The Monuments Men - ars artis gratia

The essence of totalitarian regimes is in the first five letters – ‘total’. Different from authoritarianist states, totalitarian systems are not satisfied in the mere annexation of total political power to an individual or an oligarchy, it further asserts itself by forcing its ideology upon its people as imperative injunctions – to dictate what people may or may not think in other words. As Hitler himself said ‘every activity and every need of every individual will be regulated by the collective represented by the party’.

The penumbra of this absurd mandate spreads into something as personal and subjective as taste in art. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda stated that ‘the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda has jurisdiction over the whole field of spiritual indoctrination of the nation.’ Much of what is deemed acceptable comes from Hitler’s personal tastes. Jazz was purged from music; Russian composers such as Stravinsky were excised when they fell foul of Nazi politics. Jewish influences were of course prohibited. Conductors like Otto Klemperer (the cousin of Victor Klemperer, author of the imperishable I Will Bear Witness) fled Germany. Literature, always an enemy and danger to dictatorships, was tightly controlled by Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment. Mein Kampf was a best seller. Hemmingway, Kafka, Karl Krauss, Rosa Luxemburg, Thomas Mann, Proust, and H.G. Wells were just some of the authors whose works were banned by the Reich, not to mention the obvious ‘degenerate’ works by the likes of Einstein, Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, Sigmund and Anna Freud.

In his youth, Hitler was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His liking for art (and hatred for what he considered ‘degenerate art’) ripened and expanded absurdly once the former bohemian and failed art student became the Fuhrer of Germany. Hitler ordered the building of a gargantuan art museum in his own name, to be erected in his home town Linz in Austria where he would display approved art stolen from galleries, museums, churches, cathedrals and homes where his Nazi war machine has trampled. An estimated one fifth of all European artworks were taken by the Nazis, a statistic to numb the mind. Many ‘degenerate art’ as deemed by a four men tribunal were burnt, including Cezannes, Picassos, Matisses, Gauguins, van Goghs, Braques and Pisarros. In this darkest of times, when culture, science, art, thought and civilization is under the direst attack, The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program of the Allied Armies came into being in 1943 from the efforts of many individuals and societies who pushed the urgent need to the top level, with the explicit aim to protect cultural properties in war regions during and after the war. They spend their time finding art stolen and hidden by the Nazi’s and restoring them to their origin. Thousand troves of millions of artworks were recovered by these men and women. This little known body of men and women are the subject of the George Clooney directed film, The Monuments Men; a movie whose timing has been fortuitously accentuated by the recent discovery of a trove of over a thousand masterpieces hidden by the Nazis including unseen works by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Matisse, Rodin, Otto Dix and Picasso in the Munich flat of an elderly man, whose father was a Nazi era art dealer. It seems redundant to add that these paintings are estimated to have a net worth of over a billion euros. 

The flat where the artworks were hidden

Some examples of the trove

To depict this heavy, noble and worthy subject, Clooney harkened to the tone and flavour of classic war films like The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen – soaring music, colourful characters put together haphazardly, plenty of humour punctuated by sombre moments; all led by a sterling cast that bears some of the most famous names on offer – Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin and the fond but long absent face of John Goodman. The danger of appearing preaching when delineating the need to preserve cultural relics when tens of thousands of young men and women are dying left and right are somewhat avoided by Clooney’s character giving a presentation, outlining the case to those in charge. Whilst seeded from America, the Monuments Men eventually ballooned into a group comprising some 400 individuals from over a dozen countries. The movie’s portrayal of the Monuments Men as seven people – five Americans, one British and one French, seems somewhat reflective of Hollywood’s solipsism. However, even with just seven, the fragmentation of the storylines and the punctuated way in which it is sometimes put together doesn't allow the audience enough time and the characters enough depth to make the two gel in any profound way. One feels that the story is in need of a mini-series rather than a movie to do credit to the characters, the history of the artworks they risk their lives to rescue, and the sprawling mess of a Europe recovering from an ignoble Nazi retreat.

Amongst some great scenes of suspense, humour and sombre reflection (one of Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, often seen as the most important piece of artwork missing since WWII, going up in flames as the retreating Nazis would rather destroy their horded treasures than to suffer the ignominy of letting them to be reclaimed, although exactly what happened to this painting remains unknown), there are one or two scenes blatantly aimed at the tear ducts; the most sigh-worthy being one where the phonograph disc sent to one of the men by his family was played on the army base PA system and the sweet, touching singing of his daughter and grandchildren of a Christmas carol, accompanied by close-ups of various character’s lugubrious faces, seem to last forever. An ill-judged and overly constructed scene whose time could have been used to much better purpose and whose presence cheapens the feel and intention of the film.

The ending however, I liked, despite it being also slightly too cutesy. It reaffirms the ultimate message of the film, and a worthy one at that. However, I won’t divulge that here. All in all, the film is a gallant attempt to bring to life a worthy and under-appreciated chunk of history to life. Its execution may not be in the top echelon of film making but I think it’s worth seeing if only to kindle the interest of the younger generation to the period that defined us and will continue to define us and the noble and pure motives that has driven unsung heroes to do great things for causes and principles greater than oneself.

The real Monuments Men in action - with Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine