Valkyrie is a 2008 historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country. Valkyrie was directed byBryan Singer under the American studio United Artists, and the film stars Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the key plotters. Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp and Tom Wilkinson are also featured as fellow plotters.
Cruise's casting caused controversy among German politicians and members of the von Stauffenberg family because of the actor's practice ofScientology, which is viewed with suspicion in the country. German newspapers and filmmakers supported the film to spread global awareness of von Stauffenberg's plot. The filmmakers initially had difficulty setting up filming locations in Germany due to the controversy, but they were later given leeway to film in locations pertaining to the film's story, such as Berlin's historic Bendlerblock.
Plot:
During World War II, Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) is serving with the 10th Panzer Division in Tunisia. Although he makes no secret of his hatred for Nazism, Stauffenberg continues to serve his country with distinction. However, a pair of British P-40 Warhawks strafe his unit, during which the Colonel is severely wounded and evacuated to Nazi Germany.
Meanwhile, Abwehr Major General Henning von Tresckow (Branagh) attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler by concealing a bomb in a bottle ofCointreau and smuggling it aboard the Führer's airplane. The bomb, however, fails to detonate and Tresckow discreetly retrieves it to conceal his actions. Upon returning to the Bendlerblock, however, Tresckow learns that the Gestapo has arrested Major General Hans Oster. Commenting that the German Resistance will need a new logistics chief, Tresckow orders General Friedrich Olbricht (Nighy) to find a replacement.
Meanwhile, having lost his eye, right hand, and two fingers on his left hand, Stauffenberg catches the attention of Olbricht at a military hospital. When the General approaches him, Stauffenberg states that during his months of recovery, he realized that destroying Hitler was the only way to honorably serve Germany. As a result, Tresckow and Olbricht deliver him to a meeting of the committee which has arranged all previous attempts on Hitler's life. The leaders are Colonel General Ludwig Beck (Stamp), Dr. Carl Goerdeler (McNally), and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben (Schofield). The Colonel is stunned to learn that no plans exist for after Hitler's assassination.
Later, during an Allied bombing raid, Stauffenberg remembers the emergency plan known as Operation Valkyrie, which involves the deployment of the Reserve Army to maintain order in a state of emergency. The plotters carefully redraft the plan so that, after killing Hitler, they can stage a coup d'etat by disarming and arresting the SS and the Party elite. The committee, however, reminds Stauffenberg that only Reserve Army Colonel General Friedrich Fromm (Wilkinson) can initiate Valkyrie. Commenting that Fromm is an amoral careerist, General Beck orders them to buy his loyalty with a promise of promotion and power in the new regime.
When Fromm is approached, Stauffenberg and Olbricht offer him a position as head of the Wehrmacht in a post-Nazi Germany. Instead of denouncing them, Fromm comments that he always comes out on the right side of any situation. If Hitler is killed, therefore, he will gladly support the Resistance in the aftermath.
Meanwhile, the rewritten plan requires approval by Adolf Hitler (Bamber) himself. Therefore, Stauffenberg visits the Führer at his Berghof estate. In the presence of his inner circle, Hitler describes Stauffenberg as the ideal German officer and approves the plan without fully examining the changes.
At Dr. Goerdeler's insistence, Stauffenberg is ordered to not assassinate Hitler unless Heinrich Himmler is also present. At a final briefing, Abwehr Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim(Berkel) instructs Stauffenberg in the use of British pencil detonators. Stauffenberg also persuades General Erich Fellgiebel (Izzard), who controls all communications at Wolf's Lair, to cut off communications at the right moment.
On July 15, 1944, Stauffenberg attends a strategy meeting at Wolf's Lair with a bomb in his briefcase. However, Himmler is not present and Stauffenberg does not receive permission to arm the bomb until it is too late. Meanwhile, the Reserve Army is mobilized by Olbricht to stand by. With no action taken, Stauffenberg safely extracts himself and the bomb from the bunker and the Reserve Army is ordered to stand down, under the impression all they have done is participate in a training exercise.
Enraged, Stauffenberg goes to the committee to protest the incompetence of Goerdeler, who has been selected to be Chancellor of Germany after the coup. When Goerdeler demands that Stauffenberg be replaced, Beck and Witzleben inform him that the Gestapo is searching for him and implore him to go into hiding.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg and his adjutant, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften (Parker), return to the Wolf's Lair. While Haeften waits with a getaway car, Stauffenberg leaves the briefcase at the meeting inside an open air summer barrack, as opposed to the command bunker. With the bomb armed, Col. Stauffenberg leaves the barrack. When the bomb explodes, he is certain that Hitler is dead, bluffs his way past a checkpoint, and departs from a nearby airfield. Before shutting down communications, Fellgiebel calls Mertz about the explosion but because of static, cannot clearly convey whether or not the Führer is dead.
