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Movie Takes
Valkyrie
It could have been worse.
My first impression of Valkyrie — starring, as everyone knows, Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg — is how unexpectedly not-awful it was. It was not only the presence in it of Mr. Cruise which led me to expect it to be awful, though that would have been enough by itself, but also its troubled production history, including a suspicious reluctance of the producers to release it for some months after it was completed. Unfortunately, not-awful isn’t the same as good. Or even not bad. Wisely, I think, the writer and the director, Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer respectively, avoid anything that might suggest depth or thoughtfulness. Instead, they make a straightforward, tick-tock action thriller out of it, like an episode of 24. Will the plot to kill Hitler and so to stop the appalling carnage of the Second World War in mid-1944 succeed? It must be exciting for the large part of the intended audience who, so the film-makers appear to be betting, don’t know the answer to that question already.
Messrs. McQuarrie and Singer have worked together before on X-Men and The Usual Suspects, and Valkyrie has some of the slick, surface brilliance and absence of depth of the superhero movie, as well as the obscure plotting of the sub-standard thriller. But in the end — or even in the beginning — the movie can’t quite get away from the obtrusive absence of what has been left out, which is the natural drama of the situation as the real-life people it is representing would have experienced it. Here, for example, it is treated as a matter of course for a serving officer of the Wehrmacht to betray his oath to Hitler and the Reich because for us, of course, there is no problem about such a betrayal. We can take the evil of Hitler and the Nazis for granted. A thousand movies, perhaps more, have made the solid gold Nazi wickedness we all depend on bankable in any cultural emporium on earth without any tedious exposition or moral debate. The real life Claus von Stauffenberg could not have relied upon it the way Mr. Cruise does.
Nor, for that matter, could any of the large number of his fellow high-ranking officers here represented as having joined in his plot against the Führer. The movie makes no effort to take their point of view, let alone that of the officers, few though they be on this showing, who remain loyal. We see next to nothing of the inward struggles of men bred up to honor who plot an act of what they themselves calmly call treason. No one struggles with the betrayal or the moral or honorable questions it must have raised for his historical counterpart. Instead, everyone with more than a minute or two of screen-time except for Hitler himself (David Bamber), a shadowy Goebbels (Harvey Friedman) and Major Otto Remer (Thomas Kretschmann) of the Wachregiment Berlin or home guard, who is called in to crush the coup attempt, takes the easy, post-war view that Hitler is a monster who has to be stopped. We can’t help thinking that maybe they should have thought of that a bit sooner.
Yet, as I may have mentioned before in a movie review or two, my Golden Rule of reviewing is that you shouldn’t criticize a movie — or anything else for that matter — for what it isn’t but only for what it is. They might have made a better movie if they had tried to add in some element of moral drama, but then they might have really screwed it up, too. Some have praised the movie for reminding us that not all Germans were Nazis — or, as the film itself puts it, “We have to show the world that not all of us were like him,” meaning Hitler. Others have pointed out that the movies were making this point almost as soon as the war was over and that even during the war people in the allied countries didn’t believe that all Germans were like him. I myself cannot see any broader significance to the film, and thought it was at its worst when it tried to reach for such significance.
At one point, for instance, one of Stauffenberg’s co-conspirators, Major-General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), says to him: “God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find just ten righteous men. I have a feeling that in Germany, it may come down to one.” Oh, I get it! Tomk’s the beautiful victim-hero, the one righteous man — and who’s counting the efforts of Tresckow himself and the other conspirators who outrank him? — who is set up to be martyred for his people and, indeed, all mankind. The Christ-conceit is another contribution, along with the chiseled profile, the snazzy German uniform and the eyepatch — although an historically accurate one — of the celebrity star.
As a result the movie becomes way too obviously a vehicle for Tom Cruise to look cool in. Still, on the positive side, even though I did know how the plot to kill Hitler came out — Spoiler Alert! It failed — I found myself briefly caught up in the excitement of its moment-to-moment working out. That has to be worth something, as do fine performances by Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Terence Stamp as the generals Olbricht, Fromm and Beck, respectively — even if it means taking Tom Cruise seriously in the role of one of 20th-century history’s iconic figures and a moral exemplum. That’s why they call it a willing suspension of disbelief, I believe.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
frost| 2.2.09 @ 7:40AM
Valid comments, I guess. But, no, I wasn't even slightly tempted to see this thing (even though I'm a "student" of WWII history), mostly because I've seen Cruise as a (ha-ha!) lawyer, and (HA-HA-HA!) a (giggle) doctor in that awful "Eyes Wide Shut" fiasco.
Nah, like so many others, read the book(s).
In fact, as an aside of sorts, as I recall, the only movie which topped the book was "Jaws."
Thunderbottom| 2.2.09 @ 10:29AM
First off, if the movie had used Georg Dreyman, the German actor who had played the part of the East German playright, Sebastian Koch, in the excellent movie, "The Lives of Others", that probably would have improved the movie immensely (the guy LOOKS and sounds the part - SO much more than Tom Cruise). But, as Mr. Bowman has noted, the movie would still have been saddled with the producers' and director's view that it was a "given" that a number of high-ranking Wermacht officers would plot to kill Hitler "because he was EEVILLE". Since 1936, ALL members of the German armed forces - officers and other ranks - were obligated to swear a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. For ANY officer, especially a high-ranking one, to break such an oath would have triggered a great deal of painful introspection. While there were anti-Nazi elements in the German armed forces even before the war, the plot to kill Hitler and remove the Nazis from power didn't gain serious traction until after the disastrous reversals at Stalingrad and in North Africa and Sicily. Cynics have remarked that the Generals' plot against Hitler wasn't so much to "save Germany" as it was to save their own asses. It was said that, by removing Hitler and the Nazis, the generals hoped that they could then negotiate a separate truce with the Western Allies and thereby turn their attentions to stopping the Soviet juggernaut on their eastern front. As Frost said in the previous post, skip the movie - read the books.
