Hannah Arendt (2012)

Hannah Arendt - a co-operation between companies in Germany, France and Luxemburg - is a historical and biographical drama (based on a true story) about the well-known and controversial German-born American philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Here is some basic information about this drama which premiered at the Toronto International Film festival in 2012:

** Director: Margarethe von Trotta

** Writers: Margarethe von Trotta & Pamela Katz

** Soundtrack: German, English, French & Hebrew

** Released in Germany and the US: 2013

** Released on DVD: 2014

** Subtitles: German - no English subtitles!

** Run time: 104 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Barbara Sukowa as Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

** Friederike Becht as the young Hannah (in flashbacks)

** Alex Milberg as Heinrich Blücher (1899-1970) – a German-American philosopher – Hannah’s second husband

** Janet McTeer as Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) – an American novelist

** Klaus Pohl as Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) – a German philosopher

** Nicholas Woodeson as William Shawn (1907-1992) – editor of The New Yorker 1952-1987

** Ulrich Noethen as Hans Jonas (1903-1993)

** Michael Degen as Kurt Blumenfeld (1884-1963) – a German-born Zionist

** Julia Jentsch as Lotte Köhler (1920-2011) – Hannah’s assistant

** Victoria Trauttmansdorff as Charlotte Beradt (1907-1986) – a German-born American journalist

[Margarethe von Trotta and Pamela Katz worked together on the historical drama Rosenstrasse, which premiered in 2003. Margarethe von Trotta and Barbara Sukowa worked together on the historical drama Rosa Luxemburg, which premiered in 1986.]

Since this drama is based on a true story, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are not a secret. Therefore I feel free to mention some of them in this review.

While this drama is based on a true story, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown here. But the basic story is true.

As stated above, this is a movie about Hannah Arendt, but it does not cover her whole life from the beginning to the end. It focuses on a brief but significant part of Hannah’s life: the time from 1960 to 1963.

1960 is the year in which the former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann is captured by Israeli agents in Argentina. He is brought to Israel where he is put on trial in 1961. He is accused of having committed crimes against humanity when he organised transports for millions of Jews to the death camps in Eastern Europe.

Hannah Arendt wants to attend this trial. She contacts William Shawn, the editor of The New Yorker, who agrees to cover her expenses and publish her report of the trial. The articles that first appear in The New Yorker are published as the book Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1963.

This is why the movie begins in 1960 and ends in 1963. In between there are some flashbacks to the past where we see glimpses of the young Hannah while she is a student at a university in Germany.

Hannah’s account about Eichmann and his trial in Jerusalem was highly controversial for reasons which are explained in the movie. Many people who had been friends with her for a long time turned their backs on her because of what she wrote about this case.

What do reviewers say about this historical and biographical drama? Here are the results of three movie aggregators:

** 69 per cent = Metacritic = 3.5 stars on Amazon

** 71 per cent = IMDb = 3.6 stars on Amazon

** 88 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes = 4.4 stars on Amazon

If you ask me, all these ratings are too high. This movie is not great. It is not even good. It is average. Because it has two significant flaws.

# 1. The first flaw is the fact that the director assumes the viewer already knows all there is to know about the life and career of Hannah Arendt. The director does not offer any background information to help the viewer understand what is going on in this movie. There is no information about where we are in time or place. And almost no information about who is who.

The opening scene shows us the moment when Eichmann is being captured by Israeli agents. This scene is set in Argentina in 1960. This fact could and should have been mentioned with an on-screen message, but there is no such message.

The director decided that the viewers must work it out for themselves. This unfair approach is used throughout the movie. When we are in New York, there is no information about the time or the place. When Hannah travels to Israel, there is no information about the time or the place.

The main character is constantly surrounded by well-known historical persons, who could and should have been identified by an on-screen message the first time they appear, but there are no such messages. The viewers must try to find out who is who by listening carefully to the dialogue, because sometimes one character will mention the name of another character.

As mentioned above, there are some flashbacks to the time when Hannah was a student at a university in Germany. In the past she is with someone, but who is it? It is Martin Heidegger, but once again the director decided that she is not going to help the viewer understand what is going on. She is not going to tell the viewer who this other person is.

In fact, Hannah’s romantic relationship with Martin Heidegger was and still is the subject of many debates, because she was a Jew who had to flee Germany in 1933, while he was a member of the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945. How could they be together?

# 2. The second flaw concerns the language that is spoken in the movie. This is a German movie made by a German director and most of the dialogue is in German. This is OK when we are in Germany or when Germans are talking to each other. But not all the people around Hannah are Germans.

When she speaks to the editor of The New Yorker, the conversation should be in English. When Hannah is in Israel, there is some dialogue in English, French and Hebrew, but again most of the dialogue is in German, and this is not realistic.

When Hannah gives a lecture in a university in the US, she speaks German. There is a large audience present. Do they all understand German? No, they do not. Hannah would have given her lecture in English. Otherwise the audience would not have been able to understand what she was saying.

The topic of this drama is very interesting. I wanted to like it. But as you can see, there are some major flaws which cannot be ignored, which cannot be overlooked. I have to remove two stars because of these flaws. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of three stars.

        

PS # 1. Margarethe von Trotta covered another interesting topic in the historical drama Rosenstrasse which premiered in 2003. Unfortunately, this movie also has some serious flaws. It cannot get more than three stars. See my review here on this blog.

PS # 2. The following articles are available online:

** Moira Weigel, “Heritage Girl Crush: On Hannah Arendt,” Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), 16 July 2013

** Sandra Hill, “Hannah Arendt review: air thick with smoke and hot with debate,” Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 2014

PS # 3. There is a lot of smoking in this movie. Hannah smokes in almost every scene, even while she is teaching a class! The people around her also smoke a lot. It is horrible to watch, but we have to remember this movie is set in the 1960s, so perhaps it is realistic.

*****

 

 Margarethe von Trotta (born 1942)

*****