germans plotted to assassinate hitler? really?!

I'm bored tonight. So I keep reloading the main page of IMDb. And then it occurs to me, as I glance over the screen to see if there is anything worth checking out, that I have never seen a trailer for Valkyrie (2008). You can guess what happens next.

I really had no preconceived notions going in. I mean, I remember the big hoopla they made about attempting to score access to some bases there for filming purposes. Mr. Cruise's "faith" kept the doors locked for quite a while. A ridiculous reason, if you ask me, but they are right. He is nuts. But so are many other people. And that is neither here nor there.

I must admit I was a bit surprised that everyone in the film speaks with his own accent (there is what, one woman?). This means Cruise stars as the German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (who knew he could play the ethnic card?!) with his own American accent. And all the Englishmen who round out his posse--you know, the other Germans who are plotting to kill Hitler during WWII--sound, well, English. This reminds me of the made-for-HBO film Conspiracy (2001) with Kenneth Branagh (who's also in Valkyrie) and Stanley Tucci. They were Germans with English and American accents, respectively. I should note, however, that some Germans do feature in the cast: Thomas Kretschmann and some lesser known stars (I don't even know who they are).

I know this makes me sound like some sort of modernist. But it's not as if the film is intentionally postmodern. Then maybe I would be more forgiving. It's also offensive because it is raping history. It's not as if I think this is a story only Germans should tell. Rather, I think that an attempt to be realistic would not only help the audience suspend their disbelief that Cruise, Branagh, my Bill Nighy, Terrence Stamp, and Eddie Izzard are the German masterminds behind this failed coup, it would also ground the history in its place. In other words, how is the audience supposed to appreciate what a select group of Nazis did to challenge their leader, the man who forever will be remembered as evil in the human form, if the coterie doesn't come off as German? Right now, with this film, they just come off as Cruise and his English group of friends playing at being heroic. Why is that story worth telling?

And another thing: I think having the actors maintain their own accents implicitly reinforces the Allied Powers' dominance in determining what Stephanie jokingly called "the mythology of Hitler." There are a lot of mediated representations of Hitler (and by extension, the Holocaust and in some cases, WWII), and they can all be collected in an archive. I would say that the story about him is always the same, with the exceptions of Max (2002), which depicted Hitler as a young artist, and Downfall (2004). Downfall is the most significant because not only does it try to humanize Hitler during his last days, it is also a German film--by a German director, in German, with German-speaking actors. (Bruno Ganz is Swiss-German.)

By eliding over German history in order to appeal to American audiences who want the film to be more action movie than historical thinkpiece, Valkyrie reclaims "Hitler" as belonging to an Allied history. For so long the Allies have had a grip on representations of WWII, the Holocaust (excepting Life is Beautiful [1998], I guess), and Hitler. For most of these films, Hitler--and by extension, his Axis "friends"--exist only to get beaten by the Allies, who have a monopoly, I think, on how he is remembered. Don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that we reevaluate Hitler in order to make him sympathetic in order to induce empathy for him. I just wanted to point out how the Grand Narrative of WWII and Hitler is maintained by the Allies, who use him only to make themselves look good. Even when it's not their story, as is the case with Valkyrie.