I wonder how much 'oomph' this movie really has. Rarely, it seems to me, do movies about that era, really capture what seems to me the intensities.

I saw the earlier (1980s) German movie about the White Rose, and it was very good.

I think I saw that too David.

- I certainly remember hearing about the episode from my German Lutheran New Testament Professor in Grad School who lived through that era.

Seems to me, at least from the way he described it, it's absolutely an iconic moment in the modern German-Lutheran self-image.

Anyway, Jeremiah, I got the shivers starting up from the preview. You get the feeling of just how bad it is going to get, too.

Can I suggest posting the link to the trailer, at http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/displaytrailer.php?directoryname=sophiescholl&size=high&extension=mov

Very few films about the Holocaust and/or Nazi Germany do I admire.

Considering what we all know Roman Polanski knows about evil and the human heart, I thought The Pianist was a gross underachievement. The "ring" scene in Schindler's List left me unmoved: a documentary about Oskar Schindler had more pathos. Of course we need tributes to "resistance", but the term has been co-opted by "post-colonial" culture warriors.

Oblique gestures get me, like final sequences in Nowhere in Africa (2003), or from Bitter Harvest (1980s), or even the final scene of Bergman's Shame. Bill Styron should lay flowers on Emily Dickinson's grave for her short elegy which helped him conclude Sophie's Choice with such ... authority.

Sorry for the rant. Thanks for stimulating this thread.

One thing to watch out for: In some quarters, the Scholls have been portrayed as icons of "passive resistance," and some people will probably try to tie their stance to present-day "antiwar" activity. Based on my reading, I don't think the
"passive resistance" meme is correct...I think the only reason they were "passive" was lack of weapons and sufficient numbers of people to wield them.

I saw a direct quote from Sophie in which she said that the French (in 1940) should have fought "to the last round," which does not sound like the words of an absolute pacifist.

If it's halfway well done, hopefully we'll be applauding Sophie's choices.

Heh! The Pianist! My subtitle for that film is An Artistic Narcissist during Wartime. Isn't he special.

I pretty much loathed that film. As though the "special status" that European society grants to artists has any place being made much of within a cataclysm like that.

I took Polanski's interest in that story as a metaphor for his own artistic Passion as a result of the charges against him, and his ensuing alienation from society.

I sort of liked Schindler's List, but it wasn't really raw enough. Though I thought Sophie's Choice was very powerful, my favorite films about the Holocaust are those absolutely wrenching documentaries - the ones they show you on Tisha B'Av and you sit there sobbing.

The other films on your list I regret to say I'm unfamiliar with.

I'm glad to have provided the opportunity for your rant, Jeremiah.

It was an interesting one.

[BTW, I tried posting this yesterday, but the KT comments have been blocking me. Turns out, one of the words I was using - the one that explained the nature of the charges against Polanski, four letters, starts with r, was just too racy for it.]

David wrote: One thing to watch out for: In some quarters, the Scholls have been portrayed as icons of "passive resistance," and some people will probably try to tie their stance to present-day "antiwar" activity.

That's an excellent point to look out for. I hope not, but that indeed may be the reason the film has won critical success in both Hollywood and Europe. It would explain a certain something. Not to mention the disappointment factor.

Nowhere in Africa is German: a German-Jewish family waits out the war in east Africa. Bitter Harvest is German (or Polish): a Polish farmer hides a Jewish escapee from a deportation train, Agnieska Holland (better known for Europa, Europa) directed.

If Hollywood invested in more A-list movies about *resistance* within communist hellholes like the USSR, China, Cambodia, Cuba, then maybe its moral and artistic compass regarding the Third Reich and the USA would improve.