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Dreamworks' most controversial film ever.... HOFFMAN
Well, here's a movie that has some chutzpah at the very least. The movie is called HOFFMAN. Fairly non-inflammatory right? Well as best as I can tell this is a movie that... well... could be brilliant... could be trash... and it could be a film that some people rage against and others blindly support.
You see, this is the fictional (as in untrue) story of a successful Jewish art dealer in pre-Nazi Germany. You see, his name is Hoffman, and he's a man of privilege. He has a stunning and alluring Dietrich-ian mistress. In addition he has an elitest waif ballerina wife. And he has a friend, a young struggling penniless war veteran artist, who's a bit scruffy, but his name is...
Adolpf Hitler
And the story is about how this young Jewish art dealer and his friendship with Hitler helped to form Adolph into the future monster of war that we now know him.
Once again this is going to be one of those, "What if it happened like this..." sort of story where the screenwriter (Menno "COLOR PURPLE, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, THE SIEGE" Meyjes) hypothesizes about what it was that drove Hitler to take the stances he took. Surely he just wasn't 'born that way', something in his environment shaped and formed him into the monster he became.
I don't know much more on this project other than it's set up over at DREAMWORKS and that the screenwriter, Menno Meyjes, is also planning on directing. Now... To me, this could be an excellent dramatic film that should mirror a bit of what happens to Anakin Skywalker in that ol story of George's. Because this is a fascinating subject matter to me. Especially in the political and soceital climate that we currently live in. What creates or contributes to evil... Hopefully this project is exploring that deeper than we have seen it before... If you know anything more about this project.... By all means let me know... I'm curious.
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Why are we assuming that "something had to make him like that"? Personally, I always just thought that he was pure evil. Unfortunatly, nowadays that's just not good enough. Even Tomas Harris, who told us that Hannibal Lecter had no underlying reasons in "Silence of the Lambs", had to make up some crap childhood trauma in "Hannibal". Too much time spent questioning old monsters, too little time battling new ones...
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gweilo my man, "why?" is an important and fascinating question. gotta understand the past to understand the present. you say too much time questioning old monsters, and you mention silence of the lambs. hell, man, thats what profiling is all about, you figure out what makes freaks freaky so you can find the freaks that are still out there.
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i should probably point out that finding out the answers to why doesnt excuse a nuts actions. in fact, i bet thats what you are saying in a way.
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I guess it's not a matter of being
born evil or made evil, but a combination. Anyway, if you want
some insight in his background,
just read "Genesis and catastrophe" by Roald Dahl ..
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Surely this film should have some sort of basis in fact, or not be made at all? A strong biopic would surely perform more of a service than what looks like a dodgy 'menage a trois' film?
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Basis in fact? Puhleez, about as much as that pathetic excuse for a movie Life is Beautiful. This trend sucks. Can't wait for the next one: Jakob the Liar later this year. About the wacky goings on in the Warsaw Ghetto with Robin Williams. Pretty soon, we're all going to have to rely on reruns of Hogan's Heroes for an *accurate* account of WWII.
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Wow, you just can't beat that good old puritanical thinking: evil is just evil and it was spawned from evil because God with a capital G knows that evil could not be born somewhere within our human environment. And perish the thought of trying to make something beautiful, even if it's just a made-up story, out of something horrible. Why do you even go to movies? Why do you read fiction? Why bother leaving the house at all? You never know, pure evil, one that has no foundation in our environment and therefore one that can never be understood or battled or prevented, might be just outside your door waiting to take away your sense of wonder, humor, and compassion.
