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THE GOOD GERMANReviewed by Madelyn Miller, the TravelLady
I couldn’t get the movie THE GOOD GERMAN out of my head. Even a few days after I saw it, I had flashbacks to scenes I didn’t quite understand, wondering if I had gotten the message.
This is film noire—it is not a happy movie, but it is a totally compelling one. The acting is memorable and I wonder how this movie will be viewed ten years from now. Will it be a classic? Berlin, 1945.
It’s not Jake’s first visit to Berlin. He once managed a news bureau here. He once fell in love here. But that seems a lifetime ago as he takes in the staggering devastation on the jeep ride from the airport to his hotel in the American zone.
When Tully ends up in the Russian zone with 100,000 marks in his pocket and a bullet in his back, Jake finds himself drawn into the mystery of this murder, and the bigger mystery of why both the American and Russian authorities look the other way. The deeper his investigation takes him, the more it leads him back to Lena. Jake discovers that it is nearly impossible to unearth the truth in a time and place where people are still reeling from the horrors of the war and desperate to salvage their humanity in the shadow of the often unbearable knowledge of what they did to survive.
In a story where people’s histories and motives are often shrouded in doubt, there is perhaps nothing better than a black-and-white palette to expose the shades of gray. “You should never have come back to Berlin,” Lena tells Jake. It might be the only thing she tells him that is not a lie.
Benjamin Waisbren and Frederic W. Brost serve as executive producers. Philip Messina is the production designer, and Louise Frogley, the costume designer. Music is by Thomas Newman. Casting is by Debra Zane. Soundtrack album on Varése
Sarabande CDs. JUST FOR BACKGROUND
V-E Day, May 8, 1945, marked the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of the war in Europe. By June, the Allies began the job of dividing Germany and Berlin into zones of military occupation: American, Russian, British and French. Ostensibly, they were there to keep the peace, restore vital services like food and fuel, and maintain law and order, much of which they legitimately accomplished. But they were also looking after their own interests in ways that would never make the papers back home. “Everyone in this story—whether representing themselves and their own lives or representing institutions or governments—is not speaking directly about what they want and is hoping they can achieve their goals without ever having to tell the whole truth,” says director Steven Soderbergh. “It’s about hypocrisy and denial. It’s human nature and the inevitable outgrowth of any post-war environment. That’s something that has always been with us and always will be. Set in a super-heated situation, these issues can mean life or death.” War correspondent Jake Geismer has returned to Berlin to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference, where Allied leaders will meet to finalize details of disarming Germany and restructuring its government and economy. He is shocked to see the utter destruction of this once-beautiful city. Jake is further shocked to see his former lover, Lena, keeping company with his motorpool driver, Corporal Tully—a soulless, small-time racketeer exploiting anything and anyone to his advantage on the black market, and to whom Lena is little more than another commodity. How did things come to this? Whoever Jake was before the war, by 1945 he has become, says George Clooney, “a bitter guy. Where he once had ambition and passion, he’s been disillusioned by the war and his experiences and has become a cynic. The one thing he still remembers as a shining moment in his life was his relationship with Lena, but when he runs into her again, things are very different for both of them.” Describing that moment, Cate Blanchett, who stars as Lena, says, “The fact that she’s there and he suddenly sweeps in, the fact that she’s even still alive and the suddenness of their reunion, is a very romantic concept, but in Steven’s hands, it gets a rawer treatment. It’s a love story but set against a very harsh and gritty backdrop. Seeing Jake reminds Lena of who she used to be, how she used to feel and the fact that she used to have a sense of morality, and that’s unbearable to her now.” “These are two people who clearly care about each other, and it’s played in an understated way that makes us wonder exactly what that relationship once was and what it might have been,” suggests producer Gregory Jacobs. “But it’s a complicated world and a complicated time, and I think real life intercedes.” There is another reason Lena prefers to keep her distance. “Everyone in this film has a hidden agenda, often deeply hidden from themselves,” says Blanchett. “Living under The Third Reich cured people of forming hasty confidences. You didn’t ask intimate questions and you didn’t tell anyone anything; you always assumed the person you were talking to could betray you. Lena knows Jake is like a bloodhound when he’s on a scent. Whatever she is doing now, with or without Tully, Jake’s presence can only complicate things.” Tully has his own problems. Following a violent confrontation with Jake, the would-be entrepreneur gets himself killed… in the wrong military zone, his pockets stuffed with cash. “That in itself is not surprising, as Tully’s lifestyle makes him an accident waiting to happen,” notes Tobey Maguire, “but what Jake cannot fathom is why the American and Russian authorities are so eager to sweep it under the carpet.” A conversation with the city’s interim military governor, Colonel