Max
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Movie Reviews of Max
Movie Review: Too much fiction, not enough fact
Summary: 4 Stars
This film would've carried more power if it had not used a "cut-up" of different art dealers and patched them into the fictional character of Max Rothman. The narrative is choppy as is the acting, but Noah Taylor's performance gives a reason to see this film. Taylor's portrayal, although a bit over the top at times, does create a humanity for Hitler that has never been attempted for and so a reason to see this film. It is an interesting film to be made at this time, in the midst of surging nationalism in the U.S. and the might-makes-right mindset of U.S. leaders.Movie Review: An Interesting What If Scenario
Summary: 3 Stars
I first caught a glimpse of this film when I was flipping through the premium channels and I came across a film that appeared to have a relatively interesting premise. Needless to say I found it intriguing enough to attempt to track down. Well I finally found it and I've watched it in it's full. The movie starts off very strongly, but unfortunately it takes a fairly weak turn towards the end. I'll go over this in some detail.
Now I will say that what really caught my attention was the fact that this is a movie about Adolf Hitler, for the most part, and post World War I Germany. Basically the premise is between the end of World War I and Hitler's rise to power, what if Hitler had returned to realistically pursue his art career rather than go immediately into politics. I have to admit, it's a very interesting and ambitious supposition. To further make this of interest to us the primary encouragement Hitler has to pursue art is an art dealer named Rothman, who also happens to be Jewish. Surely this throws a kink into the character of the anti-Semitic ruler history knows. Again, another ambitious supposition. Unfortunately the movie has some striking weak points and a lot of that had to do with Hitler's character.
First I'll talk about Cusak's character Rothman. It's pretty clear the viewer is supposed to really like this character and also dislike him. Both Rothman and Hitler have this duality in the film. He's an enjoyable and cynical fellow, but his infidelity puts a black mark on his character, so he's not flawless. There's certainly no taking the high road here. I thought this was wonderfully played by Cusak and I think Rothman was the better developed character in the end. This is probably also due to the fact that I didn't have any preconceived notions of who he was prior to going into the film.
As far as Hitler is concerned I think they got his character wrong on many fronts. It was as if Noah Taylor never actually studied anything about the historical Hitler except for a few snippets of what pop-culture has to show us, but there was no depth! I feel I should point out here that I have read "Mein Kampf," I've read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and I've read a few speeches given by Hitler. Unfortunately the Hitler that these writings portray is not the one we have in this film. Taylor's Hitler is a very meek man, one who is uncertain of his abilities on every front. However, it is alluded to that he understands a great deal about the political situation of the times and is very well read (this is close to the historical Hitler). In this film you are intended to pity Hitler and I can't help but think that you are supposed to believe that Hitler didn't want to be anti-Semitic. Sure he harbored the beliefs in the film, but due to his friendship with Rothman you are led to believe that he may not have really believed any of it.
However, when one sits down and reads Mein Kampf he truly believed everything. In fact he believed it passionately through and through. In this movie it is the military that urges him to begin speaking in public. However, Taylor doesn't exude the strength the true Hitler had for public speaking. Most of the speeches presented in the movie are far from eloquent or even remotely rational. Having read a couple of speeches that Hitler had given, even early on in 1921, I am confronted with a Hitler that really thought out his position. He was very rational in connecting the dots to his conclusions. Granted they were entirely wrong on many fronts, but it doesn't change the fact that they were very methodical. The speeches Taylor gives in this film are not eloquent in the least, they're not rationally presented and they did nothing to make me feel like I was watching the confident leader of the Third Reich. Most of the speeches consist of saying "We were stabbed in the back" numerous times and in one speech that supposedly swayed the crowd on a major scale concluded with him yelling "Bloodjew" numerous times. I'm sorry, these lines just lacked passion and they were the majority of the "speech". Only in the final speech does he deliver a single sentence that even remotely goes down the path the real Hitler would have, but the movie does not keep that up. Just because Taylor is physically yelling the line does not mean he gives off a feel of passion.
I fully understand what "Max" was trying to do in their portrayal of Hitler. It has the added "what if" scenario in terms of Hitler being primarily influenced by the army to go into public speaking when he really wants to commit to an art career. I realize that art was a major influence in Hitler's life growing up and as he got older. In fact he goes on quite a bit about the importance of art in "Mein Kampf", so you can tell he still had a passion for that subject. The movie ends in a manner that shows no matter what happens history cannot be changed. It's also a film that focuses quite a bit on art concepts, so it is helpful if you're fairly open minded as a viewer. I do consider myself to be fairly open minded, but I just wasn't buying into their portrayal of Hitler. I think Taylor did a good job acting this out, but I don't think he was distinctly trying to be the historical Hitler; this may not have been his decision. He may have been doing what the writers and directors asked. If they asked him to play Hitler in this fashion, then he did it perfectly. Nevertheless, for the historian in me, I couldn't buy into it and it really put an end to the film for me.
I have no doubt that many would consider this kind of movie somewhat controversial and provocative. It does make you think about the different possibilities that exist within any kind of timeline (don't worry; I will avoid the drawn out concepts of parallel universe theory in light of quantum physics). I honestly can't fully recommend the film as a good drama, because it just didn't pan out in a sensible way. It was almost like there were too many "what if" scenarios for me to really get behind the plausibility factor. Maybe if you're a much more forgiving person you can find some real merit in this. I mean, I thought the premise and acting was pretty good, just the overall execution didn't pan out for me in the end.
Movie Review: Limitless unrealized potential, but still decent.
