The Good German
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Movie Reviews of The Good German
Movie Review: The Good German
Summary: 4 Stars
Berlin, July, 1945. Journalist Jake Geismer arrives to cover the Potsdam conference, issued a captain's uniform for easier passage. He also wants to find Lena, an old flame who's now a prostitute desperate to get out of Berlin. He discovers that the driver he's assigned, a cheerful down-home sadist named Corporal Tully, is Lena's keeper. When the body of a murdered man washes up in Potsdam within the Russian sector, Jake may be the only person who wants to solve the crime. U.S. personnel are busy finding Nazis to bring to trial, the Russians and the Americans are looking for German rocket scientists, and Lena has her own secrets. The movie is mesmerizing. Say what you will about it, you have to commend Soderbergh on his cinematography skills. This a movie done in black and white, and was very well done. The score is good. It evokes just the right atmosphere. The editing is crisp and clever. I wouldn't say it's Soderbergh's best movies, but it's certainly one of his his most unique ones, I think. I highly recommend it.
Movie Review: Enjoyable tribute to "Noir"...
Summary: 4 Stars
Apparently, I admired this film more than many others; I'm glad I don't listen to the "buzz". Certainly there are shortcomings, like the patchy editing of archival footage with the film moments. With today's technology, the tansition could've been a bit less obtrusive...but then it wouldn't be Soderbergh, would it? He's a natural. Aside from the obvious tribute to Michael Curtiz, I noticed small tributes to Hitchcock & Rene Clair, among others (unintentional?). The acting is fine; I especially liked the minimal appearance of Christian Oliver as the object of everyone's obsession. The full-screen version I saw was a little more true to the noir idea, but I much prefer widescreen. The B&W photography by Mr. Soderbergh himself is rife with shadowy close-ups and dark intrigue. Many won't like it because it's not a shoot 'em up action flick; rather, a fine and intense mystery worth the attention of those who remember those fine films from the 40's.Movie Review: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Summary: 4 Stars
Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Setting aside the Film Noir debate, this film seemed to explore the issue of how it was that such horrific evil was allowed to fester and grow unchecked.
The film slowly leads to its conclusion through twist and turn, with just enough intrigue to keep the viewer uneasy. The conclusion of the film really hits hard. There are things worse than doing nothing.
The archival and gritty black and white worked well for me, keeping this film in historical context, and at times almost seemed to have a documentary feel. This served to remind the viewer that bad things did happen. Let us not forget.
All in all, this was a good film, and yes Cate Blanchett's performance really makes this worth watching.
Movie Review: Good Experiment in Filmmaking, cold acting leaves no room for emotion
Summary: 3 Stars
Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are well on the path of establishing a memorable Hollywood partnership akin to John Wayne and John Ford or Humphrey Bogart and John Huston; they have a production company together, have made many films together and have produced still others. "The Good German", their latest effort, is an interesting experiment. But it is more interesting as an experiment and less interesting as a film.
Captain Jacob Geismer (George Clooney), a journalist, arrives in Germany to cover the Potsdam conference at the end of World War II. Geismer was stationed in Germany before the War began, running the Associate Press bureau, and his return is bittersweet, and the town and people he once loved are in ruins. His driver, Tully (Tobey Maguire), a young Army solider, loves living in post-War Germany and works the angles to make some money, providing black market items to people, procuring counterfeit documents, anything to earn money. Geismar soon learns that his old girlfriend, Lena (Cate Blanchett) is still alive and dating Tully. Soon, it becomes apparent that someone is manipulating them to find Lena's husband, Emil, a scientist, who she claims is dead.
"The Good German" is a difficult film to become involved in. The actors show little emotion as they move through the mechanics of the story. Perhaps this is intended, as a way of showing the effects of the war. In the book, when Geismar finds Lena, she is very sick and he nurses her back to health before they become embroiled in the plot. This is barely alluded to in the film and it changes the dynamic of their relationship. It is difficult to see why he is so interested in Lena. Yes, she is a former lover, but he knows she has been dating Tully (and `dating' is a kind word for their relationship) and has basically has become a prostitute to survive. We never learn why he is so attached to her. Because he doesn't care for her in the same way in the film, nursing her back to health as he did in the book, he doesn't "care for her" in the same way. Because this key relationship doesn't work, the rest of the film becomes a bit tedious.
Soderbergh has always been an innovative filmmaker. In most of his films, he experiments with various aspects of the creative process. In some, he changes color and light to produce heightened effects. In others, he plays with narrative and dialogue to create an interesting, more powerful dynamic between the characters. He has experimented with film noir, sci-fi, drama, comedy, relationship films, heist films, caper films and much more. He is a filmmaker consistently willing to push the envelope, to strengthen his skills and do something different and unusual.
