"Capitalism is the Predatory Stage of Human Evolution"
Movie Monday
It’s March 1st and my birthday month is over so it’s back to serious work.
The Reader: A review
Where to begin with The Reader? This is one of the most frustrating reviews I’ve ever written and I don’t mean just these postings but in my varied career of reviewing stuff.
First, the acting: Kate Winslet is superb as the bright, illiterate Hanna who ages 30 years so realistically. Ditto for David Kross as the young Michael Berg. Superb reality shading acting from both. What do I mean by that? Well, we all know that movies are phony. We’re looking at actors pretending and existing in a phony reality for the length of the movie. Superb acting shades reality and you become “one” with the scene, suspending disbelief as you watch the performances.
You can tell that Winslet put a lot of thought into her Oscar winning performance. From her hairy underarms to the slight paunch as she ages to the shots of her “old” hands and feet (Could they have really been hers?) I checked and she is 13 years younger than Ralph Fiennes (who plays the adult Michael Berg) yet it is impossible not to believe she is twenty years his senior as she is in this role.
I thought the supporting actors did a great job (except for Michael’s fellow law student who is given the thankless lines of musing the morality of the Nazi camp guards - moralizing is always a tough role to play well.) The chief judge at Hanna’s trial (Burghart Klaußner) and the law professor (Bruno Ganz) are just two I’ll mention. I was pleased that Klaußner avoided the Spencer Tracy type of acting (ala Judgment at Nuremberg) and brought surprising humanness to his role.
OK, so you get the point that I thought the acting was top drawer. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Fiennes. He was fine in his role. (In fact, in my four [!!] viewings of the prison scene between him and Hanna, I cried. I have no idea why. I’m not a movie crier but there was something in that short scene where the lovers meet for the first time in almost 40 years that struck a chord. Since I’m not a movie crier; that had to be good acting.) My only problem with Fiennes (and this is going to sound so picky) is that the facial structure of the young Michael Berg could never, except with extensive plastic surgery, grow up to look like Ralph Fiennes. Because of this, I just saw him as a good actor, not in the same league and Winslet and Kross.
Well, it’s five paragraphs down from the top and you may have caught on that I have not discussed the movie, only the actors. OK, now I’ll bell the cat: I just don’t get the movie. I makes absolutely no sense to me. Unless I look at it as being deeply metaphoric, I can’t figure out the logic behind any of this.
I think I’m at a disadvantage because I have not read the book nor looked at any comments/reviews regarding this film. Like Mortimer Adler’s advice for reading great books, I think a movie should be judged in the context of itself without director’s meaning, author’s intent, etc.
I have a feeling the director said: Oh, they will have read the book (I think this was a popular book) so they’ll get this. I didn’t get it.
First, I didn’t get Hanna. She was a sexually experienced, high-functioning illiterate living, not as a backward maid on a farm, but in a bustling city. We also know she is an excellent worker since she is offered two promotions on different jobs. Both times she has to move away because she would need to read and write in the new position, something she can’t do. In fact, Hanna would never have been on trial for war crimes if she hadn’t been illiterate since she only took the SS guard job when she was promoted at Siemens and had to leave there.
Second, her sexual experience. Hanna wasn’t seducing Michael in the good old missionary position. I think the expression is that she had been around the block, many times. What kind of sexual life did she have prior to Michael? Remember, she has no friends.
Third, why did she methodically seduce Michael? Did she think from the get-go: He’s a school kid, he can read, he can read to me, I’ll seduce him so he’ll stay.
Fourth, why doesn’t young Michael tell the court that Hanna is illiterate? It’s not because he visits the camps because it’s after his visit there that he tells his professor that he has information helpful to a defendant (that she is illiterate and could not have written the church burning report) and the prof says he must speak the truth. He doesn’t of course and Hanna is convicted and given a life sentence because she is considered the ring leader. I found it interesting that Hanna was 23 or so when she allowed the prisoners to burn in the church and Michael was a 23 year old law student when he remains silent and allows Hanna to receive a life sentence. Both were betrayals, in different degrees.
Finally, why doesn’t Hanna speak up in court and say she is illiterate? We may think that she willingly becomes the scapegoat here but years later she tells Michael that she has never thought about the camps. The dead are still dead. Does she mean this? In frustration, I’d say: From this movie, how the hell would I know?
And that’s my biggest problem with the film. Aside from the great acting, I’m watching a plot that makes no sense. It’s like hearing a singer in pure pitch sing gibberish.
I finally boiled this whole thing down to something that made some sense to me: Hanna represents the scapegoat we eagerly punish to assuage our complicity. Michael only becomes human at the end of the film when he shares his history with his daughter. While he is much too young to actually be guilty of crimes against humanity in WWII, he metaphorically represents the collective guilt all adults share when they stand by and do nothing. Something unfortunately, even after so many genocides, victor countries still run from.
Yes, I know I’m really stretching it but I’m really coming up empty.
And now, I’m finally going to look at reviews and comments on this movie and hopefully figure the damn thing out.
