onedof-llc An ignorant savage wrote "controversial conductor" about Wilhelm Furtwängler in the annotation to this page of the IMDb. Wilhelm Furtwängler had created not just an orchestra of a new vision of musicianship. Wilhelm Furtwängler had given to all people on Earth their identity of a civilized race. Nobody ever before or since had penetrated so deeply into the nature of music, the most sophisticated human creation. Nobody was able to enplane to us, humans what we are and what we can be so elegantly and clearly. But of cause we the listeners must make an honest effort to listen and try to understand. That is what the creators of the movie had done. I am thankful to them for their work that they had performed for me.There are two episodes in this movie that show us all in comparison to Wilhelm Furtwängler:1. A photograph showing Dr. Joseph Goebbels and Dr. Wilhelm Furtwängler talking to each other. A street bully, a thug Nazi and one of the most civilized and attractive humans who ever lived. 2. Wilhelm Furtwängler is trying to wipe his hand after a had shake with Goebbels while still bowing to the crowd of Nazis at their last concert in Berlin in April 1945.Both these Germans are the members of the same our human race. This film is a respectable effort to understand significance of Wilhelm Furtwängler.

ArchStanton1862 The true problem with this film is that it locks onto an interesting topic and then squanders it by repeating the same case over and over. It compounds this problem by thinking itself deep. The basic question is whether the conductor deserves to be allowed to continue his work given that he was famous under the Nazis. The answer to that is clearly 'yes' and at no point in the film do they accuse him of doing anything that could be considered a crime. Even if he had been close to Hitler that wouldn't have been a crime unless he did something with it. And it's quite clear he didn't even like the man so what's the point? There is no point at which any of the evidence, or indeed the accusations, have any real bite. His only crime was in not taking a stand against Hitler. How can it be a crime to not get yourself killed? It's just silliness. It seems to be trying to rope all Germans into this question. How could they do nothing to stop this man? Yet it never goes into that question except superficially. The only two characters of any significance are the Major and the musician and both of them represent opposite and boring extremes. Skarsgard comes off the best since his character feels completely noble and pure which puts off the Major only slightly more than it puts off me. He doesn't seem to be a particularly good man, but no law has ever been able to legislate that all people must be good. It is at least an interesting performance. Keitel goes over the top and makes the Major utterly unsympathetic in a boring way. He does nothing but bully people and the only interesting thing about it is how he seems so shocked when people don't think the same way he does. It seems like they were going for an emotion vs. reason, rage vs. acceptance, low-class vs. culture thing, but all the themes are left undeveloped and unexplored. A real shame because the premise shows potential.

anthony kaye Cinema is littered with great stage plays turned into poor film. This is not one of them. I've seen this film twice- unfortunately each time from 30 minutes in- but the 2nd viewing was better than the first.Harvey Keitel is a first-rate actor. I've never seen a better performed drunk. Was he plied with a half bottle of whisky before the scene with the Russian was shot?. The moral dilemmas of the main characters are beautifully displayed, as is the sheer grimness of life in post WW2 Berlin.Enough said. Why a Yorkshireman should have to write ten lines when he can say everything he wants in in five is beyond me.

annesmith56 Major Steve Arnold tells his assistant in one of the bar room scenes to "Grow Up - F----n Grow up", the time has long since passed for equivocation on the Furtwenglers of this world. Notwithstanding the merits or demerits of the film in cinematic terms, these I believe are the most telling words of the entire debate. What if all the singer songwriters who opposed the Vietnam war had wrung their hands in anguish wondering what the right thing to do was? When all the while the draft lottery was proceeding apace. When the noble conductor was wiping his hands at the end perhaps he was trying to wipe away his guilty conscience. There is a time when black and white logic, clear thinking and action are necessary, not the murky greyness of moral duplicity. As Nero fiddled, Rome burned. As Furtwengler conducted - the people in the gas chambers were squealing to accompaniment of the violins in Berlin!