The Architecture of Doom 1991
This a very enlightening movie. It's a documentary concerning the art and aethetics of the 3rd Reich. After all these years I would have thought that those 12 years of German history would have been covered completely. However right from the beginning the film presents new material that I've had no idea existed. I knew Hitler was a failed art student, but I hadn't actually seen his works. The narrator called them pedantic which is fair enough, but doesn't convey how well these pieces were done. Sure the little people drawn for scale purposes look ridiculous and the Viennese buildings have been drawn to death, but I wonder how the average architecture student's sketches would look by comparision (especially American students).
Later Hitler witnessed a performance of Wagner's Rienzi in his home town of Linz. He told a childhood friend, who had seen the opera with him, that "This was where it all began". In the opera Rienzi dies at the end in his capitol surrounded by his enemies. The documentary notes that Hitler and his worked for 3 years on a similiar opera. Hitler also took as his own Wagner's theme of nordic spirit, the power of of this spirit and a dose of anti-semitism.
The movie tries fairly successfully to draw a parallel between operatic staging and Hitler's later use of showcraft. Hitler had a hand in a surprisingly large amount of the aestectics the National Socialist movement. The parades and standards were all overseen and in some cases designed directly by "The Fuhrer". I knew he selected the swaztica, but didn't know that he had actually drawn the standards and some of the uniforms. These are just some of the surprising lessions, there are many more interesting revelations in this movie.
This is a remarkable movie which is forced me to rebalance the scales. I tend to believe that the times creat the man more than the man makes the time.
After the DVD ended I had this thought; was German romanticism and Soviet rationalism the prime reason we ended up with such a horrible war in 1939? How important was nationalism? Was this an ehco of the earlier conflict between Rousseau and Voltaire. Was it just a part of a long line of conflicts from the French revolution, revolutions of 1848 and the Great war of 1914.
It's a pleasant metaphysical thought that the publication of a pamplet or the spreading of an idea could lead to truly earth-shaking event such as the wars of the 20th century, but how true is that thought? If the idea hadn't been formulated or expressed widely could all this been avoided? Perhaps
This a very enlightening movie. It's a documentary concerning the art and aethetics of the 3rd Reich. After all these years I would have thought that those 12 years of German history would have been covered completely. However right from the beginning the film presents new material that I've had no idea existed. I knew Hitler was a failed art student, but I hadn't actually seen his works. The narrator called them pedantic which is fair enough, but doesn't convey how well these pieces were done. Sure the little people drawn for scale purposes look ridiculous and the Viennese buildings have been drawn to death, but I wonder how the average architecture student's sketches would look by comparision (especially American students).
Later Hitler witnessed a performance of Wagner's Rienzi in his home town of Linz. He told a childhood friend, who had seen the opera with him, that "This was where it all began". In the opera Rienzi dies at the end in his capitol surrounded by his enemies. The documentary notes that Hitler and his worked for 3 years on a similiar opera. Hitler also took as his own Wagner's theme of nordic spirit, the power of of this spirit and a dose of anti-semitism.
The movie tries fairly successfully to draw a parallel between operatic staging and Hitler's later use of showcraft. Hitler had a hand in a surprisingly large amount of the aestectics the National Socialist movement. The parades and standards were all overseen and in some cases designed directly by "The Fuhrer". I knew he selected the swaztica, but didn't know that he had actually drawn the standards and some of the uniforms. These are just some of the surprising lessions, there are many more interesting revelations in this movie.
This is a remarkable movie which is forced me to rebalance the scales. I tend to believe that the times creat the man more than the man makes the time.
After the DVD ended I had this thought; was German romanticism and Soviet rationalism the prime reason we ended up with such a horrible war in 1939? How important was nationalism? Was this an ehco of the earlier conflict between Rousseau and Voltaire. Was it just a part of a long line of conflicts from the French revolution, revolutions of 1848 and the Great war of 1914.
It's a pleasant metaphysical thought that the publication of a pamplet or the spreading of an idea could lead to truly earth-shaking event such as the wars of the 20th century, but how true is that thought? If the idea hadn't been formulated or expressed widely could all this been avoided? Perhaps
posted by garrison at 4:31 PM
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