Taking Sides

One of the characters who understands best the great conductor Furtwängler who is the principal hero of 'Taking Sides' is the Soviet colonel Dymshitz. Dymshitz is a curator at the Hermitage museum in his civil life, and besides being a man of culture he also understands too well the compromises an artist must make in order to continue to survive as an artist and as a human being under a dictatorship.

This is actually one of the central themes of the work of director Istvan Szabo. In 'Mephisto' and 'Hanusses' he was also dealing with the Nazi era, but by telling WWII stories the Hungarian director does nevertheless talk also about all dictatorships, or specifically the Communist rule he knew directly.

The action of the film happens after the war, when Wilhelm Furtwängler, one of the greatest directors of the century stands on trial in a denazification tribunal for his cooperation with the Nazi regime. Despite many of the great musicians of the era he did not live Germany, he played for the Nazi dignitaries in Jews-free orchestras, and his opposition to the Nazi regime is unclear. He was not a Nazi party member, and he intervened to save lives of Jewish musicians, but yet was used a propaganda tool until the very end of the war.

The balance of the movie lies in the balance of the superb acts of the two principal actors. Harvey Keitel plays the American prosecutor major Arnold, while Wilhelm Furtwängler is played by the Sweidish Stellan Skarsgård. Arnold is the opposite of Furtwängler in almost any plane. To his moral superiority enhanced (maybe not necessarily) by filmed reports from the death camps is opposed Furtwängler's ambiguity and doubts, but his rudimentary culture is no match for the European refinement of the director. Keitel gives a strong act, maybe a too strong one, as his rudeness opposed to the doubts and maybe remorse of the German seem to give to the musician a postume and probably not deserved absolution.

The last scene shows Furtwängler living the building where the interrogation happened in the sounds of Beethoven's Fifth. The director switches to a real filmed concert with the same music, at the end of which Furtwängler shares hands with a Nazi dignitary (may have been Goebels, the Nazi minister of propaganda). The he is shown (twice, once in close plan) wiping his hand as in some kind of cleaning act. The question remains if a handkerchief is enough to clean somebody who shook hands with the Devil.

There are two constituencies for director Istvan Szabo's "Taking Sides," a story of famed conductor (and not so well known composer) Wilhelm Furtwangler's accountability for his actions in Germany and occupied Europe during World War II. One is a relatively small coterie of devoted classical music lovers, few of whom are old enough to have ever seen the maestro conduct but who know his penetratingly brilliant conducting through recordings. The larger audience is attracted to unending and largely unresolvable issues of good versus evil and the degree to which one is responsible for the atrocities committed by a society but not by the individual who serves some of its needs.

Wilhelm Furtwangler was a world-heralded conductor before World War II. Along with a handful of European podium titans - Mengelberg, Walter, Klemperer and Toscanini - these men in essence controlled classical music, both with regard to concert programming and the rapidly developing technological advances of the phonograph disc.

With the rise of fascism, some conductors, composers and musicians fled the grasp of tyrannous regimes. A few, like Toscanini, had little choice (a beating administered by Italian thugs as payment for his refusing to honor Mussolini from the stage was a fair indication that New York offered better prospects). Walter and Klemperer decamped, their careers boosted by their strong anti-Nazi stances. Mengelberg collaborated, essentially ruining his career when victory came (his is a complex case still debated).

Furtwangler, with many opportunities to leave, didn't. Indeed his conducting during the Third Reich was without doubt the hallmark of German classical music during those twelve indescribably dark years. Why didn't he leave? He knew that culture was being obliterated by the stroke of a pen or a dictator's speech. Mendelssohn, whose works he had often performed, was now a non-existent presence in German music. Beethoven and Bruckner, composers Furtwangler loved, were deified for political purposes. Did he believe his presence would preserve essential elements of the German music heritage until a better day?

"Taking Sides" addresses Furtwangler's role and focuses, with flashbacks, on an American major's investigation - shrill, unsophisticated, uncultured American Philistine at its best (worst?) - of Furtwangler's role. A former insurance investigator called to the colors, Harvey Keitel's major is effective as the kind of American officer that many of us have encountered overseas, usually with embarrassment. He is a tenacious bulldog gripping on to a prey he can never truly understand. And he doesn't want to anyway. His savage, histrionic pursuit of Furtwangler blurs the portrayal of the complex conductor.

Stellan Skarsgard is Furtwangler, alternately triumphant on the podium, disturbed by inner doubts and mortifyingly humiliated by the major's treatment which would have been appropriate for investigating a Gestapo officer or a concentration camp commandant. The rest of the cast acts well but their supportive and in some instances distractive roles add little.

A romance between an idealistic American lieutenant who proclaims he is a man of culture before he is a Jew and a winsome fraulein is unrealistic, is irrelevant, not even interesting. "Taking Sides" is a somewhat less sophisticated descendant of Spencer Tracy and Maximillian Schell's blazing encounter in "Judgment at Nuremberg" Schell, acting the part of a judge in Nazi Germany who slowly accepted the abnegation of the rule of law, was forced to confront his true contribution to evil. Spencer Tracy saw to that and, in any event, Harvey Keitel is no Tracy.

