To the criticism of both movie critics and American audiences of depicting the American Denazification officer Maj. Steve Arnolds (Harvey Keitel) as a "caricature, a bully, a Philistine," screenplay writer Ronald Harwood told The Jewish Journal that he went on to comb archives for denazification transcripts and to interview officials who had supervised such proceedings."They were morally brutal," Hardwood stated. "They bullied people, and they did behave in an extreme way. But they had just seen the camps, and no one in the world had seen that before."
Taking Sides (2001) was shot on location in Germany with the dialogue in German and English, although in the version released in the US and the UK the dialogue is only in English.
Stephen Holden of the New York Times gave the film a positive review, saying that "Sparked by the actors' powerful performances, Arnold's moral absolutism and Furtwängler's lofty aestheticism make for a dramatically compelling clash."
Even though many prominent contemporary German artists left, Furtwängler did not leave Germany in 1933 after Adolf Hitler took power. He played at numerous concerts attended by Nazi officials. A recording of the Adagio of Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony was even played after the announcement of the death of Hitler. In 1945, he eventually went to Switzerland after playing a concert in Vienna. These facts, compounded by circumstances of the denazification hearings, caused Furtwängler's case to be significantly delayed.
Furtwängler was specifically charged with supporting Nazism by remaining in Germany, performing at Nazi party functions and with making an anti-Semitic remark against the part-Jewish conductor Victor de Sabata. He was eventually cleared on all these counts.
Furtwängler was specifically charged with supporting Nazism by remaining in Germany, performing at Nazi party functions and with making an anti-Semitic remark against the part-Jewish conductor Victor de Sabata. He was eventually cleared on all these counts.
Taking Sides (2001) is a 2001 German-French-Austrian-British biographical drama film directed by István Szabó and starring Harvey Keitel and Stellan Skarsgård. The story is set during the period of denazification investigations conducted in post-war Germany after the Second World War, and it is based on the real interrogations that took place between a U.S. Army investigator and the musical conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been charged with serving the Nazi regime. It is based on the 1995 play of the same title by Ronald Harwood.