Monuments Men - Unusual heroes

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Movie
German title Monuments Men - Unusual heroes
Original title The Monuments Men
Country of production United States ,
Germany
original language English , German
Publishing year 2014
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director George Clooney
script George Clooney,
Grant Heslov
production George Clooney,
Grant Heslov
music Alexandre Desplat
camera Phedon Papamichael
cut Stephen Mirrione
occupation

Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes (original title The Monuments Men ) is a German-American feature film that premiered on February 4, 2014. Directed by George Clooney , who also took on the lead role. Based on the book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel, the film tells the story of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section (MFAA), a division for the protection of works of art during World War II .

action

The US art professor Frank Stokes was able to convince US President Franklin Roosevelt to send a seven-man troop of art protection soldiers - the so-called Monuments Men - to Europe during the final phase of World War II . Stokes is appalled by the destruction of the Monte Cassino monastery . The group he has put together consists of museum directors, curators and art historians.They are supposed to clarify the whereabouts of the works of art and treasures of historical value stolen by the National Socialists , secure them directly behind the advancing fighting troops and prepare their repatriation. The group is joined by a soldier of German descent who had to flee the Third Reich as a Jew, as well as a British and a French officer. First, Stokes explains that no work of art justifies the loss of a human life. The group receives a short basic military training and then arrives in France via one of the invasion beaches in Normandy . There the Monuments Men are divided into small groups and entrusted with various tasks.

James Granger travels to Paris , which has only just been liberated , to determine the whereabouts of stolen works of art by Jewish owners and, if possible, to return them. He asks for help from Claire Simone, who previously worked for the German officer Viktor Stahl. She had informed her brother, who was in the Resistance , about the looted art; he was shot while trying to take the works of art away from the Nazis. Before the Wehrmacht withdrew from Paris, Viktor Stahl had brought numerous works of art to Germany. Claire initially refuses to work with Granger, fearing that the Americans would now themselves take possession of the art treasures.

The British Donald Jeffries, as a liaison officer to the fighting troops, is supposed to ensure that they do not accidentally destroy important art treasures in Belgium . Since the commanding officer refuses to take measures to protect the Bruges Madonna , Jeffries rides a bicycle into the city on his own at night one day before the liberation of Bruges without a fight to protect the Madonna. He is discovered and shot by a German commando led by Colonel Wegner. The Germans are taking the Madonna away. In the meantime the US Army has conquered Siegen , where, according to an overheard conversation by German soldiers, many art treasures are said to have been brought. On site, however, Stokes found only bombed ruins and no trace of looted art. Jean-Claude Clermont and Walter Garfield get caught between the fronts, and Clermont is shot at by retreating German troops and succumbs to his injuries.

Previously wanted Belgian priest the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck protect them from the Nazis. At night they dismantled it and loaded the individual tablets onto a truck. The Nazis discovered the cargo and they took away the altar as well.

The accidental arrest of Viktor Stahl brought Stokes and his men into possession of a map with locations to which the Nazis could have brought the stolen art objects. However, they cannot find any works of art in the locations concerned until they notice that the location information on the map has chemical elements such as potassium or copper assigned to it. They conclude that the works of art are to be found in mines near the places mentioned. After opening a bricked-up tunnel in Siegen, they can secure a large amount of works of art. In a potash mine near Merkers they discover tons of Nazi gold : gold bars - the Reichsbank's foreign exchange reserve - as well as loads of art treasures. It is shown how US Generals Omar N. Bradley , George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower drove into the pit in April 1945 to examine the findings - based on historical events, including the discovery of the bust of the Nefertiti and other art treasures in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie . But they only find burned remains of works by modern artists such as Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso ; they were destroyed as a result of the Nero order .

Claire Simone reads about the arrest of Viktor Stahl and now trusts James Granger. She invites him to a private party and does him an important service: She has secretly kept a record of the looted art and gives him her notes. She suspects that many of the art treasures are kept in Neuschwanstein Castle .

After the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, a race against the Soviet Army began . In the meantime, Stokes has learned that the Soviets, who lost 20 million war dead, had art treasures brought to the Soviet Union as reparations from the territories they occupied . The mine in Altaussee (Austria), in which the Monuments Men suspect the Ghent Altarpiece, among other things, could, however , fall under the contractually provided Soviet occupation zone . Shortly before the arrival of the Soviet soldiers, the MFAA team succeeds in securing the panels on the altar and the Bruges Madonna, for whose protection Jeffries lost his life.

