Valkyrie

[Hotfoot]

(NOT FILM RELATED) Something that annoyed the ever living shit out of me, was talking to my friend's mom who had seen it, and she was convinced that Hitler really had been killed by the bomb because, "You never see him, you just hear a voice and that could have faked." She honestly believes that during the rest of the war no one actually saw Hitler after the bomb plot. When I tried to explain that he killed himself (or if you want to believe a less lame conspiracy, the Russian Army killed him) and his body was captured by the Russians in 1945, she asked, "Well, did they do a DNA test?" GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, people watch too much fucking CSI! Does she think Soviet infantry carried MK.1 DNA testing machines into battle in 19-fucking-45?

There are photos of Hitler after the bomb plot, several, in fact. There are recordings, audio and visual. Fuck, there are photos of him by the motherfucking wreckage!

Your friend's mom is a fool.

[PeZook]

One better: There was an entire bunker full of witnesses which saw him in the last days before he shot himself.

[Glocksman]

The sheer elaborateness and scale of the conspiracy makes the failure all the more tragic; they were so close.

I haven't seen this one yet, but yeah, even quite dry "dramatic re-enactments" in history programs capture this. It is a really strong story, I don't think 'knowing how it ends' would prevent one from being drawn in.

Exactly.
I don't expect an SFX extravaganza (despite the TV ads) or a suspenseful 'what happens in the end' thriller out of this type of movie.

If the story and characters are skillfully written, acted, and directed, then it succeeds in being entertaining despite the viewer knowing the overall end.

Shit, I don't recall many people complaining about Enemy at the Gates being boring or predictable despite any WW2 buff worth his salt knowing Zaitsev shot Konig in the end.

[PeZook]

Shit, I don't recall many people complaining about Enemy at the Gates being boring or predictable despite any WW2 buff worth his salt knowing Zaitsev shot Konig in the end.

Actually, any WW2 buff worth his salt knows there is no evidence for Konig actually existing, and even Zaitsev mentioned someone else entirely in his memoirs (who also probably never existed)

[Adrian Laguna]

There's lots of movies where you can figure out the whole plot at the start. My sister and I predicted the entirety of Seven Pounds about twenty minutes in, and that did not lessen the impact of the climax at all. If a movie truly draws you in, you'll be too busy watching the action unfold to remember that you know what's coming.

[thejester]

Shit, I don't recall many people complaining about Enemy at the Gates being boring or predictable despite any WW2 buff worth his salt knowing Zaitsev shot Konig in the end.

Actually, any WW2 buff worth his salt knows there is no evidence for Konig actually existing, and even Zaitsev mentioned someone else entirely in his memoirs (who also probably never existed)

Pretty sure he describes killing Konig in detail - Alan Clark quotes the passage in full in Barbarossa, IIRC.

[Pulp Hero]

Actually I think that we as the audience know Hitler lives gives the final act a lot of its tension, because it is more a matter of "how long will the coup last?" than "will it succeed?"

[Adrian Laguna]

Actually I think that we as the audience know Hitler lives gives the final act a lot of its tension, because it is more a matter of "how long will the coup last?" than "will it succeed?"

That's a great point. I actually didn't know the coup had been that close to success. I also did not know how many of the conspirators had managed to escape (turns out none did after the attempt). That did make the story pretty tense.

[Thanas]

Shit, I don't recall many people complaining about Enemy at the Gates being boring or predictable despite any WW2 buff worth his salt knowing Zaitsev shot Konig in the end.

Actually, any WW2 buff worth his salt knows there is no evidence for Konig actually existing, and even Zaitsev mentioned someone else entirely in his memoirs (who also probably never existed)

Pretty sure he describes killing Konig in detail - Alan Clark quotes the passage in full in Barbarossa, IIRC.

And there is every reason to suggest he made the whole thing up, considering there never existed a König/Torvald and if the germans had wanted to send a sniper after him, guys like Friedrich Pein, Matthäus Hetzenauer or Bruno Sutkus would have been way better choices.

[Glocksman]

Shit, I don't recall many people complaining about Enemy at the Gates being boring or predictable despite any WW2 buff worth his salt knowing Zaitsev shot Konig in the end.

Actually, any WW2 buff worth his salt knows there is no evidence for Konig actually existing, and even Zaitsev mentioned someone else entirely in his memoirs (who also probably never existed)

That's the difference between a history 'buff' such as myself who read the story and had no reason to disbelieve Zaitsev, and someone who digs deeper into it such as yourself.
For me, WW2 history is an interesting read but doesn't mean that much on a personal scale, as all of my family who fought in the war survived it and prospered after the war, while that isn't true of most Poles, Russians, Germans, or other Europeans.

This is one of the reasons why I like the non-fiction sections of this BBS.
Without threads such as this, I probably would never have learned of this Zaitsev controversy due to serious WW2 history books being too obscure to merit notice here outside of academia.

[PeZook]

All of this would sound a lot better if the controversy wasn't described on Wikipedia

[Glocksman]

All of this would sound a lot better if the controversy wasn't described on Wikipedia

True.
When I thought of famous recent movie about WW2, it came to mind and I wasn't aware of the controversy.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Just got back from seeing it now as it's opened in the UK quite a bit later than other places (got back in time to catch Cruise on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross to boot), and I found it great drama. I really did feel for the people involved in the failure, even if some may not have been as honest about their intentions as cinema may depict (the news had a little bit on Stauffenberg still being an anti-semite etc.). All in all, Singer managed to bring together one top notch cast and it all fell into place.

Apart from the coup, that is. And it makes me wonder how history would've been written had it succeeded. Knowing how history did unfold didn't dampen the impact nor the tension in the least. With this and Defiance, it's nice to see we can still make interesting and gripping WWII films.

[Thanas]

Regarding Stauffenberg being an anti-semite, he did believe that the jews were a detriment, but he never believed in using any kind of violence against them. In that regard, he is the typical aristocrat you can find in every european country at that time.

[thejester]

And there is every reason to suggest he made the whole thing up, considering there never existed a König/Torvald and if the germans had wanted to send a sniper after him, guys like Friedrich Pein, Matthäus Hetzenauer or Bruno Sutkus would have been way better choices.

Er...I know? I was just suggesting that Konig was indeed mentioned in Zaitsev's memoirs, though my copy of Barbarossa is in a box somewhere so I can't check.

Just got back from seeing it now as it's opened in the UK quite a bit later than other places (got back in time to catch Cruise on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross to boot), and I found it great drama. I really did feel for the people involved in the failure, even if some may not have been as honest about their intentions as cinema may depict (the news had a little bit on Stauffenberg still being an anti-semite etc.). All in all, Singer managed to bring together one top notch cast and it all fell into place.

That's my major problem with it - I haven't read that deeply into the subject but my basic understanding is that the office corp attempted to bump Hitler off not because of the Holocaust or similar war crimes but because he was losing.