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My first reaction was that this is an incredibly ballsy project--interesting lead character, interesting historical tie, gnawing sense of dread at the way you KNOW things turn out. The comparison to Anakin's story is apt. But at the same time, as a Jew and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, the memory of the Holocaust is still painfully fresh. And I'd be worried that this film would try to assign a "reason" to Hitler's actions, something I just don't think many Jews would be comfortable with. To many of us, there was no personal reason; Hitler was a man of evil and hatred, and he chose us (and homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses and others) as the focus for his agression because historically we were scapegoats. But I never felt comfortable with stories that Hitler hated Jews because he had some Jewish blood or a Jewish nurse or whatever. It seemed like too facile explanation for a person who orchestrated the most atrocious acts the world has ever seen. So basically, I think the film could work if it doesn't try to produce Hitler's hatred of Jews through mechanations of plot (as in "his patron was a Jew and stole his girlfriend") but instead looks at the relationship between a successful Jew and a down-on-his-luck anti-Semite, two people who were what they were but who didn't "create" each other.
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I have to agree with what you said Graduate. Wow. This seems really really gutsy and I am also left with mixed feelings about it. I guess this talk back has no point. Ah well - I've already typed it.
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If my memory hasn't faded, wasn't Mr. Menno credited w/story only for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"? If not mistaken, Jeffrey Boam was the credited screenwriter (both "Indy" and "Lethal Weapon 2".. in the same summer). Just tryin' to clear things up!
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Years ago, while I was researching a term paper in college, I ran across a book about Hitler as a fine artist. The book was full of paintings Hitler had done around the period this film supposedly covers. I have to say he wasn't half bad. He painted in an impressionistic style similar to Monet. I can't help but think how different today's world would be if Hitler found success in fine art. This film's concept fasinates me.
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It IS important to learn from the past, so we can be mindful of the future. Hell, if we did it more often, the world probably wouldn't even be the shithole-waiting-to-explode it is today. But I agree with Stu (above) that a well-written and well-told Hitler-biopic probably would be better than something along the lines of a "La Vita E Bella"-flick. I think a movie about the life of the most notorious person in this world's history ever, should really be a learning experience. La Vita was great in its own right, but that movie was there to put a tear and a smile on your face, not to give you the shivers like, say, Schindler's List did. I read Mein Kampf (and that means my struggle and not my camp) twice. Once when I was in what you call highschool and then again, a couple of years later. It's a book I try to get everyone I know to read. Please don't mistake reading this book with having racist or fascist sympathies. I know there are some lunatic Klansmen and neonazis who see this book as their bible, but they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. (I mean, it's hard reading a book if you don't know how to read, right?)
If you haven't yet, I strongly encourage you to go to your local library and pick the book up. And then READ it. You'll see how evil works for yourself. Hitler can't write for shit, but you've got to see through that. His ideas on national socialism and fascism don't differ that much from the ideas some of today's politicians have. It's scary. To find evil, you must first understand evil. How it works, how it acts, how it speaks. Evil is not a big red man with a tail and horns, evil is your neighboor. Greeting you from inside his car, as he leaves for another counsel-meeting, where he represents an extremist rightwing party. (man, don't we all GET the Phantom Menace?) Being Dutch, I grew up with the story of Anne Frank. And, as anyone who's ever been there knows, when you visit the "achterhuis" (where Anne and her family were in hiding during WW2)it's hard not to cry. The holocaust is what WW2 will always be remembered for. But Mein Kampf will make you THINK about that war. How could Hitler eventually take control of Germany? Why did he do that? Who did he use to get what he wanted? This is, I think, what a movie telling Hitler's life should be about. NO fiction, base it on facts. Make the story more interesting by telling it from different perspectives. (parents, family, fellow soldiers in WW1, Eva Braun, Goebbels, Gohring etc) Then show it, most importantly to children, just to teach them how fucked up humans can really be. Let it be a warning sign for the new century.
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Just looking at what's been said in the talkbacks thusfar, they've got to go through with making the movie. It SHOULD make a lot of people uncomfortable by asking the questions that are usually ignored or avoided by the public.
It's silly to think that the film will excuse Hitler for anything he's done; this is Hollywood. Besides, it sounds as if it will take place from a man's perspective; a man who can only speculate as to what makes a Hitler.
Most importantly, the simple premise of the movie has already generated emotion and argument. Was Hitler a product of nature or nuture(or both)? Maybe when it comes out, we'll have something more philosophical to argue about than "So, would you have taken the red or the blue pill?"