Perhaps this will be continued next Monday.
The Reader: A review
Where to begin with The Reader? This is one of the most frustrating reviews I’ve ever written and I don’t mean just these postings but in my varied career of reviewing stuff.
First, the acting: Kate Winslet is superb as the bright, illiterate Hanna who ages 30 years so realistically. Ditto for David Kross as the young Michael Berg. Superb reality shading acting from both. What do I mean by that? Well, we all know that movies are phony. We’re looking at actors pretending and existing in a phony reality for the length of the movie. Superb acting shades reality and you become “one” with the scene, suspending disbelief as you watch the performances.
You can tell that Winslet put a lot of thought into her Oscar winning performance. From her hairy underarms to the slight paunch as she ages to the shots of her “old” hands and feet (Could they have really been hers?) I checked and she is 13 years younger than Ralph Fiennes (who plays the adult Michael Berg) yet it is impossible not to believe she is twenty years his senior as she is in this role.
I thought the supporting actors did a great job (except for Michael’s fellow law student who is given the thankless lines of musing the morality of the Nazi camp guards - moralizing is always a tough role to play well.) The chief judge at Hanna’s trial (Burghart Klaußner) and the law professor (Bruno Ganz) are just two I’ll mention. I was pleased that Klaußner avoided the Spencer Tracy type of acting (ala Judgment at Nuremberg) and brought surprising humanness to his role.
OK, so you get the point that I thought the acting was top drawer. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Fiennes. He was fine in his role. (In fact, in my four [!!] viewings of the prison scene between him and Hanna, I cried. I have no idea why. I’m not a movie crier but there was something in that short scene where the lovers meet for the first time in almost 40 years that struck a chord. Since I’m not a movie crier; that had to be good acting.) My only problem with Fiennes (and this is going to sound so picky) is that the facial structure of the young Michael Berg could never, except with extensive plastic surgery, grow up to look like Ralph Fiennes. Because of this, I just saw him as a good actor, not in the same league and Winslet and Kross.
Well, it’s five paragraphs down from the top and you may have caught on that I have not discussed the movie, only the actors. OK, now I’ll bell the cat: I just don’t get the movie. I makes absolutely no sense to me. Unless I look at it as being deeply metaphoric, I can’t figure out the logic behind any of this.
I think I’m at a disadvantage because I have not read the book nor looked at any comments/reviews regarding this film. Like Mortimer Adler’s advice for reading great books, I think a movie should be judged in the context of itself without director’s meaning, author’s intent, etc.
I have a feeling the director said: Oh, they will have read the book (I think this was a popular book) so they’ll get this. I didn’t get it.
First, I didn’t get Hanna. She was a sexually experienced, high-functioning illiterate living, not as a backward maid on a farm, but in a bustling city. We also know she is an excellent worker since she is offered two promotions on different jobs. Both times she has to move away because she would need to read and write in the new position, something she can’t do. In fact, Hanna would never have been on trial for war crimes if she hadn’t been illiterate since she only took the SS guard job when she was promoted at Siemens and had to leave there.
Second, her sexual experience. Hanna wasn’t seducing Michael in the good old missionary position. I think the expression is that she had been around the block, many times. What kind of sexual life did she have prior to Michael? Remember, she has no friends.
Third, why did she methodically seduce Michael? Did she think from the get-go: He’s a school kid, he can read, he can read to me, I’ll seduce him so he’ll stay.
Fourth, why doesn’t young Michael tell the court that Hanna is illiterate? It’s not because he visits the camps because it’s after his visit there that he tells his professor that he has information helpful to a defendant (that she is illiterate and could not have written the church burning report) and the prof says he must speak the truth. He doesn’t of course and Hanna is convicted and given a life sentence because she is considered the ring leader. I found it interesting that Hanna was 23 or so when she allowed the prisoners to burn in the church and Michael was a 23 year old law student when he remains silent and allows Hanna to receive a life sentence. Both were betrayals, in different degrees.
Finally, why doesn’t Hanna speak up in court and say she is illiterate? We may think that she willingly becomes the scapegoat here but years later she tells Michael that she has never thought about the camps. The dead are still dead. Does she mean this? In frustration, I’d say: From this movie, how the hell would I know?
And that’s my biggest problem with the film. Aside from the great acting, I’m watching a plot that makes no sense. It’s like hearing a singer in pure pitch sing gibberish.
I finally boiled this whole thing down to something that made some sense to me: Hanna represents the scapegoat we eagerly punish to assuage our complicity. Michael only becomes human at the end of the film when he shares his history with his daughter. While he is much too young to actually be guilty of crimes against humanity in WWII, he metaphorically represents the collective guilt all adults share when they stand by and do nothing. Something unfortunately, even after so many genocides, victor countries still run from.
Yes, I know I’m really stretching it but I’m really coming up empty.
And now, I’m finally going to look at reviews and comments on this movie and hopefully figure the damn thing out.
Perhaps this will be continued next Monday.
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