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Taking Sides
One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing.
2002 · Directed by István Szabó · 108 min · Drama · War · Music · Screenplay in the scene database · 1 frames
Plot
In Berlin at the end of World War II, Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgård) is conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony when yet another Allied air raid stops the performance. A minister in the Nazi government comes to Furtwängler's dressing room to advise him that he should go abroad, and escape the war. The film then jumps to some time after the Allied victory. U.S. Army General Wallace (R. Lee Ermey) tells Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel) to "get" Furtwängler at his denazification hearing: "Find Wilhelm Furtwängler guilty. He represents everything that was rotten in Germany".
Arnold gets an office with Lieutenant David Wills (Moritz Bleibtreu), a German-American Jew, and Emmaline Straube (Birgit Minichmayr), daughter of an executed member of the German resistance. Arnold questions several musicians, many of whom know Emmaline's father and say that Furtwängler refused to give Hitler the Nazi salute. Arnold begins interrogating Furtwängler, asking why he didn't leave Germany in 1933 like so many other musicians. Why he had played for Hitler's birthday? Why he had played at a Nazi rally? Why his recording of Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony was used on the radio after Hitler's death? Arnold gets a second violinist to tell him about Furtwängler's womanizing and the conductor's professional jealousy of Herbert von Karajan.
In a subplot, Arnold is assisted by a young Jewish U.S. Army lieutenant. The young officer begins to have sympathy for the conductor, as does the young German woman who works as a clerk in their office. This causes friction between Arnold and his subordinates. In a voice-over, Arnold explains that Furtwängler was exonerated at the later hearings but boasts that his questioning "winged" him. Footage of the real Furtwängler shows him shaking hands with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels after a concert. The conductor surreptitiously wipes his hands with a cloth after touching the Nazi.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Ronald Harwood
- Cinematography: Lajos Koltai
- Edited by: Sylvie Landra
- Production design: Ken Adam
- Produced by: Yves Pasquier
Cast
- Harvey Keitel as Steve Arnold
- Stellan Skarsgård as Wilhelm Furtwängler
- Moritz Bleibtreu as David Wills
- R. Lee Ermey as General Wallace
- Birgit Minichmayr as Emmi Straube
- Ulrich Tukur as Helmut Rode
- Oleg Tabakov as Colonel Dymshitz
- Hanns Zischler as Rudolf Werner
- Armin Rohde as Schlee
- Daniel White as Sergeant Adams
Production
- Country: Austria, Germany, France, United Kingdom
- Language: English, French, German, Russian
- Studios: Paladin Production S.A., Maecenas Film- und Fernseh GmbH, Studio Babelsberg, Little Big Bear Filmproduktion GmbH
- Budget: $20,000,000
- Themes: world war ii
More by István Szabó
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