MovieChat Forums > Rosenstrasse (2003) Discussion > Does Lena Sleep with Goebbels?

Does Lena Sleep with Goebbels?

posted 20 years ago by films42
12 replies | jump to latest

I saw ROSENSTRASSE @ a critics screening. I was the only woman in the room & I was shocked to learn when the lights came back up that several of my male colleagues thought Lena had actually slept (or, in the more tactful words of the VILLAGE VOICE critic: "made out") with Nazi monster Joseph Goebbels.

The historical insensitivity of this interpretation is mind-blowing! OK, so for argument's sake, let's say she DID. Then maybe he releases her husband. But the very idea that Goebbels releases more than 1000 prisoners because Lena was "good in bed" (to use the exact words of one of my Chicago colleagues) is so absurd in every way that I can't even wrap my mind around it. Tell me what sex act this could possibly be & I will gladly perform it if it will, say, help save the people of Darfur!!!

But why take my word for it? Here's the link to my interview with ROSENSTRASSE's screenwriter Pamela Katz:

http://www.films42.com/chats/pamela_katz.asp

Jan Lisa Huttner
8/26/04

[–] jg1972 19 years ago

One review of this film made a good case why they did not sleep together.

a) After having met with Goebbels, Lena's dress is not disshevled. Her hair and make-up are in order. Moreover, Lena's dress was very hard to get in and out of. When she is taking it off at the end of the evening, she needs her brother's help. Are we to assume that Goebbels helped her dress after having sex? If so, he must have had a delicate touch, for not one of the many, many buttons on her dress was undone after she saw him.

b) This same reviewer noted that Goebbels preferred brunettes.

c) This reviewer noted that in contrast to other top Nazis, Goebbels did not mix sex and politics.

I can't confirm the veracity of the latter two critiques, but they do seem to have some validity.

One might ask, why was Lena crying after having met with Goebbels? Perhaps even the attempt made her feel cheap and degraded. She was an aristocrat, after all.

[–] films42 19 years ago

Those of you who take the time to read my interview with screenwriter Pamela Katz in the CHATS section of FILMS FOR TWO will see there was never any intention of depicting a sex act between Lena & JG.

Since writing my original post in August, I've seen the film a second time & I've also had a brief f2f chat about it with M. von Trotta herself (when she was here in town for the Chicago International Film Festival in October). The DVD will be released on 1/18/05, so skeptics can check it out for themselves. It doesn't happen because it would violate both historical fact as well as the emotional integrity of the Lena character.

Why does she cry? Yes, she feels cheap & degraded for even considering such a plan (as most women would, aristocrat or not), AND because she's lost ANY hope of finding a way to save her husband.

This really isn't so tough folks. Take off the Hollywood blinders (the ones that encourage you, for example, to watch an otherwise wonderful movie like COLLATERAL degenerate into a cheap damsel-in-distress melodrama just so the hero & the villain can go mano-a-mano in the last reel) & watch ROSENSTRASSE with an open mind & a beating heart!

Jan Lisa Huttner
January 2, 2005

[–] mariawong_99 19 years ago

Thank you Jan Lisa for your additional comments. Good for you!
I never doubted Lena slept with Goebbels. She might have considered it, but when the time was there it was just not acceptable to her and the whole idea became repulsive and she was ashamed of herself for even having thought about it. That and the absolute DESPAIR she must have felt for having no more ideas/options to save her husband. The tears were for herself (to forgive herself the pain caused by the intention to hurt/cheapen herself) and husband (who she lost hope of saving after this).
No doubt Goebbels would have been as happy with her sharing his bed as your male colleagues. Shame on these corrupted minds and dead, unnoble hearts!

(My daughter would say: Hey you there, get yourself a LIFE!)

[–] OlliBLN 19 years ago

Lena never was in bed with Goebbels, this would more destroy the great action and great success of the peacefull, but strong opposition of this women.
But I would not have been surprised, if von Trotta put this thought into her consideration to realize this crappy movie.

The shine of great act of courage of these women was really scratched enough by this movie because of characters ( a cold hearted father, a weak but loving mother, a harmfull injured borther brother... the scene when Lena fall on her knees to beg her father for assistance... Rosamunde Pilcher / Danielle Steel - style ), stereotypes ( blond "aryan" german Lena, darkhaired jewish Hannah, grosteque maniac looking NAZI-guards in uniforms, just one goodish nice police officer ), low atmosphere ( when the women cried out "We want our husbands back!" - it seemed so mechanically to me ) and the average acting ( I know it much better of Maria Schrader... Katja Rieman is totally overrated and the great Lena Stolze was pressed in a small role and visibly subchallenged )!

The women of Rosenstraße have deserved a better movie like this

[–] st_belger 19 years ago

I kept asking myself "Did she or did she not?", and so did others who watched the film with me. In the scene when she was crying, I wasn't even sure whether that was after or before her "final" meeting with Goebbels. But hey, I have problems following "Murder She Wrote" ...
The acting is much too heavy-handed for me, which unfortunally is often the case in "serious" German films. I'm not much of a Trotta fan anyway, it's "art" put on with a trowel. I go with the subtler approach - art is when you don't notice it. Nobody ever speaks or acts like Trotta's characters, not now, not in the 70s, not fifty years ago, except maybe a small circle of (West) German artistes.
Likewise, I was disappointed by Katja Riemann's acting, because I like her very much. She might just have been miscast for the part - she is much better in comedies. Try "Stadtgespraech" (Talk of the Town) or "Die Apothekerin" (The Pharmacist) where she isn't forced by the director to overplay.