Muller (Beau Bridges), leaves Jake with more questions than answers. “Why does Jake even care that Tully is murdered?” asks producer Ben Cosgrove. “Tully is hardly likeable. But what disturbs Jake is that an American soldier—even a corrupt one—died under mysterious circumstances and no one is concerned. That bothers him, both as a reporter and as a person of character. He finds it hypocritical that the U.S. entered this war for clear moral reasons, yet is now ignoring the murder of one of its own.” The situation soon takes on additional complexity. Says Clooney, “At first, Jake is implicated in Tully’s murder. Then, he feels compelled to solve it, his old hunger for a story. Finally, piece by piece, it becomes more about the woman he loves. If he can get to the bottom of this, and help her in the process, he can feel better about himself and maybe get a bit of his soul back. At least he can feel better about leaving her the first time.” “What drives the story is that Jake knows Lena is lying to him and he cannot rest until he finds out why,” says screenwriter Paul Attanasio. The writer of “Quiz Show and “Donnie Brasco,” Attanasio’s reputation for richly detailed characters and tight plotting made him a natural choice to adapt “The Good German.” “For all his cynicism, Jake is also a romantic. Like Gatsby, like Rick in ‘Casablanca,’ he never sees the world as it is; he sees what he wants it to be. He wants to believe that Lena is the same woman he knew before the war.” Jake doesn’t realize the truths he is pursuing go far beyond Lena, beyond lost love, beyond Tully’s shady deals and shadier partners. Yet, somehow, they are all tied up in it together. Making Deals with the DevilAs they entered Germany, the Americans and Russians discovered that German physicists, chemists and engineers were considerably further advanced than they expected—years ahead in many areas, including rocket science and biological warfare. Meanwhile, even as Joseph Stalin posed for publicity photos with Harry Truman, those in the know understood the two powers were allies only by necessity…and only temporarily. A new war was already beginning and the new enemy would be the USSR. America wanted the knowledge these German scientists and engineers could provide. Equally important was keeping that knowledge out of Soviet hands. Jacobs points out the irony. “Amidst the victory celebrations and the so-called Peace Conference, a desperate struggle was being waged over who would get the German scientists and their research for the next war. The Russians were literally kidnapping them off the streets and the Americans weren’t far behind. It was a major operation going on, a secret mandate within the U.S. government to transport these scientists to America.” Simultaneously, military lawyers were sorting through voluminous records to determine who would stand trial for war crimes. Among those would surely be some of the scientists and engineers responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of thousands because their work was accomplished through slave labor under the most appallingly inhumane conditions. Any number of valuable scientific minds could find themselves wanted in both spheres immediately after the war—a military tribunal or a foreign laboratory—and, in such cases, which need would supersede the other? “It was a bitter choice,” Soderbergh acknowledges. “Either the Russians get these guys and they win the arms race, or we whitewash their backgrounds and bring them to the U.S. and we win the arms race. There was no high ground to take. There just wasn’t.” Says Attanasio, “It was a deal with the devil. And when America makes those kinds of decisions, they come at a high price because our ideals are part of our power and how we are perceived by the world. Those scientists held the knowledge of how to make rockets, and rockets and nuclear weapons were the definition of military power. We needed this to keep us safe and it did, through the Cold War. Yet these were men who were deeply involved with war crimes by any definition and the definition the government had at that time was quite loose: simply, who was an ‘ardent’ Nazi and who wasn’t?” Beyond the purely practical, Attanasio suggests, “There may have been an even subtler and more powerful argument. We needed to look away. We needed to look away for life to go The CharactersJake Geismer embodies the moral complexity of the time and brings a distinctly American point of view to the situation in Berlin. Says Soderbergh, “The role seemed to be written for George Clooney. It’s the quintessential George role: intelligent, energetic, opinionated and fearless.” Jake’s Peace Conference assignment holds little interest for him, but Tully’s death stirs his dormant reporters’ instinct by offering him the possibility of a story behind the story he’s been sent to cover. “I like the idea that this is a murder mystery wrapped up in a much larger historical event,” says Clooney, who came to the project well aware of the realities depicted in the film, having grown up “with a lot of World War II and Cold War history. “The Americans didn’t want a headline in the middle of the Peace Conference that would start World War III. It was a very tenuous moment. Everyone was shaking hands over their victory and then, within seconds, putting up demarcation zones and fighting over the spoils of the war. Immediately the Cold War began.” Although it bothers Jake profoundly that Tully’s murder is dismissed by those who should be committed to unearthing the truth, he fails to acknowledge similar inconsistencies in his own life. As Soderbergh explains, “Jake is a character who always has a chip on his shoulder towards people he