Philoktetes| 2.2.09 @ 11:07AM
I liked the movie. I didn't think it was boring. I thought that the whole movie had a mature ambience about it, not trying to appeal to fifteen year old adolescents.
Alan Brooks| 2.2.09 @ 11:12AM
J.Bowman made best point ever made concerning nazis: the outrage is bankable; we all feel good we are not nazis, that guilt-out-of-jail-free card can sustain us our whole short lives.
Even Stalin, who was much more evil, could console himself in 1953 by thinking "i triggered the starvation of millions in the holodor, facilitated the Cominterns of the '30s, arrested millions in the purges, invaded Finland, eastern Poland; helped along the Greek Civil War... then destabilized dozens of states all around the world, and eventually helped north korea invade the south, but at least i wasn't Hitler!"
Frank Natoli| 2.2.09 @ 3:21PM
When Mr. Bowman notes that a critic must criticize what a film is, not what a film isn't, he perhaps unnecessarily ties an arm behind his back. There is quite a bit of first person history of the discussions and planning leading up to the July 20 plot. Hans Bernd Gisevius "To the Bitter End" is a superb first person account, including the direct contact Gisevius had with Stauffenberg, not all of which was complimentary [and none of which present day Germans are aware of]. Gisevius himself survived only by the direct intercession of OSS Bern station chief Allen Dulles, later Director of Central Intelligence. Should the writers have put some of those nerve wracking discussions that Gisevius had with Stauffenberg, and other conspirators, into Valkyrie?
The stereotypical movie audience is presumed to go into deep sleep, not to awaken until the final credits, never to recommend the film to others, if any "thinking" is injected into the film. Is it a stereotype, or is it a damning but accurate assessment of today's audiences?
Action and thinking are not necessarily mutually exclusive. "The Great Raid", the story of the U.S. Army Ranger rescue of the last survivors of the Bataan Death March from the Cabanatuan Camp on Luzon, is a case in point. That film has quite a bit of thinking plus arguably the best action/assault scene ever filmed.
If the writers target the least common mental denominator, it is by choice, not necessity.
Pingback| 2.2.09 @ 5:38PM
Valkyrie « Depravity links to this page.
Paul Windels| 2.2.09 @ 5:41PM
I enjoyed the movie and heartily recommend it to all, including WWII buffs.
I'm sorry James Bowman doesn't like Tom Cruise's acting. While I have never been a huge fan of Mr. Cruise's either, I thought his performance as Stauffenberg was quite adequate. To add more navel-gazing moralizing seems hardly necessary for anyone not totally ignorant of the horrors of the Nazi regime. More important, however, we all ought to thank Mr. Cruise for making the effort to tell this story in a major movie, something nobody else bothered to do in the 64 years since it happened.
Mr. Bowman's objection to the use of suspense in a movie about a historical incident also misses the mark. I can think of countless examples of the use of suspense in dramatic productions whose plots were well known to the audience going at least as far back as the Oedipus Tyrannos. A friendly hint, Mr. Bowman: if that's the way you feel, you should give The Longest Day a miss.
S.L. Toddard| 2.2.09 @ 6:32PM
So, was the plot against Hitler successful or not?
Is it a true story?
Paul Windels| 2.2.09 @ 6:38PM
S P O I L E R
S.L. -- True story. The plot came close but unfortunately not close enough. You can get the full story in many WWII histories or by googling Stauffenberg. Cheers.
WilliamInWien| 2.2.09 @ 9:38PM
Well, Tom plays "Tom" very well, but not much else. Are there no other 'actors out there? I am of the opinion that Hollywood should be banned from making historical films-better to stay with fiction so nobody will confuse "history" with "Holywood". Dismal film despite the factual material that was available. Next for Tom: The Life and Times of Boris Yeltsin. He may have to gain a few pounds to lend authenticity to the film.
Ark Ashamed of Bill| 2.3.09 @ 9:56AM
The normally astute Mr. Bowman misses the principal flaw of Valkyrie, namely that if the assassination had succeeded World War II would have ended soon afterwards. This ignores the political realities of the time, including Franklin Roosevelt’s demand for an unconditional German surrender and Roosevelt’s pandering of Stalin. While a German successor regime might have surrendered in the West, which Roosevelt would not have allowed, surrender to Stalin seems unlikely. Industrial Germany was the jewel in the Marxist crown, one which the Soviets coveted because making it Communist would vindicate their ideology. Stalin also had a far more sinister reason for taking eastern Germany, namely the nuclear physics research in Berlin as well as uranium deposits.
Stephen Marlowe’s excellent thriller of an American agent and a Soviet agent attempting to stop the Valkyrie plot, “The Valkyrie Encounter” (1978), provides plenty of discussion on reasons why both the West and Stalin wanted to scotch it.
Pingback| 2.17.09 @ 5:10PM
Valkyrie » The American Spectator : Valkyrie links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Tony Gray| 11.16.09 @ 8:50AM
I agree That's why they call it a willing suspension of disbelief.
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fatburningfurnace | 12.8.09 @ 3:12AM
As Frost said in the previous post, skip the movie - read the books. This is true, but as Valkyrie is not so bad.
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At one point, for instance, one of Stauffenberg's co-conspirators, Major-General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), says to him: "God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find just ten righteous men.