Its is very difficult for me to care about art when people are dying. Even though it 60 years later and I don't know any of people who died or even any of their families I still care more about them than the art.
When I saw the trailer for this I rolled my eyes.
Their culture is the only thing that proved they even existed in the first place. Yes, saving lives and paying respect to those lost is more important but arts are the ultimate expression of human existence.
When the British government asked Churchill during WWII to cut arts funding to give more to the army he simply replied, "then what would we be fighting for?" I think that sums it up perfectly. Art is the only proof that any of us were ever here.
Human existence is the ultimate expression of human existence. So if all of humanity is wiped out, but there is only objects 'art' left then what?
I'm a supporter of the arts, but no way are you going to convince me that art, a building, a piece of land or object is more important than any person's life. I don't care about the race, gender, sexual orientation, age, education, intellect, cultural background, religion of that person. Their life is still more important than an object.
-Tom Cruise: Listen Matt, You don't know the history of microbiology!! I do!-
You're ridiculous. A human life means nothing in the long run if it contributed nothing. A hundred years from now your life and everything you did will be forgotten and lost to history. But someone living today is doing something that will bring happiness to a hundred generations to come. A painting that sums up the life, times and culture of a million living, breathing people is worth far more than another drone marching to their grave.
shareYou have GOT to be kidding me! Every life means something and every life affects other lives in ways you can't imagine. LIFE is much more important than a painting.
shareYou really think so? depends on the life. Do people still believe the cliche today that we are all the same and created equal. What a load of rubbish.
shareSo you say that we are created unequal and that some are better than others. Let's return to the middle ages than with the privileges of aristocracy. It was really great for the aristocrats, you know, they could buy stuff for credit and forget to pay, and the merchant couldn't do anything against them, because they were his betters.
shareWe ARE created unequal, whether you like it or not. Where's equality between a cripple and a professional athlete? A child born in a wealthy family and one born on the streets? A population witnessing the destruction of their country, and another witnessing their country host the Olympics? There are a million other analogies.
We are not equal because life itself is unequal and unfair, that's an indisputable fact. Acknowledging it simply means you are mature enough to stop believing in Disney stories. It does not mean you want to return to feudal times.
Agreed.
If you're hungry, try a piece of your friend!
Well said.
Millennial = Homo Sapiens born 1990 or after; Losers who think they know everything but don't
Nice strawman
shareSo you say that we are created unequal and that some are better than others. Let's return to the middle ages than with the privileges of aristocracy. It was really great for the aristocrats, you know, they could buy stuff for credit and forget to pay, and the merchant couldn't do anything against them, because they were his betters.
What hubris; I suppose you are "one of the chosen" who decides whether or not a person contributed something of value during their lifetime, if their life was of some worth to society as a whole? Yes, every life is precious and priceless, at least to the person living it, and who are you to say otherwise? I do not hold this belief from a religious point of view, no, but from a moral one. If you do believe some lives are worth more based on some arbitrary opinion you hold, you are nothing more than a Fascist, and yes I do know the meanings of the words I use.
Human Rights: Know Them, Demand Them, Defend Them
I would not sacrifice a single life for all of the art. However, I care a great deal about art, as did the Monuments Men. They were experts in their fields, but mostly not young or fit enough to be regular soldiers. They were asked to volunteer because the Allies did not want all the art of Europe to be either stolen or destroyed, and their mission was to preserve it for the rightful owners. They were risking their own lives, not sacrificing others. When they found the barrel of gold teeth (that had been pried out of the skulls of Hitler's victims), they were all very quiet afterward, because that underscored the human loss.
Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam
" Yes, every life is precious and priceless"
Yet you choose to have a dog rather than save human lives with that money.
GREAT ARGUMENT FROM MORALS (morals are whatever people decide are moral)
First off, definitely NOT every life is priceless. Life usually has great potential, but that doesn't mean that every life has it.
Second, you have just proven you have no clue what fascist really means.
Typical American, living in a dream, a Leftist illusion.
Not a native anglo.
That was Balfour's choice to make - it was his life. Factually, it was not a sacrifice he was required to make - but if HE felt it was worth sacrificing his life, then who are we to question him?
Every life means something and every life affects other lives in ways you can't imagine. LIFE is much more important than a painting.
Life is much more important than a painting? Whose life? Yours? Wrong. What have you done to make your life worthwhile? I imagine not much with perspectives like this. Art is eternal, human life is not. Your quick disregard of the other poster's point invalidates your own.
share"LIFE is much more important "
so you should go without expensive medical treatment and use that money to save many lives?
GMANGLENN1982
I re-posted to make sure you understood my post was a response to your post. Also, after looking at the few posts you have contributed to imDb, and the few movies you have commented on, I am not sure why I have even bothered, because you are not a film aficionado, just a dilettante. But, my post is already here, so once again and then I'm done. This film wasn't worth the effort anyway.
Original post just for GMANGLENN1982:
What hubris; I suppose you are "one of the chosen" who decides whether or not a person contributed something of value during their lifetime, if their life was of some worth to society as a whole? Yes, every life is precious and priceless, at least to the person living it, and who are you to say otherwise? I do not hold this belief from a religious point of view, no, but from a moral one. If you do believe some lives are worth more based on some arbitrary opinion you hold, you are nothing more than a Fascist, and yes I do know the meanings of the words I use.
Human Rights: Know Them, Demand Them, Defend Them
What painting sums up your life?
shareWould you sacrifice your own family's lives for a piece of art?
If not, then your thesis is phony.
I could never sacrifice a person. Heck, I can't even kill an animal. But I would give my own life with no regrets to save some masterpiece. One of my favorite pieces in the world is "Venus birth". I have no doubt my own life is less worthy than it.
shareYou life maybe worthless, but I am talking about your own family's lives, someone you love dearly, unless you have nobody you love or care about, like your parents or wife or children, LOL. Would you sacrifice their lives for a piece of inanimate object of arts? If you would, then your family probably does not mean anything to you; that would be very sad.
shareI don't have any close family left but I understood your question. I told you I would never sacrifice anyone (let alone anyone I love) but myself. And in this case, the Monument Men were risking their own lives, that was my point.
shareThere's billions alive. All of humanity was never going to get wiped out. Ofcourse humanity as a whole is more important. But art as a whole is more important than individual people, groups of people.
I used to be an Atheist but then I met Christopher Nolan
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Would you know of PSH if you've never seen his films because they were all destroyed?
shareIt's really a moot argument. It's not a "one or the other" lives lost vs. art lost. It was all a hideous amputation on civilization. Who knows how many future artists Hitler murdered. Or brilliant writers and composers. Or the young person who would have grown up to discover the cure for cancer, or Aids, or plague. Or the little genius who one day would have figured out how to synthesize water and end drought forever.
Who can possibly know what great art was destroyed or stolen from us and our grandchildren's great-grandchildren, never to be seen again.
There is no "this loss is worse than that loss". It was all a barbaric devastation to mankind and to future civilizations by a sick little psychopathic moron who deprived us all of untold greatness in so many forms, and plunged the world backwards for generations to come.
Who ever said that art was more important?
I just don't get why, every time a story like this one pops up in theaters, people go to extremes and just assume that what a particular story describes must necessarily exclude anything else.
_________________
"A right must exist independently of its exercise."
- Inside I'm Dancing
Clooney's character in the movie says that buildings can be rebuilt, but art cannot be recreated - implying that art is more important than destruction...
No, art cannot be recreated EXACTLY, but it can still continue to be produced... Kill enough people through bombing buildings though, and whole civilizations/communities can be destroyed.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
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Wow. I am so, so with you, and amazed anybody wouldn't be.
shareNo one, in the movie or in support of the actual monuments men, has stated that art is more important than human life. But a people's history is important. The work that has been done, and is still being done, is in conjunction with efforts to save lives. If it ever becomes a choice between lives and artwork, the lives win out every time. If you watch the first part of the movie Clooney's character does tell the men not to put their lives in danger just to protect t an art piece or a building. Also, when they brief other officers, they state that they are asking that the soldiers avoid destroying monuments whenever possible. The same goes on today in war zones.
shareNo one, in the movie or in support of the actual monuments men, has stated that art is more important than human life.
Can you substantiate that quote from Churchill? I have read numerous biographies on Churchill, and don't recall that quote anywhere. Sounds like one of those quotes made up years later and attributed to someone in the past like how "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is given to Voltaire, but was actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall many years later.