On the personal side of things, I can't help but wonder at the concept of EVIL. The world isn't a cartoon where sane people go around doing crappy things just because they're bad guys. If Hitler was just pure evil as many believe, wouldn't he have the perfect excuse? "Poor guy was born with evil... and a lisp." I tend to believe that we're afraid to give killers any kind of reasoning behind their motives because it shows how any of us in a different set of circumstances could be just as "evil."
We could just call him insane, or mentally ill, but that really sets people off, doesn't it? Who knows, maybe they will find the evil gene tomorrow. -
I'm sure the studio will find some way to screw this up. Oh, and who can they get to play Hitler? The list would have to pretty damn short. I cannot think of one person who i believe could pull off playing "Der Fuhrer". If anyone, I would nominate Johnny Depp. That man has a range which is not to be believed.
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Hitler went bad after a mad phat Peyote trip! I'm serious if you can find the Big Book of Vice you can find that Hitler first came up with his Nazi-Regime ideas and theories after taking some peyote. He also wrote lovingly about Cocain (and cocain accesoories).
THe film sounds interesting, they might even get it historically right.....nahhhhhhh. -
A movie about the forming years of Hitler's anti-semitism would be interesting, but of course doing it through fiction would immediately invalidate the whole project. The people that say he was simply evil, as others have already justifiably commented, may have a perfect picture in the world because everything fits, but alas it has nothing to do with the real world. To be an anti-semite in Vienna during those days was quite easy, since it has along tradition there and not just in Vienna. I mean, just see the movie "The Last Voyage" which is based on fact and portrays the last ship with jews which was allowed to leave Germany and which was a Nazi propaganda stunt to show the world that really nobody wanted to take jews in and boy, did they turn out to be right. The ship was turned away everywhere, including the US and had to turn back to Germany; in a final desperate attempt they sank the ship themselves to force western countries to rescue them or they would lose face even more. The people ended up being taken in in Brittain, Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg and I believe also France, though I'm not sure anymore about that. The point I'm trying to make is, that Anti-Semitism wasn't an invention of Hitler but was spread out all over the world. To see how his personal experiences and disappointments would constitute the the final straw might therefor be interesting, but demonizing the man is too simplistic for an answer. As was said in J
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This sounds a little like the brilliant Twilight Zone episode where the kid who had been living with this Jewish man forms a neo-nazi group. If this movie is as gutsy and chilling as what Rod had done, this will be a powerful movie.
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Good comments about Syberberg's movie; it's been a long time since I've heard about that. The big thing no one really wants to face up to about Hitler was not just that he was evil, but that so many other people were actively indifferent to his evil -- that they provided lip service to fighting him, but didn't really go the extra mile to insure that his brand of evildoing was stopped. There are tons of books on how the Americans, British, and French all conspired in differing degrees with Nazi officials, and retained their services after the war (Klaus Barbie, anyone?). Now if they did make a good, unflinching film about that kind of thing, it would be more than worth it. But it sounds like they're going the soap-opera route here...
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...I'm in the middle of reading a book by Ian Kershaw called "Hubris", which discusses Hitler's early years in some depth. Before he served in World War I, Hitler made a living by selling postcard scenes and other paintings he copied. Much of this commerce was facilitated by Jewish art dealers who sold his pictures at bars and to tourists.
This interesting relationship has led many historians and sociologist to wonder if at this time in his life Hitler was an antisemite. Most agree that he was not, and other events led to him developing his famous "world - view" - a idiology that condemmed Jews.
It will be interesting to see how the filmmakers involved deal with Hitler's evolution to an antisemite. I believe it has more to do with failed revolutions in Germany in 1920, so this movie may end up confusing an already poorly defined period of Hitler's evolution.