On his return to the US, Stokes reports on the mission to the new President Truman . When asked by the President whether he was of the opinion, in view of the two fallen soldiers, that saving the art treasures justified the loss of human life, Stokes replied yes. In the final scene, Frank Stokes is seen as an old man visiting the Bruges Madonna with his grandson in 1977.

publication

The film was originally due to be released on December 18, 2013. A trailer was released on August 8, 2013, and on October 22, 2013 the film launch was postponed to an unspecified date in February 2014. On October 24, 2013 it was announced that the film would celebrate its international premiere on February 7, 2014 at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival ("Berlinale") . Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes celebrated its world premiere on February 4, 2014 in New York City ; on February 8, the film was shown outside of the Berlinale competition for the first time in Europe. The distributor Fox Germany released the film for nationwide cinema release on February 20, 2014.

production

Monuments Men is a German-American co-production . The shooting took place almost entirely in Germany. Studio Babelsberg (Studio Babelsberg AG) , based in the Brandenburg state capital Potsdam , is both a co-producer and an executive production company (Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures) . Furthermore, the film was shot mainly in the studio halls and outside backdrops of the Babelsberg film studios as well as in the Harz Mountains .

The first on-site meetings and preparations, such as looking for motifs and the like, took place in Potsdam in spring / summer 2012; The shooting lasted from the beginning of March to the end of June 2013. In May 2013, the production team chose the Harz location of Ilsenburg for four weeks as the basis for shooting in the local area.

The 40 filming locations were located next to the studio premises in the German federal states of Berlin (including Neue Wache , Palais am Festungsgraben , Zeughaus ), Brandenburg (Potsdam, surroundings and Rüdersdorf Museum Park ), Lower Saxony ( Hellertalbrücke Altenau , Ottiliae shaft Clausthal-Zellerfeld , Lautenthal , Bad Grund (Harz) , Rammelsberg and Steinbergalm Goslar ) and Saxony-Anhalt ( Halberstadt , Merseburg , Osterwieck ).

Winter forest photos of a US camp were taken, for example, in the forest areas at the Moorlake in Wannsee , the old Krampnitz barracks in Potsdam served as a theater of war and the Halberstadt Cathedral served as the original motif; however, the Neuschwanstein Castle featured in the film was recreated in the Babelsberg studio in Potsdam. The shooting planned in Merkers was not implemented.

There were over 10,200 extras appearances .

The film was funded by the German Film Funding Fund (DFFF) , the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung .

reception

Monuments Men received rather negative reviews. Of 215 Rotten Tomatoes critics evaluated, only 32% of the film received positive ratings.

With a production budget of around 70 million US dollars, it grossed just under 155 million US dollars worldwide.

Rudolf Worschech from epd Film awarded 3 out of 5 stars and judged:

“MONUMENTS MEN is unique. A film that could just as easily have been made in the fifties and sixties, which seems as if the disillusioning war films of recent times hadn't even existed. The film can also be understood as a homage to the inexperienced war films of those years such as THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE BRÜCKE AM RIVER KWAI, to which Clooney bows down to the music with its drum rolls, and of course vibrates in the memory of the ideals of yesteryear also a criticism of the present. "

- epd film

The importance of the film for current issues

In November 2013 the film received an unexpected topicality due to the reporting and the public discussion about the Schwabing art find . The Monuments Men seized 125 works from Hildebrand Gurlitt's art collection in 1945 and returned them in 1950. They were part of the collection that was confiscated from his son Cornelius by the Augsburg public prosecutor in 2012 .

During the presentation of the film at the Berlinale , George Clooney spoke out in favor of the return of those fragments of the Acropolis that are in London as the " Elgin Marbles ". In repeating this opinion, London Mayor Boris Johnson accused him of pursuing an "agenda of looted art like Hitler once did".

With regard to the robbery excavations and the stealing of antiquities , which are currently destroying countless archaeological sites in connection with the civil war in Syria, UNESCO , for example, is counting on the film to bring further public interest and media attention to the topic of cultural property protection.

The employees of Blue Shield International become international because of the sometimes very dangerous missions to protect cultural assets against looting, confiscation and destruction during war and unrest like in Iraq, Syria, Mali or Afghanistan, but also earthquakes like in Haiti or Nepal often referred to as the new "Monuments Men".

Trivia

The composer of the film music Alexandre Desplat has a guest appearance as the coachman Emile, who asks Granger (Matt Damon) where he learned French.

Some of the backdrops and prop parts of the film produced by Studio Babelsberg and used for the shooting have been preserved and have since been part of the attraction of the neighboring Babelsberg Film Park .