feels aren’t taking the moral high ground, but he was having this affair with a married woman, and, at some point, he has all of the information to put together what’s really happening and just refuses to see it. He has all kinds of ideals but also an incredible blind spot which means, inevitably, he’s going to get some sort of rude awakening or comeuppance. In my experience, people with that problem are confronted with the contradiction, and how they deal with it is a function of their character.” Jake is just lost in the sophistication of post-war Europe. “Like Tully, he thinks he knows everything, but he’s in over his head. And being in love with Lena doesn’t help him.” “He knows getting involved with her again isn’t the brightest move and he’s aware that she might be playing him,” Clooney admits. “But I think he believes, at the end of the day, that Lena deserves one break and he’s going to make sure she gets it.” Lena, meanwhile, seems untouched by sentiment. “The interesting thing about Lena is that she accepts that she’s been sullied by the events of the past years and will never be the same, and, therefore, she and Jake can never return to what they once had,” says Blanchett, who prepared for her role by reading personal accounts of women who survived the war and its aftermath. “These women sought to protect themselves by denying their emotions and adopting a gallows humor about the commonplace brutality and deprivation of their lives. In one diary, a woman described that she could no longer recall happiness. When her fiancé returns and embraces her, she’s like ice in his arms. When you’ve been exposed to the depravity of human nature on a daily basis, happiness becomes a hollow concept, and I think this is how Lena feels about Jake. Why did he come back? To save her? For what?” “Lena is extremely complicated and there wasn’t enough time within the story to explore all the factors that have influenced her life,” says Soderbergh. “But Cate is able to convey that in the depth of her expression.” “The beauty of Lena is that she never gives up who she is,” adds Clooney. “She’s like the Faye Dunaway character in ‘Chinatown.’ Every single time she tells Jake something, he believes her, and almost every single time she’s lying.” Lena also lies to Tully. Says Maguire, “He thinks they have a real relationship. In fact, he thinks he has her under his thumb, but she has things going on that he’s not privy to. With Tully, there’s always a level that he is aware of and a deeper level that escapes him. “Tully’s a reptile, an opportunist who changes roles depending on who he’s with,” he continues, describing a character who gifts Jake with a bottle of whisky and simultaneously picks his pocket. “He comes off very patriotic and apple pie and, meanwhile, he has this whole underground life. Everyone is a mark to him.” I keep thinking about this movie and the complex relationships. I want to see it again now that I know how it ended—to see if I can pick up more of the pieces I missed the first time. Madelyn Miller is a food and travel writer who loves movies set foreign countries. You can read her work on www.travellady.com, www.cocktailatlas.com, www.chocolateatlas.com and www.carladynews.com |
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TM
Sometimes when you see a musical, there is a tune that
keeps running through your mind. Or when you see a comedy, you remember a
certain joke or amusing scene whenever a similar thing happens in your life.
I
thought maybe I saw the movie during a holiday fuzz and that had jaded my
vision. But I talked to a friend who had loved the book and she eagerly asked me
how certain scenes had been handled. I realized it was the kind of story you
could not forget, a moral dilemma that you would never
be sure of the best resolution.
U.S. war correspondent Jake Geismer (GEORGE CLOONEY) has
just arrived to cover the upcoming Potsdam Peace Conference, where Allied
leaders will meet to determine the fate of a vanquished Germany and a newly
liberated Europe…and, in the process, carve up what’s left of any value for
themselves.
Jake’s driver, Corporal Tully (TOBEY MAGUIRE), exudes
small-town American charm—an eager, guileless, good-natured kid from the
Midwest. In reality, he’s corrupt to the core, bartering anything and anyone,
and playing all sides for the highest price. But that’s not unusual. Everyone in
Berlin has a secret now. Everyone is working an angle to get what they need:
money, power, survival…or just a way out.
Tully’s black market dealings don’t interest Jake, but
Tully’s girlfriend does. She’s Lena Brandt (CATE BLANCHETT), Jake’s former love,
although somehow, now, not quite the person he once knew. She has been
irrevocably changed by the war, the hardship of life in this ruined city and the
burden of her own secrets.
Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon and directed by Steven
Soderbergh, “The Good German” is a mystery, a romance and a thriller in the
classic film noir tradition, its intimate human dramas playing out against the
turbulence of political intrigue on a grand scale. Not only set in 1945, but
crafted in the filmmaking techniques of that era, it blends a contemporary
sensibility with the distinctive mood and style of movies that stirred the
imaginations of post-war audiences.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Virtual
Studios, a Section Eight Production: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Tobey
Maguire starring in “The Good German.” Directed by Steven Soderbergh from a
screenplay by Paul Attanasio, based on the novel by Joseph Kanon, “The Good
German” is produced by Ben Cosgrove and Gregory Jacobs.
If War is Hell, Then What Comes After?