What I would be really excited to see would be a very well made, historically correct (as correct as possible) biopic of Hitler. Not to glorify him, but rather, to show how business interests, political interests, public attitudes, and one dysfunctional megalomaniac can, at a vunerable time in history, turn several small pieces of racism, hate, and ambition into a terrifically evil machine. -
...a SEVERELY MALADJUSTED human being. In other words, totally fucked up. Hitler's life before he became the Chancellor was a sad and pathetic one, with difficulties he experienced and a general lack of empathy to others. As an artist, he tried and suffered. This is what one of the things that made him into the "Monster" we perceived today. Remember, Hitler was surrounded by other people whose hatred for the Jews were greater than his and thus influenced him one way or another. Ernest Roehm, one of the foudners of the Nazi Party and a well-known homosexual, used to speak foul words about the Jews. Reinhard Heydrich, the SS Reichfuhrer of Prague and the Originator of the Final Solution, a member of the Nazi Party since the late 1920s, he used to meet with Hitler about what to do with all other Jews in Europe in the years prior to Hitler's becoming Chancellor. After the Wannsee conference on the Final Solution, it was Heydrich who carried the fateful documents to Hitler to sign away for approval. Heydrich, in fact, drafted that very documents. Hitler's pathological and psychological problems were the direct result of what he was doing as an artist, a prisoner, a follower, a party leader, a remarkable orator, a chancellor, and finally as a doomed absolute leader of the Third Reich over the years. I'm not totally sure if the movie, Hoffman, as a fictional piece in a historical time would validate everything about Hitler. At least, the film producers would get several historians and Hitler psychologists as consultants to the project.
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Any biopic of the degeneration of Hitler from simple loser into genocidal madman would wind up being a caricature. For a person to have commited the atrocities commited in his name and yet have chosen such idyllic settings for his paintings and have had such a tender romance with Eva Braun, that person would have to be extremely complicated. The fact that his actions were monstrous should not erase the possibility of an impartial movie. For a film which portrays Hitler, not as a monster, but as a person, watch Hitler's Last Ten Days starring Sir Alec Guinness.
And as for the Graduate, all this talk about the memory still being too fresh is invalid and old. I live in Washington DC and have been to the Holocaust museum. Based on what I saw there, the memory of the Holocaust will always be "too fresh." Bad stuff happened. Let it go. My grandfather's grandfather was a slave. He never said, "The memory of slavery is too fresh! They shouldn't make that movie about the Civil War."
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I think Harry's Star Wars analogy was on the right trail. As far as focusing on Anakin... well, Anakin redems himself at the end of the story (ROTJ), Hitler didn't. I'd say a more apt analogy to the Star Wars universe is Palpatine. It's quite clear to me that Lucas is making Palpatine the Hitler of the Star Wars universe. The rising to power, becoming Chancellor, the Clone Wars, the extermination of all the Jedi, a Jedi Holocaust if you will, and instead of creating the Nazi party, he creates the Empire. Instead of the SS, we have the Stormtroopers.
But what's Palpatine's story? How did he turn evil? I think that he is a much stronger analogy to Hitler than Anakin. I just found it interesting that the analogy was made with Anakin being that there was already a clear cut Hitler in the Star Wars universe.
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I've mulled this one over a bit, and, nah, I'm not happy with it. I mean, I'm all for ballsy cinema in this age of washed-out multiplex fodder, but fictional interpretations of factual situations are tightrope-walking cinema at the best of times. And something about this particular project sits very uneasily with me; it sounds upsettingly like a 'concept' movie with only one idea in its head. Think I'll pass on this one.
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Yup. It sounds like it could be a great movie. That's all.
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Let's start this with an understatement: Hitler was an evil fuck. Millions upon millions of people died because of him.
The millions who died? Not some sort of cute fuzzy alien creatures in Star Wars, but REAL PEOPLE. People with families who loved them. People who didn't deserve to die. People who suffered.
To hear some of you describe it, you want to compare Hitler to Anakin Skywalker. Please share that thought with a holocaust survivor. Or perhaps the child of someone killed in the holocaust. It would be an insult to the pain and suffering they endured.
There is no comparison. I love Star Wars, but it is FICTION. Hitler was as real as you can get. Please, you are disgracing and trivializing the very real hell Holocaust survivors went through by even thinking of comparing Anakin to Hitler.