Summary: 3 Stars
Max (Menno Meyjes, 2002)Menno Meyjes (Empire of the Sun, Ricochet) steps behind the camera for the first time to direct his own controversial script. Like most controversial scripts, this one got built up a lot more than it should have by people who probably haven't even seen the blasted thing.
The story centers on Max Rothman (John Cusack), a wealthy Jewish art dealer not long after the end of World War I, before the massive German depression kicks in. He is a staunch modernist, but modern art isn't selling too well in a Germany that just got its head handed to it on a platter, and Rothman is looking for a new angle. He meets a young, promising artist by the name of Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor, from Almost Famous). Rothman and Hitler develop a testy friendship of opposites, with Rothman's libertinism and Hitler's asceticism grating against one another mercilessly, but the two men have a grudging respect for one another, and Rothmann has a genuine desire to help Hitler's career (if, one thinks, only for Rothman's impending success as an art dealer).
The story of the making of Max is a tale of Hollywood political correctness run roughshod over creativity. The film was originally to be produced by Amblin Entertainment, but Spielberg-though he thought the script a brilliant one-pulled out at the last minute because of fears of a backlash from the Jewish community. With production at a standstill, Cusack immediately forewent his salary because of his belief in the viability of the film. (In the end, it was produced by an international conglomeration of companies, including Film Council UK (Formula 51, Bend It Like Beckham) and Canadian producers Alliance (eXistenZ).) It is also a tale of how even unwelcome publicity is publicity, and by the time Max was finished, many people expected the best thing since sliced bread.
Max is a good film. About that there can be no doubt. But it is not a great film. While it doesn't, as Spielberg so euphemistically put it, "dishonor the memories of holocaust survivors," it doesn't exactly tread much controversial ground, either; if the struggling artist had been anyone but Adolf Hitler, Max would likely have opened unheralded, played arthouses for a few weeks, and been seen afterwards only by hardcore fans of one of the movie's stars. The ideas in it are wonderful ones, and there is much that deserves criticism by those who are better at such things than me (for example, Rothman's constant exhorting that Hitler must find his distinct voice in art, and the wonderfully ironic resolution of that statement not long before the film's climax), but the film itself is just not quite the equal of all that. It ends up with the same general feel of 2001's In the Bedroom; a lot of great stuff that just doesn't gel quite right. ***
Movie Review: How poetry could save the world
Summary: 3 Stars
At first, I had no desire to critique this film, in spite of Noah Taylor's impressive, spastic performance as Adolph Hitler. The first viewing was a bore with the concentration on the art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack)--until something struck me.
In this 100% fictional tale, Rothman seems to be a symbol of the aristoi-vs-hoi-poloi Jewish world. Better expressed, Max is the best in humankind, in art, and in tastes, AND he happens to be Jewish. This is when bells began to go off, and I thought a critique might be in order.
Noah Taylor surely gives the performance of his life here as a young Hitler--and he is also symbolic. Hitler was severe with his hair and moustache even after WWI. Taylor is a tow-headed, clean-shaven Hitler, as twitchy and weird as an adolescent with an adolescent's mind. He has fits of anger, can't keep his mouth shut, is a vulgar, near-animal passive-aggressive. Max suggests that Hitler paint all those things he has bottled up; Hitler gets other ideas from Max that Max does not suspect.
I find Amazon's blurb to be very accurate: history and even art does not want to understand Hitler because he is an animal unworthy of our understanding. We don't want to know what made him tick. We don't even want to hear about it--however, seeing this film made me think how important all that really is to help us avoid repeating horrid mistakes. Can you end a malady without understanding it?
This film shows how a clown like Hitler can be turned into the monster we all know. In spite of its sometimes tiresome symbolism, MAX ultimately succeeds in explaining exactly how Hitler was created. In fact the character of Max himself is superfluous; this film could just as easily have been done as an accurate biography; with Taylor at the helm instead of Cusack, it would have showed the world a real lesson in monster-making.
Wouldn't that be more worthwhile, a preventative lesson based on Hitler's true story? In any case, this film stands up well with the likes of VALKYRIE because it gets exactly right the things it wants to get right. It may be pure poetic license, but Taylor's Hitler is the best I've ever seen, next to David Bamber's washed-up old fuehrer in VALKYRIE.
If you can translate cinematic symbolism easily, I'd strongly suggest a couple of viewings of MAX.
Movie Review: portrayal of hitler the artist
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the story of Adolph Hitler(Noah Taylor)and Max Rothman(John Cusack).Max Rothman,once an artist,becomes an art dealer after losing his arm.Rothman meets Hitler and sees promise in his work as an artist and tries to persuade him to forget about politics and search within to help develop his art further.But Hitler is torn between his art and politics no matter how hard Rothman tries in boosting his esteem in furthering his art.
The film focuses on both characters equally and shows what they were like.Hitler is a loner who doesn't get along with anyone and Rothman is the respected family man who screws around.Taylor is good in his role but found his portrayal unconvincing.I found Cusacks performance to be dull.The film itself is photographed as if it were multiple canvases on a slide show,which isn't necessarily a bad thing,except that some scenes go on for way to long,pan out scenes and stedy shots of people walking away until they are out of scene should have been edited down as this film is too long.I spent the majority of the film waiting for something to happen such as seeing Hitler do his drawings but we never do.The only time that we see him doing so is when he's trying to paint,in which he is never able to do.Instead of focusing on Rothman's infidelities i thought it more important to see the artist at work.Eventhough i found this disappointing it does have it's moments such as seeing how Hitler develops his voice and how his visions of the future are his true art.I really wanted to like this film but it just falls into the category of watch once and move on.