So, wow, I "finally" "broke down" and saw "The Reader" after picking it up from Blockbuster when they didn't have the 2nd disc from the 1st season of "Mad Men." They had the 1st and the 3rd discs, but oh no, not the 2nd coz someone in Petaluma was out to get me before I moved!
Anyway, I can see why Kate Winslet won the Oscar. In an odd way, it reminded me of, no kidding, Paul Rudd's performance in "I Love You, Man." Both portrayed someone struggling with an inability to "connect" on some level--and watching the both of them in, admittedly, wildly different roles struggle with who they are and/or were was often very painful to watch.
A bit of a stretch, I know, but I can't help it, that's what I thought of.
But it's obvious that Stephen Daldry, the director, is aiming for the title of "Most Heartwrenching" what with this, The Hours, and Billy Elliot.
So I'll really be curious to see what he does with "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay."
Anyway again, would be curious to hear back from folks who've seen this movie with their thoughts about what "The Reader" says about morality, and if--SPOILER ALERT--you would have done the same thing as the boy and turned around and walked out of the prison w/o seeing her. And, most importantly, what did you think of her in the end?
Although the movie was VERY painful to watch at times, I'm one of those people who likes being taken out of his comfort zone, who likes having his "code" and concepts of morality challenged. It's part of why I like "Dexter" so much!
Hmmm, I feel a poll coming on...
I kinda think that what happened in Nazi Germany was SO. VERY. BIZARRE. that it is nearly impossible for us today to judge the "everyday citizens" who failed to do.......what exactly? It's easy to look back and see how horrible it was, but how will we be judged for allowing the things to happen that did under Dubya? And NO, I am not directly comparing Hitler to Dubya.
Not directly. :)
Besides, on the other hand, I kinda feel like the guy in the law seminar who was screeching at Michael and the Professor that, no, we don't need to know why they did what they did, we need to know how "you" could let them get away with what they did and why you didn't kill yourself once you found out. Oooh, snap!
This same young German law student, in the mid-60s, claimed in the movie that not only were there thousands of camps throughout Germany, but that everyone, everyone (his emphasis) knew. I would be curious to know how true this is. I confess to having this naive fantasy that a good chunk of Germans didn't know so very much about what was going on, but is that just to protect my own moral sensibilities as a fellow human being?
It's bad enough when individuals, and governments, composed of "human beings," commit atrocities--it's almost inconceivable when an entire nation does. Hard stuff.
Poll on how comfortable you are with being taken out of your comfort zone:
Coming soon: Why I think Baby Boomers should lose their drivers licenses, and is it too soon for me to be bitching about the tourists? :)
Nazi Germany is much easier to understand now that I have seen how so many Americans can be so completely fooled and manipulated with similar propaganda techniques. When the mass media collaborates with other corporations, right wingers, and corporatist politicians, it is amazing and scary what they can accomplish. I don't think the invasion of Iraq, the torture and mistreatment of prisoners, and the erosion of civil rights that happened here during the Bush administration was nearly as bad as what the Nazis did. Much of it was frighteningly similar, but it was on a much smaller scale. Those of us who didn’t protest the illegal and immoral things that were done, and especially those who encouraged them, are as guilty as the Germans who reacted similarly, but our crimes were on a much smaller scale and not as extreme.
ReplyDeleteHowever, crimes are happening right now that are far worse than anything the Nazis did. I'll put it another way. Every U.S. citizen over the past few years has been aware of atrocities on a scale that dwarfs all those committed in WWII combined, and yet the vast majority of us are even more complicit than the average German was back then, since we are participants. It’s not just our country either – there is a worldwide conspiracy. Sadly, few of us are resisting this, and very few are actively fighting it. Billions of people are set to suffer extreme suffering, starvation, and death. Not millions, billions. The fact that the timing can’t be predicted precisely and that the atrocities are being done more indirectly than in WWII seems to make most people think they are not that big a deal, or that they have no responsibility. Amazingly, this is true even though their own children will be among those suffering this fate.
Future people will look back on us with utter disbelief that we could let this happen. People will hardly remember the Nazis, but they will remember us. I’m talking about global warming, of course. The IPCC said recently that if industrialized nations don’t reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 25-40% by 2020, temperatures will rise 2 degrees or more. That is high enough that there will be a great risk of feedback taking over, leading to changes that will kill most life on earth, including most humans. It could easily cause most species to go extinct, possibly even humans. Our leaders have this information, yet they refuse to commit to doing anything significant by 2020. In fact, the current climate bill in Congress does almost nothing to reduce emissions before 2030, 10 years later! Most people don’t know how bad the situation is, because of the propaganda and passive or active censorship. But most people know global warming is happening, and anyone can find out how bad it is, just as any German could probably have found out the truth about the death camps. So maybe most people alive now are like the Germans who knew there were camps and knew people were dying there but didn’t want to find out or face the truth of how bad the situation really was, much less do anything about it. Although we are not as bad as the leaders of the world who have access to this information and the main responsibility to act, and we are not as bad as the people who are confusing others with propaganda disguised as sloppy science, we are still complicit in a crime that completely dwarfs all other crimes in history. In the U.S. and many other countries, we have the power to force our leaders to do what is necessary to prevent this from happening, unlike the Germans back then, so it is even more unbelievable that we are not fighting to stop it.
Why don’t we all, stop for a second and think about what we personally are doing, what we aren’t doing, and why. Maybe then we will understand why the German citizens let the atrocities happen. And maybe we will even decide not to make an even worse mistake. But we need to do this now, because time is quickly running out.