Nazi Anti-Semitic Propaganda Filmmaking: Veit Harlan and "Jud Suss"

Veit Harlan and Kristina Soderbaum

At our weekly village movie night this week we watched a documentary called Harlan: In the Shadow of "Jew Suss" about Third Reich propaganda filmmaker, Veit Harlan, whose controversial film inspired a nation to persecute and murder all Jews. I had not heard of Veit Herlan before viewing this documentary, but it immediately became clear to me that his work, especially Jud Suss, was infamous throughout Europe. Harlan and his actress wife Kristina Soderbaum were similar in status to Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.  His films were shown in movie houses all over Germany and Europe and his wife, a beautiful Aryan blonde, was famous for her woman-child characters and her tragic screen deaths. They and their children lived a life of privilege during and after the Third Reich. Unlike many German filmmakers of the time, Harlan remained in Germany as the Nazis rose to power. He became closely affiliated with the Party, working very closely with Goebbels himself to produce anti-Semitic propaganda films.

After viewing the documentary, I found Jud Suss on YouTube and watched it. The film is set up as a period drama, taking place in 1770s Stuttgart. A new duke has just taken his place as leader. Upon taking a solemn oath to protect his people, the duke is celebrated and respected by his countrymen. But when the duke is denied funds for such extravagances as an opera, a ballet, and a personal guard, he turns to a wealthy Jew named Joseph Suss Oppenheimer from outside Stuttgart for financial aid. Misguided by his greed, the duke allows Suss gradually take control of various political matters, including road taxes. Suss uses his power to abuse the people of Stuttgart and to open the gates of the city to his people, who have been historically denied entrance to Stuttgart. And, being Jews, they bring with them crime, licentiousness, corruption, and all the sins of hell. When Suss takes advantage of the chairman's only daughter and causes her death, the people of the city, led by the duke's dissolved council, rise up in rebellion. Suss is given a brief trial in which he lies and denies all guilt, and then he is hanged for defiling a non-Jewish woman.

The message of the film is clear, and there is no doubt of it's cruelty. The Jewish characters are each caricaturized in the most disgusting way imaginable. They are greasy, with hooked noses and small glittering spectacles, and the wring their hands and hunch forward when they walk. They are all lying, manipulative, scoundrels. Their synagogue service is shown  like some sort of chaotic heathenish devil-worship, with worshipers writhing and wailing, packed close together in the filthy synagogue. The movie does more than imply that Jews are inherently evil and corrupted.  They must be first prevented from ever entering the country and expelled if they have gained a foothold, then hunted down, and killed like rats.

After the war, Harlan was one of the few filmmakers brought to trial for his participation in the Nazi plot. He was acquitted of two counts of crime against humanity, but the judge himself was a known murderer himself, so many feel that justice was not served. Harlan himself would continue to make films, albeit without the financial support he had had access to through Goebbels. He continued to deny his guilt, claiming that Goebbels forced him to make those films, that he had no choice but to comply with the party that was so much more powerful than he was. Some of his family believe that he was only interested in personal gain, that he made the movies he had to make in order to be successful at that time. But others argue that he wanted to support the party - he enjoyed the privileged life that collaboration awarded him and he believed in the messages that his films declared.

The documentary showed how the children and grandchildren of Veit Harlan continue to fight a sense of guilt left in the wake of Jud Suss. How could their father/grandfather make such a disgusting film? If he was forced to make the film, why did he have to make it so well, so convincingly? Why did he star his wife in a film that was potentially so explosive, unless perhaps he did not feel threatened by opposition to the film's themes? Why did he not just say that he was making such films so that he could continue to live in Germany under the Third Reich? Did he or did he not believe the Jews should all be killed? How aware was he of what was going on in the camps? He must have known what was going on because he was working so directly with the people who were carrying out these heinous crimes against an innocent people. Indeed, his own first wife and her family were killed at Auschwitz.

His family are dealing with their guilt in a number of ways. Some, like his filmmaker son Thomas, have swung completely the opposite direction, becoming very liberal and contributing to the search for other Nazi war criminals. Some, like his two actress daughters, were forced by their agents to change their last name because no one associated with the Harlan name would be able to get work in the movie industry after the war. It is clear that the grandchildren feel more shame than guilt, though there is still a prevailing fear of the possibility that such ideologies could contaminate the bloodline.

