John Cusack plays German-Jewish art dealer who befriends Hitler in Max

The Canadian Press ^ | 1/24/03 | Sheila Norman-Culp

[tpaine]

John Cusack plays German-Jewish art dealer who befriends Hitler in Max

Friday December 26, 2002
SHEILA NORMAN-CULP

(AP) - John Cusack brings an edgy vitality to Max, the story of a German-Jewish art dealer who befriends a snivelling, nail-biting, deeply confused misfit struggling to become an artist. Oh, and the misfit's name is Adolf Hitler.

Menno Meyjes, nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of The Color Purple, makes his directoral debut with a fiction that some critics worried would humanize Hitler.

Certainly, Meyjes' film does not romanticize him. Noah Taylor's foaming-at-the-mouth Hitler is an impoverished outcast searching for acceptance, concocting unscientific "pure blood" theories to try to explain the chaos and upheaval of post-First World War Germany.

The contrast between Cusack's fictional Max Rothman and Hitler, both German army veterans, could not be more dramatic. Born of a wealthy family, Max is a Renaissance man whose wit flows easily from art to science, politics, medicine or philosophy. His family dines on fine china, and relaxes on elegant couches in rooms surrounded by books and paintings. His mother adores him, his wife and children rush to be near him and other women find him mesmerizingly attractive. His art business is a roaring success and the end of the war has rekindled his spirits.
Max is swept up by the exuberance of modernism. He's an optimist who believes in the transforming power of art.

Hitler is penniless, without friends or family, mocked by his army buddies. He yearns to be a "true" artist, but his portfolio of dog portraits and pastoral scenes is dismissed as amateur in the avant-garde world of Munich 1918.

Although Max is physically damaged by the war - a painter, he lost his right arm - Hitler is sound of body but rotten of mind. Pushed by Max to "stop holding back" as an artist, he breaks down when he realizes he is not up to the task.
"All I have in this world is the conviction that I am an artist and a master builder. And you just stole that from me!" Hitler shouts.
Obsessed with racial theories and anti-Semitism, Hitler throws himself into the art of propaganda, where, to the amazement of just about everyone, he finds unnerving success.

There is much to admire about Max. Cusack dominates the screen, a charmer who knows it and flaunts it, aided by Meyjes' lyrical screenplay. "I have seen the future. Believe me, it came right at us," Max declares with bravado. "There's no future in the future."

Taylor is just plain frightening, full of tics and twitches, bulging eyes and misdirected energy. Leelee Sobieski is alluring as Max's aristocratic mistress. Budapest, a stand-in for postwar Munich, gives the camera much to linger on, from high ceilings in elegant buildings to gritty industrial sites like the abandoned train factory where Max has his gallery. And the subject is both intriguing and painful. Even as we laugh at Taylor's stuttering outsider, we are sobered by the knowledge of the incalculable damage that the real Hitler inflicted on the world. The question the movie asks is: How does a man become a monster?

"Hitler was a human being," Meyjes says. "There are Hitlers of the future lurking, and I think if you want to comprehend what makes evil tick you have to begin with ordinary human emotions."

Since that would include rage, humiliation and hate - as well as hope and elation - Max is a good place to start.

[tpaine]

Just saw it. -- Excellent movie for history buffs of the rise of the nazi party & hitler.
This reviewer doesn't like Taylor's acting, - his version of hitler, -- but I found him very credible as the 'stuttering outsider' who is on the edge of either 'making' it, or totally lo0sing it.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Cusack, that's appropriate. This guy is a scumbag on the order of Alec Baldwin and Michael Whore.

[Glenn]

This guy is a scumbag on the order of Alec Baldwin and Michael Whore.

But he sure can act.

[tpaine]

Who cares about Cusack's 'bag'? -

It's good movie about an important historical period.

[Maedhros]

a fiction that some critics worried would humanize Hitler.

So what's the problem? Milton humanized Satan in Paradise Lost and no one worries about that.

[tpaine]

Indeed. -- Far to many people do NOT want to face up to the facts about fanatics.
They are everywhere. -- As this movie, & hitlers rise to power demonstrate.

Arthur Koestler on fanaticism:

"The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.
We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion."
_________________________________

[Skooz]

Exactly. Hitler WAS human, for crying out loud. That's the point. Hitler was an extraordinarily complex man. Even those closest to him could not figure him out.

The danger is not in "humanizing" Hitler, it is in portraying him as some non-human monster who rose from the bowels of hell to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting planet. That would make it seem as though he was unique in his super-human capability to commit crimes against humanity--which, as history shows, is clearly not the case.

There are many potential "Hitlers" all over the world.

[Skooz]

I like Cusack. I thought his performance in "High Fidelity" was remarkable.

I don't have a clue what his political leanings are, and I want it to stay that way.

Some of my favorite entertainers are on the other side of the political spectrum, but I cannot abide Babs or Alec, though I will admit Babs has a fabulous set of pipes.

[Skooz]

Thanks for the ping.

I would like to see the movie, if for no other reason than it is based on one of the finest biographies ever written. Noah Taylor is a fine actor; He was great in "Almost Famous" and I bet he does a good job here.

I just hope they didn't make the young Hitler into a circus freak just to show that they know that we know that they know he turned out to be a bad guy.

The biographies I have read show that Hitler was anything but a "twitching" side show geek with " bulging eyes and misdirected energy." He seems to have been a pretty normal fellow with a bad temper and an almost mystical love for opera and Germany. He is often described as a little odd, but not a freak.