[–] OlliBLN 19 years ago

Stadtgespräch and Die Apotherkerin are not her best movies, I don´t like both of them very much. "Der Bewegte Mann" or "Nur über meine Leiche" are well done comedies, also the short movie "Abgeschminkt"! Her acting was low in "Bandits" ( also low movie ) but not bad in "Nur aus Liebe", an action movie!

I think, that Katja Riemann is highly overrated, also like Franke Potente. Good management, good agents...

"Rosenstraße" was, after my opinion, very bad done. Seriuos "german" movies could be much better like "Der Untergang" ( "Downfall" ), where plot was fine filmed, the acting and filming really was breathtaking and touching.

[–] film_ho 18 years ago

I interpreted the scene to indicate that Goebbels double-crossed her. She slept with him, yet he refused to do anything for her husband.

The film did not provide a clear reason for the release of Jews. Someone in the film says there had been a "misunderstanding." There must have been more to it than this. Does anyone know the actual reason for the release?

[–] Strausszek 17 years ago

Well, the sources on just what the Nazis intended in this affair, and what prompted the release of the Jewish prisoners, are vague. Goebbels was involved in the sudden decision to set them free for the time being (this spelt release, but it wasn't a definite letter of freedom, they could have been drafted in again at any moment and sent to Poland, though in the event it didn't happen and most of them did survive the war: presuimably some went underground to avoid getting caught again).

We really don't know if there was an order at the outset to send all of these men to the extermination camps. Of course the general policy was to get rid of/kill all Jews, but that didn't mean you were always hauled in as soon as you identified yourself as a Jew at the wrong place or time; there were some irregularities and loopholes, and one point of the film is that the Nazi regime still was senstitive to public opinion, especially in Berlin (though it implies that by this time, many Germans were aware of the ongoing slaughter of the Jews). Killing large numbers of Jews was still outside the law in 1943 Nazi Germany, so the programme had to be conducted with a measure of caution and secrecy.

It's interesting that some people here feel the movie is dull and understated and doesn't bring the drama out. I felt it was engrossing and the interplay between Riemann, Vogel [Arthur) and the people around them is note perfect. It's true the movie doesn't go for spunky, harsh verbal duels in the style of Winds of War, JFK, Paths of Glory or The Godfather, but is this a fault? The scene where the protest first takes shape (the husband spotted in the barred window, his wife sees him, then he's being wrestled down by a guard - total silence - then Mrs Goldberg saying "I want my man back!" first unsteadily, then with growing conviction and anger, and the others beginning to follow) is superb, and very truthful.
In a mainstream Hollywood movie one of the women would sooner or later have walked up to the guards at the locked gate and swiped him in the face with a disdainful look, there would have been scenes of beating (at least implied) and threats of filing the names of the women to the Gestapo. None of this happens here. The drama is as much in what is not said as in what is actually stated [very plain in the expertly crafted scene of Lena's visit to her father's estate). The movie takes up a morally and emotionally complex story and brings it into play with grace.

[–] westhil 17 years ago

I just watched this movie the other day, and I never once thought Lena slept with JG, I thought she was crying because she knew there was nothing else she could do to help her husband. She could'nt go through with sleeping with JG so now she is in despare.

[–] Danusha_Goska 17 years ago

It's MvT's error.

In Hollywood movies, movies that have affected the whole world, sex was, often, too delicate to show onscreen, so in Hollywood language, showing a woman going through what Lena went through, and then showing her crying, would indicate that she had had sex with Goebbels and that he refused to help her.

But, as a previous post pointed out, her clothing and hair were not mussed, so, those facts indicate that she didn't sleep with Goebbels.

But, the filmmaker should have been aware of how her viewers would likely read that scene.

MvT dropped the ball.

As with much else, here, including the death of Klara. How the heck did Klara die? It's just not made clear, and keeping it obscure does nothing to advance the film.

[–] Strausszek 17 years ago

I think von Trotta would have been aware that to many moviegoers, the scene would make it look like it implied Lena had slept with Goebbels; it's a very short scene and you're right this is how it used to be shown in Hollywood '50s movies. But then Rosenstrasse is not a movie obeying Hollywood rules of telling its sstory.

It would be more fair to say the scene is a bit deliberately vague. In my opinion Lena doesn't go to bed with him, but she teases him, maybe she talks with him and implores him to help, invoking a sentimental wish to be the good guy, which would have been very humiliating for her. This is also a delicate spot for the film beacause Lena risks coming across as a sell-out to the audience, to us, and also because Goebbels was involved in the political decision to stop the deportation in this case, but we don't know precisely what happened and why.

[–] chrissso 8 years ago

Klara was very confusing ... the room seemed to be bomb damaged ... but the rest of the building was not. And there was glass shards on her chest. Yet the other woman seemed to pick up and inspect some sort of pill container. In the end it had to be suicide as a coincidental death does not serve the story.