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Funnily enough I saw a copy of The Good German in a charity shop on Tuesday - I knew I was about to watch it, and yet still left it there. Maybe I'll buy it on Friday.
XXVII: Steven Soderbergh, The Good German (2006)
Soderbergh works again with George Clooney, who is here a war correspondent in Potsdam in mid-1945, somewhere in the vicinity of the peace talks. The title refers to a German of the breed who did not support Hitler, but didn't actually do anything to oppose the regime or its atrocities. Whilst clearly questioning this morality, it is clear that Allied morality is questioned as well. An amputee who is initially introduced as a black marketeer is later revealed to be the result of a Nazi experiment; meanwhile the Allied powers are keen to snap up Nazi scientists. Congressman Briemer (Jack Thompson) is allowed to say that the US wants peace rather than money - but no doubt the 1940s versions of Halliburton was in the wings.
Clooney begins by investigating a murder mystery, involving his driver Corporal Patrick Tully (Tobey Maguire) and his old stringer and lover Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) but ends up in murkier territory.
Key to the film is its attempt to create 1940s style photography - it was apparently shot in colour to allow green screen work, but used cameras and lenses and was decolourised in digital post production. Soderbergh is his own DP (as Peter Andrews) and editor (as Mary Ann Bernard), but perhaps he should gone for a more 1940s script than the one offered by Paul Attanasio which would be thrown out by the Hays Office. (Attanasio created/developed Homicide: Life on the Strteets which I've finally seen the first two seasons of.)
A failed experiment by Soderbergh - essentially The Third Man grafted onto Casablanca, although Clooney is no Bogart here, nor even Joseph Cotten. But even Soderbergh's failures are more interesting that Ocean's 11 sequels.
Totals: 27 [Cinema: 9; DVD: 17; TV: 1]
XXVII: Steven Soderbergh, The Good German (2006)
Soderbergh works again with George Clooney, who is here a war correspondent in Potsdam in mid-1945, somewhere in the vicinity of the peace talks. The title refers to a German of the breed who did not support Hitler, but didn't actually do anything to oppose the regime or its atrocities. Whilst clearly questioning this morality, it is clear that Allied morality is questioned as well. An amputee who is initially introduced as a black marketeer is later revealed to be the result of a Nazi experiment; meanwhile the Allied powers are keen to snap up Nazi scientists. Congressman Briemer (Jack Thompson) is allowed to say that the US wants peace rather than money - but no doubt the 1940s versions of Halliburton was in the wings.
Clooney begins by investigating a murder mystery, involving his driver Corporal Patrick Tully (Tobey Maguire) and his old stringer and lover Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) but ends up in murkier territory.
Key to the film is its attempt to create 1940s style photography - it was apparently shot in colour to allow green screen work, but used cameras and lenses and was decolourised in digital post production. Soderbergh is his own DP (as Peter Andrews) and editor (as Mary Ann Bernard), but perhaps he should gone for a more 1940s script than the one offered by Paul Attanasio which would be thrown out by the Hays Office. (Attanasio created/developed Homicide: Life on the Strteets which I've finally seen the first two seasons of.)
A failed experiment by Soderbergh - essentially The Third Man grafted onto Casablanca, although Clooney is no Bogart here, nor even Joseph Cotten. But even Soderbergh's failures are more interesting that Ocean's 11 sequels.
Totals: 27 [Cinema: 9; DVD: 17; TV: 1]
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