Valkyrie from a German Critics point of view

[iaxiloll]

Cross Post WWP

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/297-...uffenberg-real-hero-because-36786/#post705462

It was easy to be a Nazi or to become a Nazi.
Today it is easy to become a scientologist or to stay in Scientology.
To blow - that is heroism.

Those who deny do not know seduction.
Or he was born later. or he was so lucky to pass by when the body-router was occupied because he just had another person as victim.
(Or he is still in the cult and all ex-members are defectors to him.)

Here comes a very good article about the real scientological mistake in the valkyrie-movie.

Someone should translate the whole piece into good english


Wuchtige Harmlosigkeit
Berliner Zeitung 17.1.2009
Bryan Singers Film "Operation Walküre" zeigt das Attentat vom 20. Juli 1944, aber erklärt es nicht
Christian Bommarius

.... Er macht nichts falsch, aber der Film selbst ist falsch. Und überflüssig. Hätten sich Regisseur und Drehbuchautoren nicht nur für Tom Cruise als Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und für authentische Stiefelwichse interessiert, sondern für das Attentat, dann hätten sie zumindest auf eine Frage eine Antwort geben müssen: Worin bestand die Bedeutung des Attentats vom 20. Juli 1944 und seines Scheiterns?
....

Ein erfolgreicher Staatsstreich war also die letzte Chance, den von Goebbels verkündeten und von der Mehrheit der Deutschen gewollten "totalen Krieg" im letzten Augenblick noch zu verhindern. Nichts davon erzählt der Film, nichts vom Holocaust, nichts vom Vernichtungskrieg, nichts vom Untergang des alten Europa, aber alles von den persönlichen Schicksalen Stauffenbergs und seiner Mit-Verschwörer. Und so, wie sich der Regisseur und seine Drehbuchautoren nicht für die fürchterlichen Konsequenzen des gescheiterten Staatsstreichs interessieren, so wenig betrachten sie die Herkunft der Verschwörer und deren Motive.

Der Film zeigt nur die Tat und ihr Misslingen, nur die Täter und ihr Scheitern. Es gibt kein Davor und kein Danach. So glatt und harmlos, wie sich Tom Cruise durch die Rolle Stauffenbergs laviert, so glatt und harmlos wird Stauffenberg hier vorgeführt, ohne Ursprung, ohne Entwicklung, ohne Brüche. Er betritt diesen Film so, als hätte er das Leben selbst bereits als entschlossener Hitler-Gegner und hochmoralischer Bombenleger betreten,
(Cruise said, as a child, he wanted to kill Hitler)
als Offizier im Afrika-Feldzug, der den Krieg nicht führen, sondern nur beenden will, als lebens- und todesmutiger Schwadroneur, der in der Wüstensonne lieber von Demokratie und Rechtsstaat plaudern würde, statt unter dem Himmel Tunesiens vor feindlichen Fliegern in Deckung zu gehen (dafür bezahlt er mit seiner rechten Hand, zwei Fingern seiner linken und mit einem Auge). Aber so schmalspurig, so uninteressant, so ungebrochen ist nur der Schauspieler Tom Cruise. Stauffenberg war es nicht.

Er war nicht nur ein hochbegabter Karriere-Offizier, Jahrgangsbester in der Offiziersprüfung 1929, er war auch überzeugter Anhänger Hitlers und beteiligt an der militärischen Ausbildung der Mitglieder der Sturmabteilung (SA)....

Und es war der republikfeindliche, antidemokratische Korps-Geist, der die Offiziere der Wehrmacht - also auch Stauffenberg - in Wort und Tat zu willigen Handlangern Adolf Hitlers machte.

.....
Aber dass es Stauffenberg gelang, sich von seinem eigenen Denken zu befreien und dafür in den Tod zu gehen, mit seiner Herkunft und seiner Biografie um den höchsten Preis zu brechen, macht ihn zu einer imposanten, zu einer ungeheuren Figur.

Mit der wuchtigen Harmlosigkeit dieser Verfilmung ist ihr jedenfalls nicht beizukommen.


Full Text here:
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/222-deutsch/die-walkuere-reitet-ins-laecherliche-32764/2/#post701472

Translation by iaxiloll

.....He does nothing wrong but the film itself is wrong and a totally unnecessary. If the director and scriptwriters had refrained from concentrating on Tom Cruise as Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his authentic bootfap and had concentrated on the assassination attempt, they would have at least bin able to answer one question. What was the significance of the assassination attempt on the 20 of July 1944 and its failure?

A successful coup at the last moment was the last chance to stop the total war proclaimed by Goebbels and wanted by the general populous . There was nothing about this in Tom Cruises Movie Nothing about the Holocaust, nothing about a war based on senseless destruction, nothing about the demise of old Europe. but practically everything about Stauffenbergs personal fate and that of his fellow Conspirators.

So the lack of interest granted to the consequences of a failed assassination by the director and script writer was also further displayed by the lack of interests about the conspirators origins and motives.

The film only shows the attempt and how it failed, only the conspirators and the attempt. Nothing before nothing after. The smoothness with which Cruise glides through his role is the same smoothness and harmlessness with which Stauffenberg is portrayed. Without an origin, no development of his determination and no downfalls. It is as if Stauffenberg was born a Hitler hating morally driven explosives expert.
(Cruise said, as a child, he wanted to kill Hitler)
as an officer in the Africa corps that did not want to fight, but wanted to end the war. As a die hard desert rat that would rather talk about democracy in the heat of the desert rather than duck for cover when being attacked by enemy planes descending from the roasting Tunisian skies (and pays for this by loosing his right hand, two fingers on his left hand and his right eye.)

But the fact is that only Tom Cruise is that narrow minded and uninteresting, not Stauffenberg.
He was not only a very skilled officer, he was also he was also the highest scoring officer in the academy in 1929. He was a determined Hitler follower , and also participated in Hitlers elite troupe training Sturmabteilung (SA)
It was also the antidemocratic movements against the Hitler regime, that made the officers of the Wehrmacht inducing Stauffenberg to Hitlers puppets.

The fact that Staufenberg managed to break away from hie beliefs and former principles and paid the ultimate price, with his origin and biography still managing to make a decision as drastic as he did makes him a very impressive and enormous figure

This harmless shallow film does not come close to the original figure, not by a long shot.

 

[Alanzo]

I think this critic nails it.

By not showing the fervent Nazi that Stauffenberg was BEFORE he tried to kill Hitler, Cruise is avoiding his own "case" as a fervent Scientologist who has not yet "cogged" on the futility and destruction that being an ideologue causes.

What would make a fervent Nazi turn around and try to kill the leader of the Nazi Party?

Now THAT would be an interesting, multi-layered, multi-dimensional character in a many-layered movie.

But Tom doesn't have it in him: Yet.

 

[uniquemand]

I thought that was present in the movie. Stauffenberg was represented as being a patriot. A man who believed in the cause of National Socialism, but who thought Hitler had gone crazy, if not always been crazy. Stauffenberg didn't object (at least from the film) to Nazism on ideological grounds, but instead thought that Hitler had become a threat to their cause, by making stupid strategical and tactical decisions.

If Cruise thought Miscavige was making stupid strategic/tactical moves, perhaps he'd want to take him out. As it is, he seems to be in agreement with Miscavige, both ideologically and strategically.