4/12/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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