Goodbye to Berlin

 

Is Viggo Mortensen the new Henry Fonda? In modern cinema few actors are able to bring such a quiet dignity to roles. His off-screen interests and lifestyle appear to give weight to the integrity of his screen image and like Fonda he appears to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for permanent youth. I'm pleased to say that the 2009 announcement of his retirement was premature and we can look forward to a number of new films including two new films with David Cronenberg, one of which will be a sequel to their 2005 collaboration 'Eastern Promises' for which he received an Oscar nomination.

Like Fonda playing a villain in 'Once Upon a Time in the West', Mortensen is seldom better than when our expectations are confounded and in this respect he is perfectly cast in 'Good', an adaptation of CP Taylor's stage play. Set in Berlin during the 1930s Mortensen plays John Halder, a mild-mannered Professor of Literature confronted with the personal challenges of living and working under the Nazi regime.

Mortensen gives an excellent performance as we watch this essentially 'good' man fall under the influence of the Nazis. This is Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil'. Naive, flattered and scared in equal measure - it is an entirely believable portrayal of a seduction and the small moral compromises that lead inexorably to the
concentration camps.

Unfortunately, as a film the dramatic tension cannot be sustained. Why? Simply because we know where this is going to end up. A Jewish friend, ably played by Jason Issacs, is little more than a cypher. Good humoured, intelligent and generous, a veteran of the First World War - he ticks every box as a victim worthy of our sympathy. Yet as Halder's star rises within senior Nazi circles - Glückstein's decline, which should have been tragic was merely inevitable. Serious, worthy but ultimately boring.

Over the weekend I asked a friend who works at the Imperial War Museum if she fancied writing a piece about Remembrance. 'Make it funny and controversial' I added in a flippant moment. She put me in my place as only a teacher can. However, I thought of her again during this film because she had given me a copy of Isherwood's 'Goodbye to Berlin'. Best known for the Oscar-winning musical adaptation 'Caberet', it was originally published in 1939 and tells the story of a young Englishman's adventures in the bohemian city as the Nazis tighten their grip on power.


I had always thought of Christopher Isherwood as a blagger.  Charming and entertaining but not really of any consequence. I was wrong. Isherwood somehow walks a line between the frivolous and the profound. His battlefield is beautifully developed in the seedy world of nightclubs. Drinking, singing and dancing become conscious political acts, their demise mirrors the democratic institutions that were being dismantled. Isherwood recognises that a Nazi politely collecting money is just as threatening as the stormtroopers smashing windows. He was there.

Isherwood's great achievement, however, is the way he deals with his Jewish characters, most notably the Landauers, a wealthy family who owned a large department store in Berlin. His friends, Bernhard and Natalia Landauer, are snobs, intolerant and prudish but thanks to Isherwood we also discover the things that made him like them. They are real people - not mere cyphers for a race. When he overhears two businessmen talking about the death of Bernhard from 'heart-failure' - "there's a lot of heart-failure in Germany these days", it is as a personal tragedy but we understand the wider implications. His happiness upon hearing that Natalia has married and is living in Paris is simply chilling.

I suppose we should applaud the ambition of 'Good'. It is film with with serious intentions but by being boring, well it's not a crime, not in this context, but let's say it is unworthy. Try reading Isherwood instead.