As Stauffenberg flies back to Berlin, Olbricht refuses to mobilize the Reserve Army until it is confirmed that Hitler is dead. Frustrated, Mertz forges Olbricht's signature and issues the orders anyway. With Operation Valkyrie underway, Stauffenberg and his fellow plotters order the arrest of Nazi Party leaders and SS officers and begin to take control of Berlin's government quarter. Rumors reach Berlin that Hitler survived the blast, but Stauffenberg dismisses them as SS propaganda. Meanwhile, Fromm learns from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel that Hitler is still alive and refuses to join the plotters, resulting in his arrest. When Hitler himself reaches Reserve Army leader Otto Ernst Remer by telephone, Remer orders the SS officers released and besieges Stauffenberg's allies inside the Bendlerblock. Stauffenberg and the other ringleaders are arrested.
In an attempt to save himself from being charged with involvement, Fromm promptly tries and sentences the men to death with the exception of Beck, who receives a pistol to commit suicide. As the other leaders are executed by firing squad in the courtyard, the film flashes forward to reveal the fates of the other major characters (most of whom perished soon after or following the war). Fromm's treachery, it is revealed, did not save him, as his actions went against Hitler's orders to deliver the plotters to him alive.
When Stauffenberg's turn arrives, he shouts, "Long live sacred Germany," moments before the bullets tear into him. As the light drains from his eye(s), the film flashes back to Stauffenberg's last farewell to his wife and children.
German's Response to production;
In June 2007, prior to production, a German Defense Ministry spokesperson said that filming of Valkyrie would not be allowed at the country's military sites if protagonist Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was portrayed byTom Cruise, due to the actor's adherence to Scientology, which is regarded as a dangerous cult by the German authorities. The spokesperson further indicated that the ministry had not at that time received official filming requests from Valkyrie's producers.[55] Colonel von Stauffenberg's son also voiced concerns over Cruise's portrayal of his father, saying that he would not oppose the film's production, but hoped that Cruise would drop the role. "I fear that only terrible kitsch will come out of the project. It's bound to be rubbish," Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg said. "Cruise should keep his hands off my father."[56] Later in the month, the ministry reversed its stance and welcomed production of Valkyrie. The initial controversy reportedly stemmed from German member of parliament Antje Blumenthal, an authority on cults for the Christian Democratic Union and well-known opponent of Scientology, who had claimed that the German Defense Minister had assured her that the film would not be shot in the country.[57] In addition, Cruise was attacked by junior politicians such as Rudolf Köberle, the state secretary for interior issues in the state of Baden-Württemberg, who also cited Cruise's affiliation with Scientology.[58] Thomas Gandow, a spokesperson for the German Protestant Church, said Cruise's involvement in the film would "have the same propaganda advantages for Scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis" and compared the actor to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.[59].
The film subsequently found local support in Germany. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck saw that Cruise's involvement would promote awareness of a neglected story,[28] and veteran German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl also gave his support to the production.[35] A grandson of Colonel von Stauffenberg, who appeared in the film as an assistant, hailed Cruise's professionalism and indicated that most of his family were curious to see the finished product.[60] In September 2007, when the Defense Ministry initially denied permission for filming at the Bendlerblock memorial, support for the film came in from German newspaper columnists and filmmakers, including director Wolfgang Petersen[29] and Frank Schirrmacher, journalist and co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Schirrmacher visited the set and agreed that the film would advance global awareness of the German Resistance. Ultimately granting access to the Bendlerblock after reviewing the script, the Defense Ministry said it showed that "barbarism didn't triumph but led to the founding of a democratic Germany". Ursula Caberta, who is in charge of a German government office which monitors Scientology, was disappointed in the ministry's decision, saying, "Tom Cruise [is] a figurehead of an anti-constitutional organization, and he should be treated that way."[39]
A spokesperson for Scientology in Berlin, Sabine Weber, said in August 2007 that she was "shocked" by German politicians' criticisms, adding that it was a "call to discrimination" against someone based on their religious beliefs.[61] In the same month, Cruise suggested to his critics that they see the film before denouncing it.[62] In October 2007, fellow Valkyrie actorKenneth Branagh said that the issue had been "largely exaggerated" and that the German official who initially incited the complaints contacted the production one week into filming to apologize, after reading the script and realizing he had misinterpreted the film's plot.[37]