You are seriously withdrawn from reality if you make this comparison. And you should be ashamed. -
I have the utmost confidence that Hollywood will certainly mess this one up beyond all conceivable recognition. Especially with Spielberg and the rest of the clowns at Dreamworks, the collective masters of modern day revisionist history films that they claim should be shown to school children manning the project. What would really shock the living shit out of everyone would undoubtedly be a film, like someone mentioned above, that showed you all sides of Hitler, and painted him as more of a man than and less of a tyrannical psycopath. Things I feel would be interesting to add in: (1) Definately the tender romance with Eva Braun culminating in their marriage the night before their collective suicides -- POWERFUL ending there. (2) Hitler as a brilliant military strategist, who revolutionized the course of modern day warfare. (3) Hitler as an economic/industrial genius creating an environment where Germany developed more technology in 5 years than we do today in 15. Cases in point: without computers Germany turned around the Jet airplane in the space of a few years, we had no such technology at the time, and even today, with our advanced supercomputers it takes 15 years to build a plane. The V2 rocket, tested only in miniature beneath a mountain, which on it maiden voyage took off from Berlin and detonated over London. Our rockets didn't even fly straight at the time. (4) Hitler as hero. I know this is going to be an unpopular one, but when Hitler marched into Austria and some other surrounding countries, he was greeted with throngs of people filling the streets, cheering for the Third Reich [watch the history channel, this was actually filmed in several cities he marched to]. Plus the last stand in Berlin, Hitler in the throes of Parkinson's having to send the women, children, and old men away who were BEGGING to fight the allies unto the death. (6) OF COURSE: Hitler the sociapathic, tyrranical, lunatic, homicidal killing machine, that needs to be there too. Only if you combine al of these elements together do I believe that you can make a truly successful Hitler biopic...
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we know what made Hitler they way he was. They've even tracked down what they beleive is a copy if the pamphlet that first introduced Hitler to his and his budies particular brand of anit-sematism. I hate these movies for 2 reasons: #1 idiots mistake them for history. Think about it, you've all met at least ONE person who thik Einstein was from Australia and invented Beer. Imagine if it had been a serious(sorry, but i just can't think of a better word) movie?. (but maybe thats more the type of idiots I choose to hang out with )#2 They almost all have a message. I HATE MESSAGES. Letters, emails, post-it's, bull horns, telephones, morse code... those are the proper modes of communication for delivering a message. Not movies. I'm sorry, you just don't sit people down in the multiplex and turn them into good people. thats not what movies are for. Even if you disagree about messages, how many times do we need to be told "hateing jews is bad" ? Do you know anyone who became a liberal(in the Classical Jeffersonian, John Locke, Tom Paine sense) thinkier after watching a movie?
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I saw a play by the Austrian playwright George Tabori about 10 years ago in Munich. It follows the life of the young Hitler as a struggling artist in Vienna and his relationship with a Jewish clochard and the slow emergence of his anti-semitism. I wonder if 'Hoffmann' is based on this play, as they both sound VERY VERY similar in structure. Or if it is a rip-off....
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This has been a really good Talkback, but I do want to point out that this movie, at least as Harry describes it, is not a "biopic" of Hitler. It sounds like Hoffmann is the main character and that Hitler is one minor character that he interacts with. I do not think that any serious biopic can be made about Hitler for a long, long time. It is simply too controversial for the simple fact that, for Hitler to be the main character in a film, he would have to be given dimensions that most people (myself included) are not comfortable attributing to him. Frankly, he would have to be made sympathetic, tragic character, and I don't believe that can happen considering that he is now the utmost example of what we call "evil" in history. In retrospect, I have to agree with the people who disagree with comparing Hitler to Anakin (or to any fictional character). I even did this myself in my above posting. But Darth Vader was an imaginary villain who killed imaginary people and undergoes an imaginary redemption. Hitler killed millions of REAL people, including many of my relatives. To compare him to a movie villain, particularly one who is as "beloved" as Vader is, is just not accurate.
