Thanks for this.A better machine, the German DeepL translator. The review is worth it.
On Sun, Mar 3, 2019 at 7:19 PM Morlock Elloi <morlockel...@gmail.com> wrote: > [ Machine translated film review from > > https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Dummheit-der-Amerikaner-4323913.html?seite=all > ] > The stupidity of the Americans > > March 02, 2019 > Rüdiger Suchsland > > From Cheney to Trump: Adam McKay's "Vice" shows that the US is in its >> majority a country of morally corrupt self-righteous idiots > > >> Revulsion and admiration lie as close together as the red and white >> stripes on the American flag, and if this is in some respects a real-life >> monster movie, it's one that takes a lively and at times surprisingly >> sympathetic interest in its chosen demon. > > A.O.Scott, New York Times, in the review of Vice. > > >> The films once made about Donald Trump can be based on a famous sentence >> by the NS Minister of Propaganda: "Gentlemen, in a hundred years' time we >> will be showing a beautiful colour film about the terrible days we are >> going through. Don't you want to play a part in this movie? Hold on now, so >> that in a hundred years the audience won't yell and whistle when you appear >> on the screen," said Dr. Joseph Goebbels on April 17, 1945. > > >> The interesting thing about this sentence is that someone here knows what >> will come, just as he knows what is. He orientates his entire action only >> towards the effect, the appearance and the suitability for the aesthetic >> effect. And indeed: aesthetically, the Nazis won the Second World War all >> along the line. To this day they determine the iconography of evil on the >> canvas. > > >> Is this going to be like the Mighty Americans? One can see an indication >> of the virtues and disadvantages of this film in the poor performance of >> "Vice" at this year's Oscars: "Vice" is not suitable for a well-tempered >> politically correct symbolic action such as "Green Book". Adam McKay's >> feature film about the Republican "Dark Knight" Richard Cheney was the film >> of this year's Oscars, which focused most sharply on the immorality and >> abysses of US politics. > > >> He does not show harmonious coexistence and racial reconciliation. He >> shows a portrait of white political America. An America that is corrupt, >> controlled by the big corporations, above all by arms and energy >> corporations that dominate politicians like puppets. > > >> >> Vice - The second man > > >> >> Director Adam McKay uses the myths of power: 9/11 - what a moment! The >> film shows what we can't know: The crisis center in the White House bunker, >> uncertainty, chaos, a piercing alarm tone and all looks at the >> representative of the boss. Its round, pink-pasty face looks >> expressionlessly downwards. Only the corners of the mouth move, the lower >> jaw grind. Cheney's thinking. > > >> He is determined and only we interpret in retrospect a "dark" about it. >> He's a haven of peace. Work on the myth, because so much peace and cold >> blood you have to have first. If it were war, you wish you had a man like >> that on your side. He gives his orders very briefly - a man where he >> belongs by his nature: In the center of power - and behind him stands, a >> little tender, a little calming, a little controlling, Cheney's wife Lynn, >> who is played incredibly fascinating, great deep by the great Amy Adams. > > >> Because Amy Adams, not Christian Bale, is the star of this movie. Bale, >> like many of his colleagues, once again confuses acting with outward >> similarity to the object; he eats dozens of kilos of fat, has several >> sausage skins of make-up and prostheses put over his head every day until >> he looks like a volleyball made flesh, and mimic is no longer recognizable >> anyway. One wig is enough for Adams. > > >> It begins with a surprise: A young man drives a drunken car in Kansas in >> 1963, is stopped by a policeman, for the second time. And this is where >> Lynn shows up. They are already married, but now she folds him up, makes >> him small, takes him apart, disassembles him into his individual parts and >> then rebuilds him as a new human being: What women's power also means, as >> an inseparable mixture of sex and violence, this film shows. > > >> She makes him her avatar. > > Because Lynn Cheney is hard, stiff, all-american, a class leader with lots >> of one's and ambitious. And because as a woman in the sixties one cannot >> fulfil this political ambition despite all the ones, she puts everything on >> her husband. She makes him - and this is the daring thesis of this film - >> her avatar. > > >> First he fails, then she makes sure it doesn't happen again. The result >> is a power pair of two power men who correspond to each other and whose >> story the film tells as a farce, and a modern variant of Shakespeare's >> "Macbeth", albeit one shot in a comedic style. The Richard Cheney we know >> is Lynn's creature. > > >> Thus, from the late sixties onwards, he becomes a Republican by chance, >> precisely because he is not distracted by conviction and ideology from the >> essential, the perfect second man behind Donald Rumsfeld, who appears to be >> a cheerful cynic, the advisor to the new President Richard Nixon. > > >> "Rummie" > > Next to Lynn, "Rummie" (played full of energy by Steve Carell) is the >> second man who made Cheney who he is: Dick and Don are a decade-long couple >> that Machiavelli and Shakespeare couldn't have invented better. "What do we >> believe in?" the young Cheney asks his mentor once in a key scene of the >> film. The later