George Santayana is the origin of the "those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it." RoyWilliam, it's hard to tell from your post which post cited Churchill but was this what you were referring to? No need to answer.
^^^
Health care security - ahhhhh - nothing is better!
Perhaps there are some misattributed quotes, but those are ex-tre-mely rare. In fact,
Quotes are always attributed to the right person. No one will lie on the internet. It would be rude, and who wants to be rude?
--Albert Einstein
E=MC2
--Snooki
Whenever I watch TV and see those poor, starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.
--Mariah Carey
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/carey.asp
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In a burning home that is about to collapse, you save the artwork not the kids. Obviously.
Love dies, but things are forever.
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You are correct! Art, in all of its expressions, is the ultimate proof of life. I am so glad this film was made. I am a student of military history. But, what I have always wanted to know is how these great works survived the most tragic war of mankind.
shareVery well said fudgenuts101.
sharewell said
sharetens of millions died not 12 million for one. But on the basis of your argument I trust you don't watch any Westerns or other similar historical Hollywood film that because the ignore the genocide of indigenous Americans and in face many celebrate the extermination. At the end of the day great stories should be told. The fear here is that they've missed the chance to make the great movie that is in this story and instead have made a pretty flat movie.
sharetens of millions diedMatthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things, the most authoritative book on mass killings I've seen, puts the total at "66 million, including the Sino-Japanese War the Bengal famine, the Holocaust, and Stalin's wartime purges, but not including any of the postwar purges or conflicts." share
Toonmili, hey there eye roller,
This is not a story of art vs. life. The mission was premised on the notion that the war was almost over. The generals' directions to their soldiers were do your best not to hurt churches, monuments, etc. You'll understand better once you see the movie or, better than just the movie, read the book.
All the Allies were in on saving all sorts of creations of meaning to civilizations: churches, monuments, the "stuff" taken from the Jewish families (minorahs, sterling silver tableware, jewelry) and, of course, the paintings.
The Monuments Men also found all the gold taken from the countries Germany invaded and conquered; it was returned to those countries.
Some of the places the stuff was hidden were booby trapped.
As the war was winding down and Germans were retreating, it was easy to find people to give info on where the stuff was. As you were intimating, in fact, there were people hurt saving this stuff, but the risks weren't that great in that the places they were lurking about were already taken back by the Allies.
It is a very, very interesting story about the end of the war.
Worldwide, 55 million died. It was odd that you said words to the effect that you could/would only care about war if you knew the people or their families. Huh? Where's your empathy?
This was the most horrendous event of the 20th century. By far. The war should never be forgotten and should be taught with historic accuracy. The textbooks in some countries are already getting out of whack.
^^^
Health care security - ahhhhh - nothing is better!
The fact that it is in the past does not mean that we "get over it". Part of the issue with the film is that the millions who died cannot be gotten back but to also allow the art to be destroyed would have compounded the damage.
shareIts is very difficult for me to care about art when people are dying. Even though it 60 years later and I don't know any of people who died or even any of their families I still care more about them than the art.
When I saw the trailer for this I rolled my eyes.
You comment sounds like the old "how can you (insert activity here) when people are starving?" So no, having a good dinner, taking a hike, going to the movies, etc. All is worthless, because "people are starving..."
shareYes, millions died. But you are making the uneducated assumption that, AS THE WAR WAS ENDING, and the overwhelming majority of those dead had already died (including relatives of mine in the camps) that a small group of brave individuals trying to protect history and art from the Nazis was futile. ANY action that foiled Hitler's plans was a win. He wanted to wipe out history just as he had human beings. Some of those human beings he murdered died trying to protect this art. Letting the Nazis, who were subhuman animals, destroy this art would mean those people died in vain.
As I said in the subject, IF you ever grow up you may be lucky enough to understand. But I would not bet on that.
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Are you able to read?
Where exactly did I say "German males" or even "Germans"???
German males and even the average German soldier were not being described by my comment.
Those creatures (not just German) who actively subscribed to the Nazi philosophy were. The majority of the German people were not Nazis. Even the majority of the German Soldiers were not really Nazis.
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