Notes from a Composer

I walked out of the Film Forum mind abuzz and guts churning.   I was chewing on a whole lot of food for thought as well as the ice cream melt I bought to soothe my emotion roiled innards. I’d just seen “Forbidden Films”, the documentary about Nazi propaganda movies that are still deemed too toxic to release unrestricted to general audiences. The Film Forum in Manhattan is showing it this week, and most unusually you can see it free of charge.  However, like me, you may purchase comfort food at their in-house bakery afterward.

I don’t know what is more awful, the horrific Nazi propaganda – anti-semitic, anti-Polish, anti-English etc. – writ large in the scenes I saw, or the artistry with which they were made.  Truly awful in both senses at times.  I will not soon forget the beautifully lit, beautifully acted scene of the tear-stained girl giving a heartfelt plea for living in a German village surrounded only by Germans, not having to listen to Yiddish or Polish anymore.  Awful.  But cinematically as beautifully made as Ingrid Bergman crying in Casablanca.

I should not describe more.  It gets worse, much worse.  And these scenes are best viewed in the context of this documentary, which delves deeply into the debate of why these movies remain forbidden, only occasionally allowed to be seen within the context of a curated screening.  Experts and audiences and ex-Neo-Nazis (who had engaged in an underground market of these films) in Germany, France and Israel react to and debate the wisdom of keeping these films restricted or allowing them to be more widely seen and discussed.  People on all sides of the issue make compelling arguments.  If you don’t see “Forbidden Films”, I recommend reading the New York Times article on the subject and its review of the documentary.

1200 movies were made under the Nazi regime.  Only 40 are still “forbidden”.  I remember growing up in Berlin seeing several German movies made between 1933-1945.  For example “Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war” (The Man who was Sherlock Holmes) and “Die Feuerzangenbowle” (The Fire Tongs Bowl), two hugely popular Heinz Rühman comedies that don’t appear to have any objectionable propaganda content (in fact “Die Feuerzangenbowle” was almost forbidden by the Nazis because an official thought all the tomfoolery the schoolboys engage in was too disrespectful of authority).  Yet my strongest memory of “Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war” is the moment a German boy’s stamp expertise is what allows the movie’s (fake) Sherlock Holmes to solve the case.  Why was that plot twist added in a film that otherwise had nothing to do with Germany?  And I still remember with discomfort the moment when the “cool” teacher, the only adult in “Die Feuerzangenbowle” who is sympathetic, gives a speech at the end of the movie about how best to mold the minds and character of young men, a moment that raised mental alarm bells when I saw this film at sixteen with my friends at a sold out screening at the Waldbühne Amphitheater.  Even in movies designed as non-political escapism, the tenor and prejudice of the time and place of their making would creep in.

Continue reading →