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Movie Review: Monuments Men
Feb. 8th, 2014 06:26 pmJust got back from seeing Monuments Men and still processing my feels. I haven't read the book but have read articles on the topic over the years, so I'd really need to check to see how much of the film was given the "Hollywood narrative" over the facts. The question asked in the film frequently, "Is art worth lives" is a great one, and of course the film answers "Obviously." I start here because when I worked with rare books my boss told me on the first day that my life and those of my coworkers was worth more than the materials we worked with, and to be mindful of that if it ever came to it. It didn't, but it is the question you have to ask yourself: What is life balanced with history?
To be fair, Clooney does his damnedest to try to show the value of art in wartime. It's a WW2 movie, based on real events, so we know how things come out from 1943-45. (Note: It is a WW2 film, but a fairly clean one. When the characters arrive on Normandy Beach after the invasion the sand is rather spotless. I am given to understand that, historically speaking, that wasn't the case. But I guess they needed that PG-13 rating.) Glancing references are made to the Holocaust with the expectation that the audience knows enough to fill in what the characters don't know. For instance, a minor character is a German-born Jewish American soldier who mentions that growing up he wasn't allowed into a museum to see Rembrandt's self-portrait. He later mentions that his grandfather was sent to Dachau, and Clooney's character comfortingly says, "Hopefully you'll see him again soon." Which of course--yeah. Dramatic irony, this is not the best way to use it? Later Damon's character finds a portrait that he takes back to the empty apartment where it had belonged; Cate Blanchett tells him, "You know they are not coming back? They are all gone," and he replies, "My job is to return art. This is where I can start." This is a bittersweet scene, and one of the more perfect ones of the film.
The seven Monuments Men aren't traditional soldiers in the narrative; they are all art curators, professors, and architects who signed on to the job to save art but were kept out of the war because of age and health. There is a brief training scene for some of them for humorous purposes which--I felt uncomfortable about. And a couple of the characters do very stupid--if human--things that get them into trouble later on, but it was like, "Have you NO common sense at all?!" I'd be curious to see if this was part of the real story or just the adaptation.
All the principals were great of course, though they under-used Cate Blanchette I think. John Goodman's character was very hammy. Bill Murray had some really great moments, esp serious ones. Seeing Matt Damon with gray in his hair makes me inexplicably sad, though; I guess he's just always going to be the beautiful boy from Dogma to me.
I wish they had taken a little more trouble at the end to tie the film in with contemporary efforts. All they needed was a few sentences at the end, come on. Instead we have a series of archival photos of the real men with the real art to close the narrative, as it to say, "Good job, team." The Monuments Men were a specific group in WW2, yes, but--look at the work of the modern curators in Iraq to save their historical artifacts and art from American soldiers, look at the Arab Spring in Egypt where citizens were camped out to protect their museums. Saving art and culture isn't an American occupation, it is a world occupation that continues today.
To be fair, Clooney does his damnedest to try to show the value of art in wartime. It's a WW2 movie, based on real events, so we know how things come out from 1943-45. (Note: It is a WW2 film, but a fairly clean one. When the characters arrive on Normandy Beach after the invasion the sand is rather spotless. I am given to understand that, historically speaking, that wasn't the case. But I guess they needed that PG-13 rating.) Glancing references are made to the Holocaust with the expectation that the audience knows enough to fill in what the characters don't know. For instance, a minor character is a German-born Jewish American soldier who mentions that growing up he wasn't allowed into a museum to see Rembrandt's self-portrait. He later mentions that his grandfather was sent to Dachau, and Clooney's character comfortingly says, "Hopefully you'll see him again soon." Which of course--yeah. Dramatic irony, this is not the best way to use it? Later Damon's character finds a portrait that he takes back to the empty apartment where it had belonged; Cate Blanchett tells him, "You know they are not coming back? They are all gone," and he replies, "My job is to return art. This is where I can start." This is a bittersweet scene, and one of the more perfect ones of the film.
The seven Monuments Men aren't traditional soldiers in the narrative; they are all art curators, professors, and architects who signed on to the job to save art but were kept out of the war because of age and health. There is a brief training scene for some of them for humorous purposes which--I felt uncomfortable about. And a couple of the characters do very stupid--if human--things that get them into trouble later on, but it was like, "Have you NO common sense at all?!" I'd be curious to see if this was part of the real story or just the adaptation.
All the principals were great of course, though they under-used Cate Blanchette I think. John Goodman's character was very hammy. Bill Murray had some really great moments, esp serious ones. Seeing Matt Damon with gray in his hair makes me inexplicably sad, though; I guess he's just always going to be the beautiful boy from Dogma to me.
I wish they had taken a little more trouble at the end to tie the film in with contemporary efforts. All they needed was a few sentences at the end, come on. Instead we have a series of archival photos of the real men with the real art to close the narrative, as it to say, "Good job, team." The Monuments Men were a specific group in WW2, yes, but--look at the work of the modern curators in Iraq to save their historical artifacts and art from American soldiers, look at the Arab Spring in Egypt where citizens were camped out to protect their museums. Saving art and culture isn't an American occupation, it is a world occupation that continues today.