"The Good German", set in 1945, naturally lends itself to a black and white composition. But rather than take a Woody Allen approach and shoot the film in stunning, crystal clear black and white, Soderbergh decided to move backwards and play with some of the filmmaking techniques from this period. In any conversation about great black and white films, one of the titles that will come up is "Casablanca". The similarities between the two films are startling; both are set during the war years, involve people affected by the war, and feature doomed relationships. Soderbergh shot "The Good German" on sound stages in Los Angeles, much like Curtiz did with "Casablanca". But he went a few steps further. Using digital filmmaking techniques in combination with period lenses, lighting and sound techniques he gives the film a remarkably `authentic' look. Scenes are lit dramatically even surrealistically and whites occasionally flare as the camera pans across them. But the director also seems to have adopted some filmmaking techniques common to the period. People move in and out of frame, or approach the camera, their faces filling the screen. He has eschewed long tracking shots for a more dated directorial style.
I have read that Soderbergh directed the actors to perform in a presentational, theatrical stage style. If you look at "Casablanca", this would be a great way of describing Bogart's and Bergman's acting style. Yet, why is it that we remember this as a classic and I can barely remember Clooney and Blanchett's performances from watching the film yesterday? They are certainly similar, but it just doesn't work in this new film. The characters seem cold, distant and aloof and we don't really care for them.
Hopefully, Soderbergh will use some of these techniques on his next film. Now that he has a better handle on them, he should be able to use them to their advantage, possibly creating a ground breaking, memorable work.
Movie Review: Captures the look of 40's films
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Good German" reminds me of the sauerkraut I had to eat as a kid. Sauerkraut is an acquired taste. It looked like sauerkraut but I remember hating the taste. Why? Because my mom just couldn't get the flavor for it right and we often had it from a can. I'm not sure that I would have ever acquired a taste for sauerkraut even if it was homemade but canned sauerkraut captured the "look" of the dish but lacked everything else. While "The Good German" looks good it misses the essence of the 40's melodramas it's trying to duplicate. The film however certainly has its merits.
Director Steven Soderbergh affectionately recreates the look of melodramas that were popular in the 1940's with this film. "The Good German" recalls both "Casablanca" crossed with "The Third Man" with its moody black and white cinematography (done by Soderbergh himself under the pseudonym "Peter Andrews"). While not entirely successfully, "The Good German" does try to marry a 21st century sensibility with its mixture of profanity and the look of a 1945 studio film. Set in post-war Germany just before the Potsdam accord where President Harry Truman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin divided up Europe, American journalist Jake Geismer (George Clooney) comes over to cover the historical event taking place but suddenly finds he's trapped in a web of deceit, double-crosses and lies regarding the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. The key to it all is a Lena (Cate Blanchett) a former stringer for the reporter who provided reports from Germany in the early days of the war and his former lover. She has now taken up with Tully (Tobey Maguire) a military man doing anything he can to exploit post-War Germany and make a buck in an effort to escape her past and try to escape Berlin as well. Whatever the Americans and Soviets are after, they are willing to murder anyone that gets in their way to use Lena for their own ends.
Soderbergh's film hits all the right technical points including using visual references to other classic melodramas from Hollywood's Golden Age but lacks the soul of those films. The script by Paul Attanasio (from the novel by Joseph Kanon) seems as disjointed and emotionless as Soderbergh's glacial direction. "The Good German" is all about the "look" of the film and surfaces providing an excellent example in recreating the techniques of 40's films without having any of the emotional content. Don't get me wrong "The Good German" isn't a bad film--viewers will have a hard time connecting with the characters and being pulled into the film. The mystery at its heart just isn't made compelling enough by the disjointed narrative and even the performances are all about recreating the right "moments" from previous films not about creating memorable moments of the performers own. This is the kind of film that you might have casually watched on TV while doing the dishes and other chores without truly becoming involved enough to actually sit down and watch it. The film is R rated for profanity and sexual situations neither one of which would have made it into a 1940's melodrama.
The DVD doesn't have any extras which is too bad--it would have allowed the director to elaborate on his experiment and assess where it succeeded and failed. The film looks quite good with some stunning black and white photography that captures the shimmering whites and rich blacks that were characteristic of films from the time.
Although "The Good German" doesn't taste genuine, it certainly looks it. While I didn't find it emotionally involving, it's an entertaining movie that reminds me of some of Hitchcock's technical experiments like "Rope" where the technique was far more important than the material. It's a solid rental for fans of 40's films recapturing an era long gone.