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Wow. This film is not good. During WWII (The Good War) a group of art enthusiasts led by George Clooney convince the government that the artwork of Europe needs to be saved from the Nazis.
If you wipe away the muck of preaching about art and overlong dull scenes of people sitting around talking. There might have been a good film in there. Especially if you concentrate on the characters played by Bob Balliban and Bill Murray. They were the only interesting people to watch. Although John Goodman and his pal from 'The Artist' came in a close second. But just when you think this film is going to take off, Clooney does another voice over and I just want to poke myself in the eye. The film ran 2 hours but felt like 10.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
I watched this, without sound, on the plane to or from Indiana.
It seemed passive, even stage-bound. The soldiers and officers and their jeeps and other equipment just seemed too clean. Maybe that's really the way it was during the war, and only on the front lines did you get smudged, with debris all about. But I kept seeing it as a movie set.
Also, I found it a bit annoying that they focused so much on the most famous classical paintings. Do I recall the Mona Lisa, or am I imagining it now? I wanted them to be rescuing some of the great surrealist works. It just really felt stodgy, heavy-handed, pretentious, hi-falutin' and even disrespectful of the plight of soldiers who were actually fighting, killing and dying in the war. And I say this as an art lover.
Of course, it's always possible I would have felt differently if I'd bought earphones.
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They did show the Mona Lisa being recovered in one quick shot. But they also said that the National Collection of France was safe and only the private collections had been taken. So, there is a disconnect somewhere because I'm pretty sure the Mona Lisa is part of the National collection since it hangs in the Louvre and junk.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
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cranefly Wrote:Also, I found it a bit annoying that they focused so much on the most famous classical paintings... Of course, it's always possible I would have felt differently if I'd bought earphones.
They discussed how many of those were burned, rather than kept; especially works by Picasso.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
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I was thinking I should watch this. Now I am not.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
Not certain my two cents on the film is all that legit. Never in a good mood on a plane, didn't have earphones so I just watched the moving pictures. Also, from reading up on it a bit, Hitler had a substantial interest in collecting the art of the world as part of his war efforts, which makes it more valid for us to try to thwart him at this as part of our war efforts.
I did look up whether the Germans had the Mona Lisa in their possession. The answer is, no one seems to know for sure. It is generally believed that a copy of the Mona Lisa, painted in Da Vincis times (and therefore difficult to distinguish from the original), was used as a decoy to lead the Nazis on a wild goose chase, and that copy was what was eventually retrieved and returned to the Louvre. As for the original, it was kept hidden, likely at the Louvre itself. The problem is, the Louvre has never really clarified what the state of the Mona Lisa was during that time. So there's a lot of speculation involved.