The conclusion our group came to when discussing the documentary afterwards is that Veit Harlan's family's story is representative of the tensions which conflicted the German mindset after the war. The quest for justice for an entire people that either subscribed to the mode of thinking broadcast Nazi propaganda or fell victim to its message continues to this day. While it is impossible to see Harlan's participation as anything benign, we must also consider the strength and impact of the ideological mode of thinking that promoted his work. It is particularly difficult to see an artist, a creator, as someone who would encourage destruction. The work is clearly deliberate, yet how much significance to its affect has been added in retrospect. So many of our American war films seem laughably jingoistic today, in a time when we are so critical of our government's military operations. I do not think there is a simple solution to any of the problems left by the Holocaust. We must pursue justice while still maintaining our faith in humanity. Only through trust, courage, patience, forgiveness, and love can any of the scars left by that experience be healed.

The Joys of Silent Film

According to The Telegraph, silent film rentals are up 40% since The Artist swept the board at the Oscars. I think we can safely say that this modern cinematic triumph has become the "gateway drug" of silent films. And about time, too!

Ever since I heard/saw professional silent film organist Clark Wilson accompany Buster Keaton in The General at my college's auditorium I have been hooked on silent films. The organist would return every couple of years and I had the privilege of experiencing The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame on the big screen with live music. Not everybody is blessed with these magical opportunities. But everybody can enjoy silent movies.

At first, I found it difficult to enjoy a full-length silent movie on my computer. In a large auditorium with live music, the people in the audience feed off of the energy in that atmosphere. But when watching a film alone, it can be difficult to keep the adrenaline pumping. I have a few suggestions that may help newcomers to this medium get the most out of their experience:

1.) Watch silent movies with other people, your friends and family. Because there's no spoken dialogue, you can talk during the movie. You can laugh at the graphics and clarify parts that may be confusing without disrupting the film.

Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp

2.) Try watching the shorter films first. Back in the day, a twenty-minute Chaplin film might precede the feature presentation at the movie house. There are a lot of Chaplin and Buster Keaton short films on YouTube. They are a lot easier to sit through than a two-hour epic.

3.) Start with comedies. We're not used to the extreme melodrama of the silent era, but most of the humor translates pretty easily to a modern audience.

4.) After comedies, try horror. This genre has always been literally 'in-credible' so it's can be fun laughing at the techniques used back in the day. It can also be fun playing along with it - scream  and gasp all you want to, even if you're not really scared. It's especially fun at a sleep-over!

Lon Chaney, Sr. as
The Phantom of the Opera

If you saw Hugo, you will have some idea about how silent films used to be made. In the early years of Hollywood, movies were very low-budget. Film companies turned out dozens of films each week! Keep this in mind when you are watching these films. They were made with virtually no technology, at least not of the variety we think of today. Their "graphics" were minimal. But it is astonishing what they were able to do with no money, no time, and no technology. When I was a kid, my friend and I would set up a camcorder in her basement and we would act out Aesop's Fables. We used her mother's old clothes as costumes and we stole her little sister's toys for props. Sometimes, watching the early silent movies is like watching our homemade attempts at theatre. If you think of it in these terms, they're amazing!

Also keep in mind that many of those actors did their own stunts. Buster Keaton is the master in this field. It's hard to believe what he put his body through to get a laugh! Lon Chaney, who did The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is called the "man of a thousand faces" because he could so completely transform himself with makeup.

A lot of silent movie performers injured themselves because of the physical exertion they experienced making these films. Chaney used wires to make his eyes bug out in The Phantom of the Opera and he forced himself into a very painful harness for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Lillian Gish permanently damaged the nerves in her wrist because her hand was siting in freezing cold water for hours while she sat on an iceberg for the filming of Way Down East.

If you are a bit lost when it comes to selecting silent films, here are some classic full-length silent pictures (in order of major performer):

Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator (1940) Modern Times (1936) - YouTube the "eating machine" scene The Circus (1928) The Gold Rush (1925) - YouTube the "table ballet" scene The Kid (1921) - my personal favorite, lots of laughs but a few tears too Shoulder Arms (1918) - not many people can make WWI funny, but Chaplin succeeds

Buster Keaton: Our Hospitality (1923) Sherlock, Jr. (1924) Seven Chances (1925) Go West (1925) The General (1926) - personal favorite College (1927) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) - the year Katharine Hepburn graduated Bryn Mawr college The Cameraman (1928)

Lon Chaney: Oliver Twist (1921) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

D.W. Griffith (director): The Birth of a Nation (1915) - controversial epic about KKK Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) - trying to clean up controversy after The Birth of a Nation Orphans of the Storm (1921) - personal favorite - stars sisters Dorothy and Lillian Gish

Mary Pickford - watch anything with a title that you're familiar with. She did the first film versions of many classic stories. She and her husband Douglas Fairbanks were the first "Brangelina" of Hollywood.