Minister of Defense can hardly hold his own with laughter >> and disappears into his office. The punch line of the scene seems to have >> escaped the makers: Cheney obviously believes that one should believe in >> something. > > >> Cheney is quiet and effective, he does his job, and so it goes upwards: >> to his own, still windowless office, to the presidential advisor and White >> House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford. Then defense minister under George >> Bush, and then with his son George W. Vice President. In between jobs with >> the economy, reliable lobbying for arms and energy companies. > > >> "Theory of Unified Power" > > However, the film consistently underscores a highly interesting point, >> probably because it appears to him to be "too intellectual". Because Cheney >> is always interested in the "theory of unified power", i.e. the bundling of >> as many influence possibilities as possible in one hand. The film shows >> this in furious alienation effects: With knights, pharaoh masks and a >> hunting cat. Rumsfeld suddenly seems to have a gangster jumping knife in >> his fist. > > >> Adam McKay isn't just anybody. As author, director and producer he worked >> for "Saturday Night Live" for many years. McKay obviously could not decide >> in the montage whether he wanted to shoot a comedy or a drama, a tragedy or >> a satire. The tone and atmosphere of his film now oscillate between Michael >> Moore's typical raging inability to take his political opponent seriously, >> political instruction and comfortable, often silly clothes. > > >> The audience is always right > > McKay is at his best when the director makes no secret of his contempt for >> the vast majority of Americans. The American critics, especially the >> politically correct upper middle-class liberals, hated him for this. > > >> Because the public is always right: If they vote for Trump, it was a >> democratic decision and not the result of lower instincts and manipulative >> enemy propaganda that falsified the elections. The fact that the USA is >> perhaps simply in its majority a country of morally corrupt, self-righteous >> idiots, one should not even think. > > >> "Vice" is a film about the stupidity of the Americans. It's about Cheney, >> but even more about those who made him possible, who allowed him to become >> who he became. Dick Cheney's bad, okay. A heartless monster, so what? > > >> "You finally chose me," Cheney accuses the audience in a direct speech at >> the end. You're right. > > >> The entertainmentification of politics, not just American politics, has >> paved the way for all this. > > >> Political comedy is useless > > In that his humor runs into emptiness, "Vice" proves a fundamental >> weakness of this kind of political comedy that goes far beyond himself. >> Political comedy is just as popular as never before. But she's no good. > > >> Comedy programmes and talk shows provide better information than >> sobriety-believing news, but they depoliticise the electorate by >> reinforcing the impression that politics is actually just a big >> entertainment show. > > >> The shift to the right is global. Corruption is worse than ever. The >> transformation of democracies into authoritarian regimes - through >> governments that are mostly empowered by election - takes place very subtly >> in concrete practice. > > >> What did the political comedies change about it? Done that? Nothing. >> Nothing. You promoted the case. > > >> "Vice fails where it tries to grab the human Cheney. The only scenes that >> try to show a humane Cheney appear as alibi moments: the man's obvious love >> for his family, the surprising tolerance towards his lesbian daughter Mary, >> in whose favor Cheney even renounces a presidential candidacy. > > >> What are his goals? Cheney's not an idiot. He has motives. Maybe just >> private. Maybe money and power. But here it remains a caricature, here the >> film remains incredibly naive, because its makers obviously can't imagine >> that such a person also has convictions. Instead, everything seems somehow >> absurd, and the film at best exposes a - alleged - gloomy, macabre comedy >> of a system. > > >> The director doesn't want to humanize Cheney, but he can't get around it. >> He's dehumanizing America so we don't notice. > > >> There are people who are more sympathetic than Richard Cheney. McKay >> shows Cheney as a grey bureaucrat, as a chameleon of power, and at the same >> time as a demonic puppeteer behind the scenes. A flattering portrait, >> because altogether this is a disturbing monument, but just a monument. > > >> We see a man who staged the Iraq war, who signed death sentences, who >> legitimises torture, who exposes agents to punish unpopular relatives, who >> arranged billions of deals with the oil industry, who killed hundreds of >> thousands in return - not counting disinformation, false reports and the >> erosion of democracy. Maybe comedy is the wrong form for something like >> this, isn't it? > > >> This idolatry is consequently a trivialization. You could ask about this >> film: Isn't Richard Cheney worse than Trump? And after the answer "yes" we >> conclude: Trump is not that bad. > > >> Or does this film almost create a liberal nostalgia for those times when >> right-wing politicians were perhaps very right-wing, but still acted >> rationally, when they had a certain taste, were not vulgar, and a few >> values they believed in? > > >> I'm like bed bugs. You have to burn the mattress to get rid of me. > > Donald Rumsfeld in Vice. > >
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