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Yeah, this site is so lame. It's not like Harry ever gets any news or info. months before any traditional journalist does. Ass. There's always gotta be on in talkback,usually more than one.
If it bugs you so much, then quit reading it! If it's so lame, then you are even more lame for reading it. "Who's more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?"
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people have a strange and almost perverted fasicnation with hitler, the holocaust, WWII in general. There have been genocides throughout history (read the Bible, there is a particularly vivid section describing the Israelites committing mass murder against the Philistines, something like every last man, woman and child), several of them have happened this century, and to a larger scale (i.e., more people slaughtered and put in camps) then the holocaust. Yet, almost every school kid knows who hitler was, and what a terrible guy he was. How many know about biafra? or pol pot? or stalin? or The Genocide? or even the recent mass murders in africa? I find it somewhat unsettling that as we approach the end of this century, people continue to talk about this event, often to the exclusion of others, as if human kind actually learned something from this that it did not learn before (and has not learned since). My point is not that we should ignore the holocaust or hitler, not at all. My point is in concentrating so much on the particular demons of one guy, and one event, we make it sound like this is an abberration in human history, and not, in fact the norm. (ask any of the People about genocide, this country was founded on it ;-)
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I think the poster who refered to being sick of historical revisionism has to stop and think about what he has said; all history is revisionistic, it's the nature of the beast. I agree that Hollywood bends the "known" history of a situation or a character (Braveheart leaps to mind) but any history book is interpretive results based on incomplete findings. Take the war in Vietnam, we still don't, and won't, know the true story about what happened politically and militarily (did I make that words up?). We have the stories of individual soldiers but trauma and post-war syndrome have blurred those stories to the point that two soldiers at the exact same battle describe different events proceeding, during and after the battle. Hell, the States still claim victory in the Korean Conflict and if that's not revisionist I don't know what is.
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yup that sounds pretty controversial, but will it top the hype and controversy that surrounded Dreamworks' big 1998 feature, Pauly the talking parrot?
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Hitler was pretty fucked up but hanging the entire second world war on him alone is laughable. We fought Germany and Japan folks. Plain and simple. When people like him find power it's because the people like what they have to say. Good or bad. Now that these nations are our allies it's just impolite to refer to them as former enemies I guess. We're still doing it today. It's not the war with Iraq, it's 'the war against Saddam'. We're not bombing Yugoslavia, we're bombing 'Milosevic'. Hell, we don't even call it 'war' anymore. Somewhere God laughs until He pisses his pants...
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I was amazed when I read the article reagarding this movie. It's shocking that this movie would even be made in the first place. Not on account of any the painful memories which the movie will no doubt give rise to, but due to the way it makes us swallow the idea of evil. It's easy to say "Hitler was monster." It's easy to do, but it's also an excuse. If one says that he was "just that way," then one doesn't need to try to wrap one's mind around it. There's nothing to understand. It's a frightnening thought that Hitler may have had a normal existence up to a point, experienced the same things that we do, laughed and maybe even loved. And still ended up the bunker. By refusing to admit that, we demean and trivilize all that happened.
I've not seen it and won't until it's in the theatres, but it already makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
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Sounds slightly intriguing, although we all know Dreamworks' record is fairly spotted. Oscar calibre film here (Saving Private Ryan), Cheech Marin film there (Paulie). If Speilberg is involved (which is unlikely, what're the odds that he'd do a film based around personas of World War 2?), we're more than likely to get a pretty gosh diddily darned good result.
-Dark Lord of the Sith Boner -
Although it may be that genetics figure into the equation somehow, I have a strong distaste for the notion that evil is somehow innate, that it begins and ends with your genes. This distaste arises from two things. Firstly, if we tell ourselves it is genetic, we deny our own responsibility for our actions. "I didn't mean to, but my nature made me do it!" Bull. Shit. YOU did it. Your genes did not make you do it. Secondly, if we decide that evil is a product of our genetic heritage, then there is no hope for maturity, except through the slow process of evolution. But if the source of our most hateful choices lies in our conditioning, rather than in an immutable code, then there is hope for a better world much sooner than in, say, hundreds of thousands of years. No one can be certain either way, and that includes me. Nonetheless, I have problems with assertions that it's all in your essential intrinsic nature, because it's a cop-out from personal responsibility, and it's a denial of any hope for change. I therefore refuse to believe that Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, Richard Nixon, George Bush, Benito Mussolini, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler, or any other mass murderer is innately evil. There must be more to it than that.
