Today I’m going to try to describe a nearly wordless book about an artist I’m not all that familiar with, by an artist I’m not all that familiar with. If I descend into potted history and bland statements, that will be why.
George Grosz – I probably could force Blogger to display the original German spelling of his name, but I don’t have the energy for that this morning – was a German painter and caricaturist of the early 20th century (1893-1959). As you probably can guess from the intersection of the time, place, and field, Grosz was artistically radical and politically engaged: he was strongly anti-Nazi from the earliest days, moderately Communist, and generally anti-clerical and anti-“high society.” He escaped Germany with his family just as Hitler rose to power, living in the US for the last twenty-five years of his life before dying in an...
George Grosz – I probably could force Blogger to display the original German spelling of his name, but I don’t have the energy for that this morning – was a German painter and caricaturist of the early 20th century (1893-1959). As you probably can guess from the intersection of the time, place, and field, Grosz was artistically radical and politically engaged: he was strongly anti-Nazi from the earliest days, moderately Communist, and generally anti-clerical and anti-“high society.” He escaped Germany with his family just as Hitler rose to power, living in the US for the last twenty-five years of his life before dying in an...
- 9/13/2023
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
A double bill of films by Aleksandr Dovzhenko are showing April and May, 2020 on Mubi in most countries.Above: EarthIt’s disconcerting that the collected writings in English of one of the world’s greatest filmmakers currently sells for $852 on Amazon—or a whopping $980, if you opt for the paperback—while the only American book about him downgrades his work’s artistic value in its very title (Vance Kepley’s 1985 In the Service of the State: The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko). Look him up on Wikipedia, and you find that his name is shared by a poker player and a psychiatrist—hardly fit company for the epic, poetic Alexander Dovzhenko (1894-1956), a pagan mystic whose masterful films look as wildly experimental, as dreamlike, as hysterically funny, as fiercely tragic, and as beautiful today as they did a century ago.A Cold War casualty, often defined in the West as a...
- 4/21/2020
- MUBI
An utterly bizarre, frequently grotesque, occasionally obscene singularity, Polish artist Mariusz Wilczynski’s abrasive animation “Kill It and Leave This Town” exists so far outside the realm of the expected, the acceptable and the neatly comprehensible that it acts as a striking reminder of just how narrow that realm can be. Occupying a conceptual space several universes away from “reality,” the scratchy, hand-drawn interior epic is alarmingly niche in appeal, but if you can slip into that tiny schism, it certainly rewards with one of the most nightmarishly original dystopian visions you are likely to encounter this year.
Willfully lo-fi, rendered in often crude black and white lines and smudges occasionally accented with tiny spots of color — a pilot light, a row of cigarette packs, a fizzing neon sign in the shape of a ram — the film is noted animator Wilczyński’s first feature, but has been in the works for 11 years,...
Willfully lo-fi, rendered in often crude black and white lines and smudges occasionally accented with tiny spots of color — a pilot light, a row of cigarette packs, a fizzing neon sign in the shape of a ram — the film is noted animator Wilczyński’s first feature, but has been in the works for 11 years,...
- 3/10/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Adolf Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, once said that to understand Hitler, you have to understand that he was an artist first. This year, an exhibit of Hitler's paintings at a Massachusetts museum took up that quest. Now, delving further into this previously unexplored territory, writer-director Menno Meyjes seeks out the man within the monster in "Max", the story of Hitler's attempt to establish himself as a painter.
There will be those, of course, who cannot abide any attempt to humanize the 20th century's major villain. Yet in his directorial debut, Meyjes, who has written such films as "The Color Purple" and "The Siege", rewards adventurous filmgoers with a speculative fiction that makes connections and provokes ideas worth considering about the emotional makeup of this tyrant. Lions Gate has a solid art house entry in "Max", albeit one that needs very careful handling.
In exploring Hitler's flirtation with modernism and the notion, following the brutality of World War I, that art can energize the human spirit, Menno shows how art and politics fuse together in Hitler's mind: Politics, Hitler comes to believe, is the new art.
The story is of a fictional friendship between two war veterans in 1918 Munich. Hitler, played with mesmerizing intensity by Noah Taylor, is a ragged, emotionally scarred corporal who comes home to nothing save his art. Max Rothman, played by suave and worldly John Cusack, is a wealthy German Jew who becomes an art dealer when the war costs him his right arm and his own painting career.
Max fervently believes in the new art. In a vast factory he has turned into a gallery, Max exhibits paintings by George Grosz and other modernists -- the kind of art Hitler will one day label as "decadent." Max maintains a solid bourgeois facade with a loving wife (Molly Parker) and family yet maintains a mistress, an artist named Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), and acts as friend and mentor to struggling painters.
In Hitler, Max sees marginal artistic ability but recognizes a despair and passion that could fuel his art. Put that "pent-up stuff" on the canvas, he advises Hitler. But art must battle politics for Hitler's soul. He paints less and writes more. Despite his friendship with Max, a Jew, Hitler flirts with anti-Semitism, a kind of tired thinking Max labels as "kitsch."
But Hitler, who sees insults in everything and nurses grudges with perverse delight, cannot let go of a theory that so marvelously captures audience attention in his speeches. When Max's friends and especially Liselore react to Hitler's vulgarity, Max dismisses this. "He had a bad war", Max jokes.
