Yesterday I have seen the movie Valkyrie with Tom Cruise.
Who else thinks that the two movies are almost two copies of each other?
I found the similarities striking!
(Funny note: Carice van Houten, who plays the wife of Von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise)in Valkyrie, in real life has a relationship with Sebastian Koch, who plays Von Stauffenberg in this movie :-))
Eh.. both films are based on the exact same story, so of course there will be similarities...
Was this an attempt at humour, by the way (your post, I mean)?
Agreed with the previous poster
Similarities means both movies are faithful to the real story.
What else to expect
They have to be very similar for the good of the story.. in certain way, if you understand what I mean.
Though I would say Valkyrie is different but the same story of course, and it adds way more of other stuff, like some characters, than the German movie.
But in general, Stauffenberg has good stuff too!:: Valkyrie is way better!
As mentioned, they're both based on the same historical event. That being said there are a number of interesting crossovers. Carice plays Cruise's wife in Valkyrie while here her partner Koch plays the role that Cruise has. There are also connections with Carice's movie Black Book - Mertz von Quirnheim played an SS General there while the police chief, Helldorff plays a horny and ruthless SS soldier - the woman who played his lover in a number of VERY racy scenes played Margarethe von Oven, the one who types Valkyrie II and the one who Cruise tells repeatedly to contact his wife.
This movie recreates Stauffenberg's wounding in North Africa and the 20th July plot with greater accuracy. However there are a number of significant inaccuracies - making Stauffenberg a liberal democrat (he was a nationalistic aristocrat), making Fellgiebel a drunken sot (he was actually quite religious and not really one for too much alcohol and was one of the most intelligent men in the German army, so indispensible that Hitler kept him on staff even if he knew that Fellgiebel disliked the Nazis deeply) and making up that crass domestic dispute between Graf and Grafin von Stauffenberg as a pathetic excuse for 'drama'. That was mean and even worse when you consider Grafin von Stauffenberg was still alive when this came out. To see that invented scene must have pained her greatly.
"It is not enough to like a film. You must like it for the right reasons."
- Pierre Rissient
I agree, the movies are very similar in plot development, style and scenery.
Also the dramatic elements and emphasis are very similar - e.g. the typewriter scene in the woods, the changing of the shirt at Hitlers bunker, the throwing of the leftover bombing equiopment on the drive back from the bunker.
So I would suggest that Valkyrie is not so much a new movie, but a rehash of what's been done before.
It's a bit like having a talented friend paint a portrait from a family photo - it's good but not overly original.
Of course there are similarities, but I think this film is much better. The Hollywood version tripped itself up by casting "cutie pie" Tom Cruise in the lead role. His presence is, to me, like having a sign up on the screen saying "Don't forget for a second that this is just pretend!" He is totally unbelievable, and doesn't even demonstrate an ounce of chemistry with Carice van Houten. Sebastian Koch is perfect for it!
Of course, the language adds a great deal. I am SO glad they didn't dub this in English. Even though my German is far from fluent, I would so rather glance at subtitles when I need to, than hear Tom Cruise mispronouncing German names and such.
I also found this German version better conveys the plot.
shareIt's my understanding that the makers of the Cruise project bought the rights to "the original" .
What's this week's obsession? Provided that it doesn't involve green ears or ra*e? Who cares?
This is indeed a very important question, especially when it comes to matters of portraying events within and during the reign of the third reich.
The no holds barred, true to life, realistic storytelling is rare in cinema when it comes to this subject.
I can only think of a handful of intelligent, correctly weighted, realistic films that didn't fall into the easy trap of safe, two-dimensional, dumbed down, good vs evil story telling.
As has been mentioned, there were many attempts on Hitler's life, and there were many men and women who had complex emotions and loyalties towards their families, their country and the war, as well as the Nazi party.
There are a wealth of amazing stories that could be told that are not, it's either American propaganda re: d-day, or events in the pacific, then the holocaust, or character drama's about Germans who heroically defied their govt.
What about the story of Poland? or of Rohm and the SA (night of the long knives?), what about operation barbarossa? What of the stories of the European axis powers, such as those who fought and perished in Russia? What about the complex story of the numerous Europeans, from Ukraine to Iraq to France and Norway who fought for the Reich?
In fact it has been left up to the Germans themselves (perhaps with the exception of 'Schindler's List' and 'saving Private Ryan') To make authentic, challenging films about the war.
What comes to mind is 'Das Boot', 'Stalingrad' and 'Unsere mutter unsere Vatter'.
There are a great deal of excellent documentaries covering all theaters, units and battles. The two best would have to be 'The World at War' and the 'Battlefield' series. I personally would love to see a film covering the opening of Barbarossa, the battle of Prokhorovka (Part of the Battle for Kursk) and many more.
It would just take some guts on the part of the film-maker(s) not to pander and fall victim to safe storytelling by making sure to pay homage to the victims of the holocaust unless necessary and to portray the German character's in depth.