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Lets review: Star Wars: Episode 1 was about a child who was believed to be the chosen one, turned out bad, but then in Return of the Jedi kills the Emperor and proves to be the chosen one. The Holocaust was started by an unhappy, disturbed artist that was never a chosen one, but a sick genius (when I say genius, I am in no way praising him. He really is a genius. Anybody with that powerful of a speaking ability is in no way under average.) that influinced a country to hate a group of minorities and backgrounds. Adolf Hitler never gave birth to a child (for my knowledge) that grew up to overthrow the "dark side". And Adolf Hitler never ended up throwing all the nazis over a bridge or cliff. Maybe I am just being a little to over-critical over the Star Wars comparison. I personally think that saying it stories explaining how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader would be like the trilogy of sounds insensitive, as if the entire Holocaust is just a fun little story that has sequels and prequels. The comparison is right in some places, and it's more of a fault toward the screenwriters side than the writer of this article.
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This sounds like a great idea. But theres no way in hell, Dreamworks could pull this off. Spielberg and his little studio specialize in popcorn movie fluff. This film is way beyond them, way too deep. Give it to Miramax and have..Terry Gilliam direct or Jean-Marie Jeunet and Marc Caro. Filmmakers who still have an edge to them.
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RICHARD NIXON??? Give me a break, if it wasn't for him the U.S. and China would have wiped each other out by now. How can you even say that? You prick.
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why it is that Qui Gonn died in the battle but didn't return back as some apparition like his padawan will in the future?
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Long before Hitlker he had led a rampage of pillage,rape,murder and torture on such a scale as to be incomparable in all the known history of mankind(even Hitler),travellers would go round the towns he had pillage years later because of the skeletons and stench ...And he wasn't Gengis or some Assyrian king(easily the easiest to blme now isn't it).No, this guy was the hero of most western archaelogists.This guy was Alexandr the Great.Maybe a movie can bemade about his dysfunctional relationship with the his fdad and his 'weird' mom!Remeber tthe plank people and maybe we can see clearer:)
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That's the kind of stuff they tell screenwriters to think about when creating movie characters. What is the goal of our hero? What is the quest? How will he get there? What stands in his way? A movie about the young struggling-artist Hitler has GREAT potential, because we tend to idealize the struggling-artist figure in biopics. The two biggest obstacles for the young Hitler were: 1. The usual trappings of the "artist's life" (poverty, failure, loneliness), and 2. Hitler's father. I don't think anyone else here has mentioned Hitler's intense hatred of his father, who wanted Adolf to be a civil servant and fought his artistic ambitions at every step. Hitler had the resolve to fight his father's will--the same resolve that would serve him well in politics and land-grabbing. In any other movie this father-son conflict would have us siding irrevocably with the sensitive artistic son against the domineering Dad. The irony of this "inspirational" story being applied to Hitler's youth is very daring, and brilliant. If they pull it off--and we're talking miracle here--it'll land somewhere between "Citizen Kane" and "Grand Illusion."
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I may be too late for anyone to read this, but Kurt Vonnegut's book Deadeye Dick touches on the same premise as Hoffman. Anyone read that?
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I know Hitler has been portrayed before (from "Last Crusade" to Hopkins in "The Bunker") but personally, if I was a star of any magnitude, I would stray away from playing the most evil man in history. It's like what I said to myself after reading (or trying to read) "American Psycho"..."if they make this movie anything like this book, it'll ruin Christian Bale's career for all-time." -Colin
(http://www.lclark.edu/~ryono)
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Ha! I wonder how Dustin feels about this lil project?....