Furtwangler in the film is never suspected, much less accused of any crime other than being a championed symbol of German "kultur." That was not a war crime and in reality figures like Furtwangler and composer Richard Strauss (another difficult case) were processed through denazification proceedings fairly quickly and usually were cleared. Some were not (Mengelberg, for example).

The problem with "Taking Sides," beyond its simplistic polarization, is that it does not address, and perhaps could not, the complexity of the role of classical music and musicians in the ideology of Nazism. Furtwangler may not have known of extermination camps and he certainly hurt no Jews (indeed, the record is clear that he saved some Jewish musicians as did Mengelberg) but he must internally have abhorred the Nazi extinction of music by composers such as Mendelssohn and contemporary composers whose works were denounced as "entartete musik" (degenerate music). And more than a few of the composers in the latter class were murdered during the regime. Furtwangler definitely knew that composers and musicians disappeared with no forwarding addresses.

Keitel and Skarsgard act out a morality inquisition that does provoke the viewer to think and question but the ultimate issue, should Furtwangler have fled, is irritatingly vague. Did Furtwangler "take sides" in any meaningful sense? Did he stay beyond the point where leaving was an option? Maybe. Can we, should we, expect composers and conductors to be like Leonard Bernstein, outspoken advocates on every issue? Is that fair?

German conductors had powerful patrons and without doubt Furtwangler's brilliant conducting served the interests of both the leaders and audiences that hungered, through bombings and the approach of defeat, for some relief through music. I have a recording of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's magisterial Ninth Symphony in Berlin where anti-aircraft fire and bombs can be heard. What did it take for Londoners and Berliners to listen to great music at their imminent mortal peril? "Taking Sides" could have explored the almost mystical relationship between Furtwangler and his audiences. It doesn't really do that although the adulation in which he was held is depicted.

A very fine biography by Shirakawa, "The Devil's Musician," largely rescues Furtwangler from accusations of sympathy with the Nazi regime and he clearly was a much finer fellow than his young rival, Herbert von Karajan. Von Karajan was destined to be a great conductor but he was also a first-class careerist who joined the Nazi party to advance his prospects (and lied about it for years until confronted with the evidence).

Anyone seriously interested in classical music during the Third Reich must read Douglas Kater's three-volume, well-written and extensively researched history of that period. For now, "Taking Sides" is good but not great drama. Selections of music by Bruckner and Beethoven as well as by Glenn Miller and George Gershwin (the latter two decidedly not Nazi favorites) are prominent. Hopefully the movie will impel those unfamiliar with an unsurpassed interpreter of wonderful music to seek out readily available and gripping recordings.

7/10.

I originally saw the stage play "Taking Sides" by Ronald Harwood on Broadway several years ago. This production starred Ed Harris as the interrogating officer Steve Arnold. The role of Dr. Wilhelm Furtwangler was played by a British actor who was magnificent and unfortunately I am unable to remember his name. The play was not a great success on Broadway for reasons I cannot explain.The entire drama was cast in the office of Captain Arnold.

I personally thought the play was great and the film even better. The reason being that the film was able to portray scenes of Post-war Nuremburg and some vivid concentration camp scenes. (not for the weak of heart) to make its point. Nevertheless as in the stage production, the most vivid scenes still took place in the office of Captain Arnold between him and Dr. Furtwangler. The film roles being played by Harvey Keitel and Stellan Skarsgård. Was the relationship cruel to a point of excess by Capt. Arnold? How true were Dr. Furtwangler's version of life during the Nazi regime. ---??? I wish I could give an answer even to myself--Therefore, no spoiler is possible.

The film raises disturbing questions about the relationship of arts and politics.

As a conclusion, since this was a film with two intensely powerful actors, I would hope to see one or both up for a well deserved Oscar award.

Harvey Keitel plays Major Steve Arnold, a small man in insurance, from New York. Stellan Skarsgård plays Furtwängler, a genius who was loved and courted by the Nazis.

The Major pursues Furtwangler like a rabid dog, determined to show that that Furtwangler was guilty of something.Why didn't Furtwangler leave when he had the chance? Did he seek out accolades from the devil?

Why is Major Arnold so Angry? It it the anger of a small man who feels spat upon by life, suddenly given the chance of bring down someone once so High and Mighty?

FurtWangler is aloof, distant, full of easy platitudes about the redemptive quality of Art. Major Arnold is mean and streetwise, quick to attack and condemn those who he does not understand.

Who is in the wrong? In the end does it mean anything to believe you are right? In whose eyes anyway? This film asks some difficult questions about how we perceive ourselves and others, how we question our most basic motives. Very Good.

I won't go into details of the film as others below have covered this much better than I could ever hope to do so.

What I'd like to note is that this is a film of a dying breed. It is truly educational and stimulates our systematically dumbed down intellect ( as also Szabo's older film "Mephisto" ). It's when reading the comments of other viewers that one realizes that there are still people out there that can appreciate film as a vehicle of dialectic and whose insightful observations add to our collective learning experience. Thank you.. it is SUCH a pleasure to read your comments.

dvoulio