Taking Sides ( Le cas Furtwängler ) ( Der Fall Furtwängler )

Taking Sides (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Le cas Furtwängler
Alternate Title: Der Fall Furtwängler
Screened, competed or awarded at:
European Film Awards
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )
English ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
105 min + 86 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
2-DVD Set
Documentary
Featurette
Interactive Menu
Making Of
Photo Gallery
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 2001 and produced in:
Austria ( Germany, Central Europe )
France ( France, Benelux )
Germany ( Germany, Central Europe )
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Istvan Szabo

Written By:
Ronald Harwood

Actors:
Harvey Keitel ..... Major Steve Arnold
Stellan Skarsgard ..... Dr. Wilhelm Furtwängler
Moritz Bleibtreu ..... Lt. David Wills
Birgit Minichmayr ..... Emmi Straube
Ulrich Tukur ..... Helmut Alfred Rode, 2nd violinist
Oleg Tabakov ..... Colonel Dymshitz
Hanns Zischler ..... Rudolf Otto Werner, oboist
Armin Rohde ..... Schlee, timpanist
R. Lee Ermey ..... General Wallace
August Zirner ..... Captain Ed Martin
Daniel White ..... Sergeant Adams
Thomas Thieme ..... Reichsminister
Jed Curtis ..... Colonel Green
Garrick Hagon ..... Major Richards
Robin Renucci ..... Captain Vernay

Synopsis:

Istvan Szabo's film Taking Sides - based on true events - recreates the suspenseful post-World War II interrogation of Dr Wilhelm Furtwangler (Stellan Skarsgard), the brilliant conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, who is considered by some to have been the most brilliant conductor of the 20th century. In the course of his de-Nazification by the Allies, Furtwangler is forced by a tough-talking American Major (Harvey Keitel) to re-examine his role during the Third Reich in the most uncompromising of terms. The confrontation between the soft-spoken cultural icon of the old world and the rough, emotional hard-hitter from the new world, makes for some electrifying verbal pyrotechnics, and brings the role of the artist in an evil regime into the limelight, to be examined along with all the other moral issues and ambiguities emerging from World War II.

In the role of a pugnacious United States Army Officer assigned at the end of World War II to gather proof that the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler collaborated with the Nazis, Harvey Keitel creates the most boorish Nazi hunter ever portrayed on the screen. It's a typically nervy performance that pumps adrenaline into what is essentially a talky moral debate. Defending his decision not to leave Germany, the courtly conductor vigorously insists that art is a higher calling and should be divorced from politics. Although the screenplay, adapted by Ronald Harwood from his own play, is schematic and talky and the issues it debates familiar, its arguments are still worth contemplating. And in their wildly different ways, Mr. Keitel's interrogator and Stellan Skarsgard's conductor make compelling, evenly matched adversaries.

A tale based on the life of Wilhelm Furtwangler, the controversial conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic whose tenure coincided with the controversial Nazi era. One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 30s, Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order--and justice--to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing. Orchestra members vouch for Furtwangler's morality--he did what he could to protect Jewish players from his orchestra. To the Germans, deeply respectful of their musical heritage, Furtwangler was a demigod; to Major Arnold, he is just a lying, weak-willed Nazi.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 01 April, 2010.

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