Really enjoyed this movie! However, wonder if there was an explanation buried some place for the central hole in the film - without which there would have been no film. The printing press was invented in Germany in the 15th century and its citizens became among the best educated in Europe. HOW WAS IT THAT LIESEL COULDN'T READ?
shareDo you actually know what a plot hole is? How, exactly, is Liesel's illiteracy a "plot hole"?
What peculiar aberration in your thought processes equates the invention of printing with universal literacy?
You enjoyed the film. Good. Don't look for artificial (and non-existent) constraints on your enjoyment.
Yes, the definition of plot hole is within my sphere of cognition. Still wonder how the nation that almost developed nuclear weapons before the United States had children in incipient puberty that were unable read.
In the future a simple reply would suffice - minus the disparaging diatribe.
The girl's initial lack of literacy is puzzling, though to me it does not rise to the level of being a plot hole, which I see as a problem so large the plot really cannot sensibly overcome it. I do not know if the book explains her situation; I do not recall the movie explaining it. She doesn't seem to have any learning impairment, so my guess was that conditions in her family's situation, such as poverty or having to move frequently, might be behind it.
I might add that people can sometimes mask their lack of literacy with amazing success. There is a member of the Canadian Senate who was a very successful hockey coach and executive at the highest level of the sport who revealed his illiteracy and how he learned to work around it into his 60s.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTOshare
There are plenty of children in the USA today who are nearly illiterate. How hard is it to imagine a child of poverty in Eastern Europe more than 75 years ago having no proper education? Jeesh.
Thank you, thank you--you're most kind. In fact you're every kind.
When I was in boot camp I had to tutor a guy from the inner city Detroit who could barely write his own name and couldn't read much aside from labels and very common words. How he got into the navy was small mystery--I assume a recruiter flipped his ASVAB scores from 37 to 73. At any rate, this was 1983.
In 1950, Western Europe had an estimated illiteracy rate of 7-9%.
In 1950, Western Europe had an estimated illiteracy rate of 7-9%.
Germany was in a deep depression in the 1930s - Hitler promised the poor and downtrodden people of Germany that he would pull them out of depression to become a world power. They were tired, poor, hungry, etc - easy to manipulate. It is quite realistic to believe that there were children and adults during that time that could not read. I do not find this to be a plot hole.
Death had narrated that there was a misread on the map, which resulted in the bombing of the village. This is why the air raid sirens didn't go off.
You seem to suggest that illiteracy makes people more credulous and easier to manipulate. This thread alone suggests that being literate does not make one less credulous.
I said the people were tired, poor and hungry...which can lead to desperation and manipulation.
If someone cannot read in order to educate oneself on current events, politics, religion, social structures, etc., and can only get information through propaganda via radio and other people, then Yes - I do believe that the illiterate are easier to manipulate.
In this instance Liesl was being raised in a progressive home. And, her love of reading and books brought her closer to a Jewish man...and a pro-Nazi wife of the mayor - at the same time. So, reading can broaden your horizons.
Conversely, the fact that literacy in Germany was virtually 100% actually enabled the Nazis, through strict control of print media, to have huge control over the thoughts and opinions of the people.
I suppose that it's not actually the ability to read which is important but whether one effectively uses (or can use) the opportunities to educate oneself that literacy provides.
My memory of the film is that the mayor's wife was not a Nazi and that she identified with Liesl because of their shared love of reading and books.
shareTiger exactly
They were easy to manipulate, and if I remember correctly from a documentary I once saw nearly overnight there was full employment which made it a snap to take over was it Czechoslovakia or Hungry which was his next conquest? They needed employment as much as Germany did.
If prior to Hitler becoming the head honcho Germans had to pay for their education that could also explain why she couldn't read.
Education in Germany was free and compulsory before (and during) Hitler. Her illiteracy is an anomaly - though not necessarily a plot hole.
shareNo they weren't, the nazis never won a democratic election and even in the half-bent first election of 1933 [the electorate] rejected them, despite terrorism and electoral fraud.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
There's your answer, right there. They almost developed nuclear weapons. So, they almost educated all their citizens to be able to read. They missed one or two here or there, and Liesel was one of them.
Happy now?
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I graduated from high school with classmates who did not know how to read--in the United States, where everyone can get a free public school education. Illiteracy is not a plot hole--it's very, very real.
share'Plot hole' is a term that gets thrown around by people trying to seem smart. Just like 'manipulative'.
Never defend crap with 'It's just a movie'
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I too do not consider this to be a plot hole. Liesel's background was never explained, it just showed her on a train and her brother dying and then she was taken to live with her surrogate parents. So since there is no discussion of the father, perhaps her mother had financial hard times and school/learning was not on the top of the priority.
Liesel also seemed like a pretty closed off child until her new family opened her up.
The Hitler government enacted a law which said that if a child was being reared by his or her parents in a manner inimical to the State, the parents' rights could be terminated and the child placed for adoption by a suitable (read "Nazi") family.
Under this law, as a communist Liesel's mother was clearly an unfit mother. Perhaps she kept moving in order to stay one step ahead of the authorities, and their education had to wait until either the war was over, or the family was in a safe place.
This is what I figured as well -- Liesel's mother, being a communist in post 1933 Germany, was no doubt living in hiding much of the time and frequently moving until she was discovered by Nazi authorities, and then sent to a camp for political dissidents, while her "racially pure" German children were sent to a "suitable" home.
I believe the film opens in 1938, so the previous five years would have counted for half of young Liesel's life, explaining her lack of education and familiarity with a normal child's routines. Liesel's mother may not have even been an active communist; she may have had contacts, former friends and relatives, etc who knew her to have had communist sympathies at one time. And depending on how aggressively any of these contacts reported her political inclinations (or if a fellow "comrade" named her in an interrogation) that would have been more than enough for the Gestapo to show up and deal with her and her young children in the manner shown in the film.
So I didn't think this was a plot hole either. However, I do think it is a bit of a stretch to make Liesel appear to be entirely illiterate, which seems to be the case at the beginning. Then she learns to read very, very quickly. It might have worked better, though less melodramatically, to have shown that she could read but at a level behind her years. That would have been more realistic.
"I love those redheads!" (Wooderson, Dazed and Confused, 1993)
I agree with your reasoning for Liesel's lack of education. We don't really know about her childhood prior to the train ride in 1938. And the only thing that I thought was somewhat wrong but not a plot hole, you covered it as quoted:
Then she learns to read very, very quickly. It might have worked better, though less melodramatically, to have shown that she could read but at a level behind her years. That would have been more realistic.
I may be wrong but I think they say, at the beginning of the movie, that she came from Sweden... And Sweden was quite a poor country at that time, I guess that could explain she being illiterate.
shareNot just a poor country but she could very well have been able to read and speak Swedish and speak German but not read German
if she was coming from another country it could just be a language issue which is why she was able to so quickly pick it up knowing already how to speak German
Read the book for the explanation. The film gives you a strong sense, due to the fact that Liesel comes from a very poor family...the 10% who are poor and uneducated.
This is also partly evident in why her mother gives her away other than the fact that she fears for Liesel's life since she, herself, is a communist.
Questions are real enough, but still no plot-hole. There is no question that Sophie is photogenic, but more important here is her sympathetic appearance.
I think the reason she grew so little could be that the movie was not filmed over a 5-year period. Now if Edgar Reitz had been involved ...
How could she have been 90 when she dies, unless the end is set in the future and why were there no air raid warnings when the town did get bombed?
shareThere may not have been air raid sirens everywhere in Germany during the war. If so, then Molching, where Liesel lived, may have had no sirens because the city had no strategic value and no one ever expected it to be bombed. If I remember correctly, Death explained that the bombers attacked Molching by mistake.
shareThousands of people in Britain today cannot read. They never learned. For whatever reason. It's a major cause of unemployment (can't find an employer that will hire them) and crime (no employment, little benefit, what else is there?).
shareIlliteracy was very common in the past. That is not a "plot hole".
shareNot in Germany then.
shareI have no way of knowing whether that is true and I assume there are many people that would doubt that. If you could provide an authoritative source in English saying that there was very little illiteracy in Germany at that time, then that will help people understand what you are saying. Without that I think many people will just assume you are unaware of the reality. If I am the only one that thinks that then you should ignore me.
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