The list of topics approved for inclusion in movies about Nazi extermination camps is so short as to produce lookalike products that humanists invariably gush over. Since the genre's debut with the TV mini-series 'Holocaust' (or perhaps earlier with 'The Pawnbroker'), the criteria result in the same pious movie being made over and over; 'Sophies Choice' is 'The Pianist' is 'Bent' is 'Schindlers List.' It's all bathos from actors who want to prove their humanity and make an Oscar grab. The rotten truth is that all of these movies end up being calculated career moves, producing an escalation of the star's, or director's public acclaim. And it's become acceptable (if not admirable) in modern entertainment to do so. So isn't using a genocide-film project to hoist your movie career to a new plateau nearly as distasteful as supporting/participating in genocide?
The 'holocaust movie' is our new Hamlet, an acting litmus test whose reception by audiences is key; can Joe Blow or Suzie Housecoat pull off a holocaust film? Will viewers, with their barely-investigated and poorly-verbalized acting, film & art standards declare it a triumph? Did you cry when you saw it? I've ceased caring about the filmic holocaust because of this ridiculous game.
Mother Night showcased the holocaust as seen through Kurt Vonnegut's usual hapless protagonist and an absurdist tone. It escaped the official emotional arc of the genre but ran into problems elsewhere. Comedy (or any of its associates) is not an approved tone for the holocaust genre. So somewhere near the rockbottom of holocaust-bathos is this movie; Lewis's self-admiring advertisement for his depth and humanity. This notorious movie's problem is that it sticks an arrogant actor into an arrogant role in a grotesque attempt to show off his humility (!), and again produce a career bump. But Lewis is such a hambone that his depth and humanity are buried under a ton of lowbrow taste, self-admiration & pretense; the construction of the perception of others to benefit himself.
On top of that, most people now regard clowns as being sufficiently creepy on their own, even without snuffing kiddies in a gas chamber.
The real crime of this movie isn't its poor taste (as all you finger-wagging, deep-thinking taste-mavens can't wait to state). Sure it's kitsch but it ultimately manhandles the sentiment of the genre so badly that it becomes 'schmaltz'; failed seriousness. Rest assured, all of you clucking about it now would have fallen for it back in the day, and you did fall for it with Life is Beautiful. Retrospective value-judgment is a very comforting distraction; allowing you to time travel with your contemporary values and impose them on historical moments. It feels a bit like intellectual activity, doesn't it? But it's actually the arrest of intellectual growth and a crappy way to gain some bogus self-esteem; allowing reviewers to bask in self-admiration over their 'superior' position in the hierarchy of taste.
In this, the critics become the equal of Jerry Lewis.
The 'holocaust movie' is our new Hamlet, an acting litmus test whose reception by audiences is key; can Joe Blow or Suzie Housecoat pull off a holocaust film? Will viewers, with their barely-investigated and poorly-verbalized acting, film & art standards declare it a triumph? Did you cry when you saw it? I've ceased caring about the filmic holocaust because of this ridiculous game.
Mother Night showcased the holocaust as seen through Kurt Vonnegut's usual hapless protagonist and an absurdist tone. It escaped the official emotional arc of the genre but ran into problems elsewhere. Comedy (or any of its associates) is not an approved tone for the holocaust genre. So somewhere near the rockbottom of holocaust-bathos is this movie; Lewis's self-admiring advertisement for his depth and humanity. This notorious movie's problem is that it sticks an arrogant actor into an arrogant role in a grotesque attempt to show off his humility (!), and again produce a career bump. But Lewis is such a hambone that his depth and humanity are buried under a ton of lowbrow taste, self-admiration & pretense; the construction of the perception of others to benefit himself.
On top of that, most people now regard clowns as being sufficiently creepy on their own, even without snuffing kiddies in a gas chamber.
The real crime of this movie isn't its poor taste (as all you finger-wagging, deep-thinking taste-mavens can't wait to state). Sure it's kitsch but it ultimately manhandles the sentiment of the genre so badly that it becomes 'schmaltz'; failed seriousness. Rest assured, all of you clucking about it now would have fallen for it back in the day, and you did fall for it with Life is Beautiful. Retrospective value-judgment is a very comforting distraction; allowing you to time travel with your contemporary values and impose them on historical moments. It feels a bit like intellectual activity, doesn't it? But it's actually the arrest of intellectual growth and a crappy way to gain some bogus self-esteem; allowing reviewers to bask in self-admiration over their 'superior' position in the hierarchy of taste.
In this, the critics become the equal of Jerry Lewis.