In contrast to what is shown in the film, the Hainer tunnel of the Alte Silberkaute mine, in which the art treasures were stored in the Hain district of Siegen at that time, is by no means a copper mine. It is one of the numerous iron ore mines in Siegen.

literature

  • Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter: The Monuments Men. Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. London, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-59995-149-2 .
  • Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter: Monuments Men. The hunt for Hitler's looted art. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-453-43764-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2014 (PDF; test number: 142 792 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Angie Han: Release Dates: George Clooney's 'Monuments Men' Slotted for December 2013, Terence Malick's 'To the Wonder' Announces April Release . /Movie. December 7, 2012. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
  4. ↑ Kristopher Tapley: 'Monuments Men' trailer finds George Clooney and Matt Damon on the hunt for stolen art . HitFix. August 8, 2012. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
  5. ↑ The Monuments Men Moves to 2014 . ComingSoon.net. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  6. ↑ Mike Fleming: 'Monuments Men' Release Date - Set For February 7, 2014 ( en ) Deadline.com. Retrieved November 15, 2013.
  7. ^ Filmstarts: “Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes” www.filmstarts.de, accessed December 3, 2013
  8. ↑ a b c d George Clooney back in Berlin: Studio Babelsberg co-production “Monuments Men - Unusual Heroes” premieres at the Berlinale. In: Studiobabelsberg.com. Press release Studio Babelsberg AG, accessed on December 3, 2013 .
  9. ↑ "Monuments Men" filming: Clooney's visit is hardly marketed. In: www.mz-web.de. Retrieved November 14, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Hollywood star George Clooney is a guest in Saxony-Anhalt. Rumor has it that his new film is being shot for the first time in Merseburg Cathedral. Afterwards the shooting will take place in Goslar .: Shooting: Clooney-Mania in Merseburg and Goslar | The first. (No longer available online.) In: www.mdr.de. April 26, 2013, archived from the original on November 17, 2015 ; accessed on November 14, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Andres Lehmann: "Pictures: George Clooney's locations - from Altenau to Zellerfeld Ukonio.de accessed on February 19, 2015
  12. ↑ MAZ: Hollywood is shooting the war drama “The Monuments Men” in Babelsberg - Night Shift with George Clooney Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung from March 14, 2013, accessed on February 5, 2014
  13. ↑ PNN: Hollywood star in Potsdam - Clooney shoots war scenes in Krampnitz Potsdamer Latest news from April 10, 2013, accessed on February 5, 2014
  14. ↑ HNA: George Clooney's new film illuminates the end of the war in the Merkers Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine potash mine on February 17, 2014, accessed on March 1, 2014
  15. ^ HAZ: New film: George Clooney is looking for extras for a film shoot in Potsdam Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from January 22, 2013, accessed December 3, 2013
  16. ↑ Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed August 18, 2014.
  17. ↑ Boxofficemojo.com box office results , accessed on August 18, 2014.
  18. ^ Rudolf Worschech: Monuments Men.epd Film, February 18, 2014, accessed on April 16, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Berlinale 2014: George Clooney shows a crime thriller about looted art. In: Spiegel Online . November 8, 2013, accessed on January 3, 2014 : “Shortly after it became known that 1,400 works of art had been seized in Munich, the Berlinale trumps with a suitable report: George Clooney's“ Monuments Men ”will be shown at the festival - a thriller about Art hunters who have to free works from the hands of the Nazis. "
  20. ↑ Münchener Kunstfund is “political problem of the federal government” in Deutschlandradio , November 8, 2013, accessed on January 3, 2013
  21. ↑ George Clooney clashes with London's mayor Tiroler Tageszeitung: Dispute over Acropolis fragments
  22. ↑ Kuwait News Agency (February 6, 2014): UNESCO praises Syria's protection of museums from looting
  23. ↑ Peter Stone "Monuments Men: protecting cultural heritage in war zones." In Apollo - The International Art Magazine, February 2, 2015.
  24. ^ Robert Bevan "George Clooney on The Monuments Men and the great art escape." In The Times of January 18, 2014.
  25. ↑ Joris Kila in an interview in “Monument Men of the Present. Protection against bombs and looting ”in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger from February 20, 2014.
  26. ↑ Tanja Bernsau "History of the" Monuments Men "repeats itself", Artresearch Service, September 14, 2013.
  27. ↑ IMDb: Monuments Men www.imdb.com, accessed on March 14, 2016
  28. ^ Filmpark Babelsberg www.filmpark-babelsberg.de, accessed on March 14, 2016