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In "Hitler: The Last Ten Days" (which wasn't a very good film)... Guiness portrayed Hitler with perfection! Not only was he a dead-ringer with the mustache, but he even had the gestures and hand movements down! Now, he made that movie... so I'm sure there are good experienced actors out there who would jump for the chance to play our good friend Hitler.
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Jul 20, 1999 8:39:29 PM CDT
Alexander single-handedly created the largest dictator-ruled kin
by quentin2
He conquered other cultures, and brought them together under his rule. Now he was one evil power-hungry motherfucker.... but Hitler did conquer all of mainland Europe at one point... which was under Nazi-control at the peak of Germany's expansion. Even some countries had puppet governments controlled by the Nazis.... But Alexander can't really compare to Hitler... Hitler had INSANE evil...he wasn't just greedy. He was a psycho with vision. He stupidly wasted man-power and German resources to exterminate an entire race, which is something Alexander wouldn't have cared about...he probably would've just enslaved any races he though "inferior". If Hitler hadn't initiated the Holocaust, his chances in the war would've been greatly increased.
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is only a matter of degrees.like night and day,good and evil.....
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I think it would be great if this movie was made but I'm sure the studio will mess it up somehow. There's a lot of obstacles...first of all how do you even begin to tell the story without the movie ending and everyone saying "Oh yeah..like THAT made sense." Next you have to realize there will be a lot of opposition to this movie, especailly on how Hitler is viewed in the movie. And finally...you can count on the studio and distrubiters balking. I would be very interested in seeing this, but sadly in this age where it seems that political correctness overrules everything and the MPAA playes a bigger part than ever, sadly, I cannot see this movie ever being made
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My point was exactly that Hitler was such a collection of contradictions that it is astounding, but to not include all the good with all the bad, wrapped up into one package that somehow managed to get an entire race of people behind him, and almost conquer the world, I think is selling the film short. Obviously the V2 rocket didn't do all that much for Germany, it's range was limited to Europe, which was already pretty much levelled, but to deny its immeasurable impact on modern warfare and space programs is ludicrous. When I claimed that Hitler was a military genius, I never meant to indicate that he didn't make any mistakes, I was merely pointing out that in one fell swoop, in the space of one battle, in the attack on Poland, Hitler unleashed modern warfare on the world...
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Jul 24, 1999 11:33:11 PM CDT
Hitler's TRUE inspiration--completely, 100% politically incorrec
by frank rizzo
One part of Hitler's story that absolutely, 100% WILL NOT be included is his dabbling in occult arts, and his utter fascination with the writings of Helena Blavatsky. He carried around her book, "The Secret Doctrine" at all times. She actually wrote the book as a chaneller for her "spirit guide", and in it she writes doctrines such as root race theories, reincarnation as an excuse for "cleansing of bad karma" and "escorting spiritually underdeveloped people out of this dimension". In other words, exterminate the Jews! Why is this relevant? As Sirius said--look at politicians today--many are spouting the same big brother philosophy! And virtually every modern politician of the last 20+ years has been heavily into the New Age movement. So what, you say? The New Age movement was ALSO founded by the same writings of Blavatsky, the same author who considers Lucifer god. If you think Hitler can't happen again, you are wrong. Mein Kampf is full of thinly veiled threats against the Jews, all a person had to do was read between the lines. Most politicians of both parties today spout gibberish about "globalism" and "ushering in a new age"--guess what, that gibberish actually means shit! Hitler's goal was a thousand year Reich headed by a loving dictator; the New Age's goal is a new (astrological, 2000-year) age ushered in, with a one-world government and religion, run by the benevolent "new age messiah", ie, the antichrist. This is their words, not mine! Moral of the story: Wake up and read the news. Slimy politicians have learned that the best way to keep a secret is to say it openly but casually...read between the lines.
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hoffman is a Jewish man....i mean my last name is hoffman and hoffman is a german name. i'm confused.
*beth* -
i wonder when the movie will be released in the states
*beth*
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