I hope you enjoy your silent film experience! Please feel free to comment on your own favorite silent films and stars!

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Our village movie club got together to view All About Eve and we discussed several elements of the film afterwards, including the Biblical references and feminist/anti-feminist messages in the film. There are several indications in the movie which allude to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. Many of the lines incorporate language such as "venomous," "poisonous viper," etc. when describing other characters. We speculated as to whether Eve was supposed to represent her namesake or if she was more like the serpent itself, who is often depicted in religious art as female. The award given Eve could represent the apple. One theory proposed was that having finally made her way to the top, Eve finally is able to partake of the "forbidden fruit" which reveals all the evils of the theatre business.

We spent a great deal of time discussing how this film is really about women, though not necessarily in a very liberal way. Bette Davis's character, Margo, expresses her ideals of womanhood to her friend Karen (Celeste Holm) at a low point in the film when she is feeling vulnerable. She says, "in the last analysis, nothing's any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed, and there he is. Without that, you're not a woman" (film clip below).We talked about the tension between career and womanhood as presented in this film. Someone questioned whether the theatre industry itself was being attacked as something that corrupted women or if it was career in general. The point was made that in the era in which this film was made, show business whether it be stage or film, was one of the few industries where a woman could really make a way for herself professionally. Therefore, the Business was often used to represent how any sort of life in public, away from husband, home, and hearth, would/could ruin a woman and her femininity.

Although this type of anti-feminist sentiment pervades All About Eve, there is yet a fairly strong woman in the character played by Celeste Holm, Karen. Though in some ways she represents the perfect supportive wife to her writer husband, she does have some lines which set her apart. First of all, we know that she is Radcliffe-educated, a fact that seems to rankle Margo because she was never given the opportunity of such an education. She also has a great line when her husband claims: "That bitter cynicism of yours is something you've acquired since you left Radcliffe!" to which Karen replies: "The cynicism you refer to, I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys!" Karen also makes an acute observation about the shackles of "proper" womanhood when she lies in bed suspicious of her husband. I cannot recall the exact quote but she states that she was doing the only thing a woman with nothing else to think about could do - worry about her man.

We talked about how this picture is so much a woman's picture about women's relationships but that it is portrayed from a primarily male lens (Laura Mulvey). Margo's boyfriend/fiancé becomes the hero of the picture, though he doesn't have as much screen time or lines as the female characters (a typical trend in old Hollywood). Karen's husband seems a rather indifferent character, easily berated and easily placated by the women in his life and work. Addison, the slick theatre critic becomes a very nasty character, if not as truly evil as Eve herself. But the whole show, the entire plot of the picture, is really following the relationships between the female characters: between Margo and Birdie, Margo and Eve, Karen and Eve, Margo and Karen, and ultimately Eve and Phoebe.

For the most part, our group thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially those of us who were seeing it for a second time. However, one member of our group pointed out something that hadn't occurred to those of us who have grown used to watching old studio-era films. She commented on the melodrama of the whole picture, in particular the performance given by Bette Davis. Although we on team Bette (as opposed to team Joan) like nothing better than to sit back and enjoy Ms. Davis having a good tantrum, our companions perhaps would have rather a bit more realism. We then discussed the historical trend of melodrama which perhaps originated in the silent flicks when so much had to be expressed physically. Another theory is that it comes from the Vaudeville tradition of desperation trying to get a reaction from the audience. But ideals changes after WWII when Hollywood's cinematic spectacular no longer impressed a more pragmatic post-war public. Another, less substantial theory put forward by yours truly was that perhaps the political shift in Hollywood from a more conservative group of actors, director's, etc. in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, to the flaming liberal Hollywood from the '60s on, led to the cinema of stark realism.

I would enjoy hearing your opinions on any of the theories, comments, observations made in this blog. Feel free to leave your comments!