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and the uncanny resemblance of
von Stauffenberg and Tom Cruise
My younger brother recently relocated to Toronto, and he managed to take time off his very busy schedule to spend time with me.
We attended the new Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie together. Tom Cruise has been getting a lot of flack for his Scientology beliefs, and some movie and celebrity pundits are even insinuating that he is "abusing" his new wife, Katy Holmes. I believe quite the contrary; he and his wife and their little (super sharp) daughter Suri look happy and content to me.
But back to the acting: I think Cruise is a fine actor, and his role in the true-life German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was very well done. Cruise has this capacity to fill in the outer-armor of a role, to exude whatever it is he is portraying. I don't think he is a very psychological actor, nor particularly sensitive, but he embodies a role really well. I'm not sure what modern film-goers want in their male characters - a romantic, sensitive, anti-hero type, I suspect. Well, Cruise does none of these, and in fact radiates confidence and certainty, which sits very well in this new role of his.
I had heard of Col. von Stauffenberg for the first time from a forum I participated in a while ago. I was really surprised to find out that Germans had actually spent the Nazi years trying to dispose of Hitler through assassination and coup attempts. Col. von Stauffenberg was the one that got closest to its mission.
My brother, when I told him that this was a real story, displayed the same kind of surprise and positive reaction that I had exhibited: "At least they tried" was what he said.
I agree with him. The Germans that I find in forums (and as classmates in high school - I haven't befriended any Germans since) always had some kind of unspent energy, as though they were trying to get rid of something but could only do it in indirect ways. They were just overly aggressive personalities, and I was never sure why, in those early days of my encounter with them. Now I understand that it has quite a bit to do with their history, their cultural heritage. How does one reconcile Nazism as part of one's heritage? How does one explain it away?
This similar behavior was exhibited by the German participant in the forum I mentioned above. Without going into some torrid details about the kind of behavior she exhibited, here is a comment I made to her about her strange "negative" post to the heroic efforts of Col. von Stauffenberg discussed on the forum.
[W]hy did you post this article which makes an anti-hero of Stauffenberg? Are you trying to be objective? With all due respect, it seems that you always seem to be on this ambivalent track. Should you praise Germany, or just give it an approving nudge?I sensed immediately that she was refusing to put him on a pedestal. I wondered why. The only explanation I could come up with was that she blamed him for not being successful. It just wasn't enough that he tried, and to get so close! He failed in the final mission!
Why cannot the Germans accept that they had real heroes? That hidden behind the bland faces and saluting voices were real Germans who battled secretly against this horrible phenomenon? Why are they so hard on themselves?
The only thing I can think of is that it is addictive to feel betrayed. To feel the guilt of their fore-fathers' sins. To not accept any heroes.
Perhaps this is the ailment that is striking all Westerners. This guilt that they cannot expiate, which seduces them into inaction and complacency. The more they feel guilty, the less they have to do, and the more they can blame it on "circumstances."
Heroism takes work, risk, disappointment and even death. It is easier to do nothing as a great reactionary sulk - initially, that is. The more one does nothing, though, the more the evil accumulates, then it is really just a matter of shooing in destruction.
Still, it is hardly surprising that this story of a German hero was made by an American director. And although it is supposedly an American-German co-production, I think it is still the American positivism which shines through.
Despite the grays and greens of the somber sceneries, which hardly deviated from these militaristic colors except when the blood red of the Nazi flags were on display, there is a sense of something being accomplished, of a certainty that the coup had a real cause to save lives and save a country.
The subdued acting of the heroes-in-the-making, scheming their revolutionary tactics in full view of Hitler and their enemies, makes the film worth viewing. Someone ought to tell the nattering critics that Tom Cruise and his production company have done a very fine job.
In fact, here I am, saying just that.