Taylor's Hitler is a German Everyman, still smarting with envy and frustration over the war. A vegetarian who neither drinks nor smokes, Hitler uses anger as a kind of narcotic. Lacking his trademark mustache but with a shaggy wave of hair and a face constantly contorted with rage, Taylor cuts a Brechtian figure, half cartoon and half demented artist, whose creative frenzy blooms only in public expression.
Cusack's Max is a remnant of a dying social order, blind to the threat in his friend's anti-Semitism. Max has genuine affection for this troubled artist, but Liselore sees Hitler for what he is and is repulsed by him. Ulrich Thomsen plays a German army officer who quietly battles Max for heart and mind of this potential leader.
The chilling notion promulgated in "Max" is that aspects of the modern movement in art and architecture work their way into the Nazi aesthetics. Art at least partially teaches Hitler ways to gain power through design and oratory. Witnessing Hitler sketch his new world order with its autobahns, uniforms and massive neo-classical buildings sends chills down the spine.
"Max" was shot in Hungary, which gives the production design an Eastern European look that works well for 1918 Munich. In the dilapidated buildings, the moody industrial gallery and the gold and brown tones in the Hapsburg interiors, one senses a revolution under way years before it actually happens.
MAX
Lions Gate Films
Lions Gate Films and Pathe present a JAP Films/AAMP/Natural Nylon II co-production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Menno Meyjes
Producers: Andras Hamori, Patricia Kruijer, Scott McLean
Executive producers: Jonathan Debin, Dietmar Guntsche, Eberhard Junkersdorf
Director of photography: Lajos Koltai
Production designer: Ben Van Os
Music: Dan Jones, Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Dien van Straalen
Editor: Chris Wyatt
Cast:
Max Rothman: John Cusack
Adolf Hitler: Noah Taylor
Liselore: Leelee Sobieski
Nina Rothman: Molly Parker
Capt Mayr: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
There will be those, of course, who cannot abide any attempt to humanize the 20th century's major villain. Yet in his directorial debut, Meyjes, who has written such films as "The Color Purple" and "The Siege", rewards adventurous filmgoers with a speculative fiction that makes connections and provokes ideas worth considering about the emotional makeup of this tyrant. Lions Gate has a solid art house entry in "Max", albeit one that needs very careful handling.
In exploring Hitler's flirtation with modernism and the notion, following the brutality of World War I, that art can energize the human spirit, Menno shows how art and politics fuse together in Hitler's mind: Politics, Hitler comes to believe, is the new art.
The story is of a fictional friendship between two war veterans in 1918 Munich. Hitler, played with mesmerizing intensity by Noah Taylor, is a ragged, emotionally scarred corporal who comes home to nothing save his art. Max Rothman, played by suave and worldly John Cusack, is a wealthy German Jew who becomes an art dealer when the war costs him his right arm and his own painting career.
Max fervently believes in the new art. In a vast factory he has turned into a gallery, Max exhibits paintings by George Grosz and other modernists -- the kind of art Hitler will one day label as "decadent." Max maintains a solid bourgeois facade with a loving wife (Molly Parker) and family yet maintains a mistress, an artist named Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), and acts as friend and mentor to struggling painters.
In Hitler, Max sees marginal artistic ability but recognizes a despair and passion that could fuel his art. Put that "pent-up stuff" on the canvas, he advises Hitler. But art must battle politics for Hitler's soul. He paints less and writes more. Despite his friendship with Max, a Jew, Hitler flirts with anti-Semitism, a kind of tired thinking Max labels as "kitsch."
But Hitler, who sees insults in everything and nurses grudges with perverse delight, cannot let go of a theory that so marvelously captures audience attention in his speeches. When Max's friends and especially Liselore react to Hitler's vulgarity, Max dismisses this. "He had a bad war", Max jokes.
Taylor's Hitler is a German Everyman, still smarting with envy and frustration over the war. A vegetarian who neither drinks nor smokes, Hitler uses anger as a kind of narcotic. Lacking his trademark mustache but with a shaggy wave of hair and a face constantly contorted with rage, Taylor cuts a Brechtian figure, half cartoon and half demented artist, whose creative frenzy blooms only in public expression.
Cusack's Max is a remnant of a dying social order, blind to the threat in his friend's anti-Semitism. Max has genuine affection for this troubled artist, but Liselore sees Hitler for what he is and is repulsed by him. Ulrich Thomsen plays a German army officer who quietly battles Max for heart and mind of this potential leader.
The chilling notion promulgated in "Max" is that aspects of the modern movement in art and architecture work their way into the Nazi aesthetics. Art at least partially teaches Hitler ways to gain power through design and oratory. Witnessing Hitler sketch his new world order with its autobahns, uniforms and massive neo-classical buildings sends chills down the spine.
"Max" was shot in Hungary, which gives the production design an Eastern European look that works well for 1918 Munich. In the dilapidated buildings, the moody industrial gallery and the gold and brown tones in the Hapsburg interiors, one senses a revolution under way years before it actually happens.
MAX
Lions Gate Films
Lions Gate Films and Pathe present a JAP Films/AAMP/Natural Nylon II co-production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Menno Meyjes
Producers: Andras Hamori, Patricia Kruijer, Scott McLean
Executive producers: Jonathan Debin, Dietmar Guntsche, Eberhard Junkersdorf
Director of photography: Lajos Koltai
Production designer: Ben Van Os
Music: Dan Jones, Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Dien van Straalen
Editor: Chris Wyatt
Cast:
Max Rothman: John Cusack
Adolf Hitler: Noah Taylor
Liselore: Leelee Sobieski
Nina Rothman: Molly Parker
Capt Mayr: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/11/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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