Mission Impossible? Tom Cruise appears to have won
over skeptical Germans with his portrayal of German
national hero, Claus Graf Stauffenberg, in Valkyrie.
SueddeutscheZeitung, Germany
Tom Cruise Speaks German: Valkyrie
Not Your 'Typical Hollywood Tale'
"This isn't your typical
Hollywood tale. Tom Cruise in Germany, portraying a German hero? ... That's
something that takes some getting used to. … Measured in terms of all the
things the film was accused of and in terms of all that could have gone wrong,
one can almost call it a triumph. … Hollywood has never taken such a thoroughly
German issue as seriously as it has with this opulent, logistical cinematographic
effort."
Long ago labeled a leader of a dangerous cult by German authorities, American actor Tom Cruise seems to have won some German admirers with his portrayal of Claus Graf Stauffenberg in his film, Valkyrie. The movie shines a light on Stauffenberg's failed attempt to murder Adolph Hitler.
An exciting and largely
historically accurate thriller: After the pre-opening condemnations and lavish
praise, 'Operation Valkyrie' is premiering in New
York and is a triumph - almost.
The first voices in the film
are German. A company of male voices, bellowing their oath of allegiance to
Adolf Hitler: “I swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render
unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer
of the German Reich and people …” A rich, deep red fills the screen, then the
word Walküre, which slowly transforms into the English Valkyrie. The red, as is turns out when the
camera moves back, is that of a swastika-bearing flag.
Then another voice speaks German:
In the Anglo-American version of the movie, in order to do a voice-over for an
entry into Stauffenberg’s diary, Tom Cruise himself
learned the language: the nation, he says, needs a violent overthrow. Only then
does the movie fade into English. This is Hollywood’s attempt to lead the
audience into the story - a story that's not your typical Hollywood tale. Tom
Cruise in Germany, portraying a German hero? ... That's something that takes
some getting used to.
It's time for the world
premiere in New York, and one can finally see the result of what can only be
described as the tremendous agitation that has surrounded this project. The
world is about to see what lies beyond the initial condemnations - and praise -
that has been heaped on the idea that one of Germany’s most fateful figures,
Claus Graf Stauffenberg, will be turned into a protagonist of the international
cinema - a hero that the rest of the world will finally learn about.
No other movie in recent
memory has been as heavily criticized during production, has had so much scorn heaped
upon it or been declared such an abject failure prior to its opening. Even for
the most astute Hollywood "Internet prophets," there was no holding
back when the first images of Tom Cruise wearing the iconic Stauffenberg eye
patch emerged - the term “Nazi-Movie” was immediately coined, and those who
know history gleefully pointed out that the plot to blow up Adolf Hitler failed
miserably in the end.
The reaction in this country
was hardly better: In this newspaper, Berthold Graf Stauffenberg, the assassin’s
oldest son, called upon Tom Cruise to please return home sooner rather than
later. Historians, at the behest of the Springer Presse
[one of Europe's largest newspaper publishers ]
went digging for any real or imagined error in the script or trailer, then the
screenplay was denounced as a “script of lies.”
ROCK
SOLID PERFORMANCE
[German] religious sect
commissioners began hounding Tom Cruise, a member of Scientology, and demanded
that under no circumstances should he be allowed to shoot at the historic site
of the event at Bendlerblock [where Claus Graf Stauffenberg was executed ]. In the end,
he was permitted to do so anyway.
Tom Cruise as Claus Graf Stauffenberg: He seems
to have surpassed expectations and won over many
skeptical Germans.
And even those who tended to
support the project may have ended up doing more harm than good: the Burda Family ,
for example, who awarded Tom Cruise the Bambi for Courage or FlorianHenckel von Donnersmarck, who
predicted a public relations boost for Germany that would be, “more powerful
than ten soccer world championships .”
As always happens in such
cases, in the end the truth is hardly so dramatic. Neither is the reputation of
German resistance fighters in any way dragged through the mud, nor do we need
to worry about a global "Stauffenberg Euphoria." Neither will Tom
Cruise’s career come to an end after this film, nor is he about to be
canonized. He simply delivers a rock-solid performance, one that doesn’t
portray Stauffenberg’s often-cited laughter - but other actors have never
managed to do this, either. OperationValkyrie is simply an exciting, to a large extent
historically correct, pretty decent and complex thriller.
Measured in terms of all the
things the film was accused of, measured in terms of all that could have gone
wrong, one can almost call it a triumph. In any case, this is the most
exciting, yet realistic and complex movie about the 20th of July ever made -
even if the bar hadn’t been set that high to begin with, after the three
previous German attempts at the task between 1955 and 2004.
One can also say that Hollywood
has never taken such a thoroughly German issue as seriously as it has with this
opulent, logistical cinematographic effort.
Cruise, Claus Graf Stauffenberg and Stauffenberg's
son,
Berthold Graf: Berthold Graf Stauffenberg is not pleased
about the Cruise production.
This doesn't mean that OperationValkyrie slavishly adheres to historically-proven fact. Right
at the beginning, for example, the chronology of events is boldly reversed: The
film begins in the Tunisian desert in April of 1943, where Stauffenberg was
severly wounded, then it jumps back to March of the same year, when a group of
officers under Henning von Tresckow attempt to smuggle a bomb into Hitler’s Führermaschine [the Fuehrer'saircraft] in
Smolensk, Russia. This may initially appear somewhat arbitrary, but one soon
realizes why authors Christopher McQuarrie and James
Nathan, and director Bryan Singer, chose to make this deviation.
THE
RULES OF THE AMERICAN CINEMA
Africa provides
an opportunity to introduce Stauffenberg and what motivates him. It allows him
to speak on behalf of the entire resistance - with words he never actually put
to paper, but which are nonetheless close enough to being representative of the
man, as his comrades-in-arms have confirmed. The cruelties of the SS [the Schutzstaffel, aka/Hitler's Praetorian guard ] were a
disgrace to the honor of the Army, he notes, just as much as the murder of
civilians, the torture and systematic starvation of prisoners, the mass
executions of Jews ...
The rules of American cinema
require this to be pointed out before Stauffenberg is shot to pieces by
allied fighter planes - otherwise one might think he's only looking for
personal revenge against Hitler - namely because he lost an eye and an
arm.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Again and again,
the effort to afford justice to the men of the 20th of July is apparent,
especially in moments when the suspense veers off the path of historical
accuracy. Hitler’s protective measures appear to be far tighter than they
actually were - otherwise the question of why none of the nearby officers
simply reached for their pistols might prove a distraction.
Stauffenberg’s futile assassination attempt on July 15th at the Wolfsschanze[A bunker in what is now part of
Poland ]
was staged in a different location - here, Singer & Co [those who made the
film] simply wanted to demonstrate how promising the planned, yet never
realized, detonation within the windowless, yard-thick walls of the bunker
would have been. One can criticize this - but at the same time, one would have
to admit thatJo Baier
in his Stauffenbergfor example, omitted
July 15th entirely. Here the Americans credit the audience with far more of an
ability to think than the Germans have.
Much more will have to be
explained and analyzed after the premiere, but the tentative conclusion now is
this: Valkyrie doesn't re-invent cinema and
it's no masterpiece that will enable us to imagine the true story in all of its
aspects - but it isn’t far from being so.