In November 2007, the head of the German Resistance Memorial Center warned against any potential "myth formation" around von Stauffenberg as a result of the film, urging that any understanding of the Colonel must also be informed by the fact that he had been loyal to the Nazi cause for most of his military career.[63] In the same month Cruise was given a Bambicourage award, presented by German media company Hubert Burda Media, "for tackling a story that had never been covered by Hollywood before"
American critics
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times thought that Cruise gave "a fine, typically energetic performance in a film that requires nothing more of him than a profile and vigor" but that von Stauffenberg was too complex a character to adequately portray in a film designed as a thriller. Dargis also wrote of the director's excess, "Though Mr. Singer’s old-fashioned movie habits, his attention to the gloss, gleam and glamour of the image, can be agreeably pleasurable, he tends to gild every lily," citing as an example the "spooky music" and "low camera angles" in the meeting between Hitler and von Stauffenberg.[112] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times also found Cruise "perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role", believing that the portrayal fit the "veterans of officer rank" that would not panic under fire; Ebert recognizes that "Singer... works heroically to introduce us to the major figures in the plot, to tell them apart, to explain their roles and to suggest their differences."[113]
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe described the film: "It's a smooth, compelling, almost suspenseful... and slightly hollow Hollywood period piece - a World War II action-drama in which an intriguing (but not electrifying) star performance is buttressed by stellar support." Burr analyzed Cruise's performance: "...his Claus von Stauffenberg is an honorable conception that's ultimately too thin to fully rise up from the pages of history. This story deserves to be told, but for reasons best known to himself, the star has latched onto a strictly Nietzscheaninterpretation that he rides into the ground."[114] Claudia Puig of USA Today thought of Cruise as "unconvincing and stiff as the disenchanted" von Stauffenberg. She felt that the film started slowly and that "even during scenes of intense action, the visually slick production is only minimally engrossing". She concluded of the film's overall pace, "The action becomes more engrossing during the film's second half, but one expects more depth and nuance, given its pedigree."[115] Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote, "[Cruise] carries the movie, although, once you dig beneath the uniform, there isn’t much for him to get a handle on; the fascination with Stauffenberg resides in what he did, not in who he was." Lane thought that there was "too much" character acting of the British veteran actors and felt of the casting of Nighy, Stamp, and Wilkinson, "These men are meant to be battle-toughened Nazi officers, but what we get is an array of discreetly amusing studies in mild neurosis."[116]
Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that Valkyrie "has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense". McCarthy considered Cruise as "a bit stiff but still adequate" as von Stauffenberg. The critic believed that McQuarrie's script was well-carpentered but felt that compressing and streamlining the events to make a known failed plot more thrilling lacked a "sufficient sizzle into the dialogue or individuality into the characters". McCarthy missed "many of the interesting personal and political nuances pertaining to these men" that were not detailed. He thought that the production design by Lilly Kilvert and Patrick Lumb stood out, that Newton Thomas Sigel's cinematography had a "restrained elegance", and that John Ottman performed well in his dual role as editor and composer.[117]
German critics
Despite differences over the quality of the film, critics were in agreement that the film had drawn attention to von Stauffenberg's cause.[85] It was applauded "as both as a history lesson and as a film". Tobias Kniebe of the Süddeutsche Zeitung described the film as "maybe not the masterpiece we might have dreamed of ... but not much less", a sentiment shared by many German critics.[88] The public-service German television channel ZDF called Valkyrie "neither scandalously bad nor the event of the century... Neither is it the action thriller we feared, but it is a well-made and serious film." The newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported that any fear that the "myth of the German resistance would be put through a Hollywood filter has turned out to be wrong and prejudicial."[108]
Other critics asserted that Tom Cruise did not "make the grade" as a German war hero. The film critic for Der Tagesspiegel wrote, "[Cruise's] image as an actor has been finally ruined byValkyrie... [the film] doesn't dare to be popcorn cinema and at the same time lacks any conceptual brilliance." Hanns-Georg Rodek of Die Welt reported of Cruise's performance, "He comes over best as an American hero, someone who battles for respect with aggression and energy. But Stauffenberg was a German hero, with aristocratic bearing, and Cruise cannot carry that off."[118] The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said Cruise's performance was "credible", and reserved praise for the authenticity of the dubbed German-language version of the film over the original.[85]
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars
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