review Sophie Scholl: the Final Days

The film continues the ouevre of revisionist films that fantasize the Deutsch Volk opposition in National Socialist Germany. The story is real but the manipulation of images is to make Germans feel good about a horrific past. I kept thinking of the dissonance with the diaries of Walter Klemperer, the Nazi fanaticism in his university, his jail time, and recording the daily solidarity of Germans with Hitler into 1945.

The history of the White Rose could be brilliant with the critical thinking of say a Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz, or Wim Wenders. The film makes history feel good for those in Triberg, Flensburg, Passau who reconcile the kindly opa who did his duty in the Gestapo and genocide in the heimat.

On a petty level, Sophie's jam on da bread in jail looks better than what I am eating today in 2011 USA. Her bed is so fluffy! No rats, no filthy toilet. In reality, Sophie went to court with a broken leg from the torture. The film makes the polite Gestapo make NYC police officers look even thuggier. I felt the memory of Anne Frank betrayed with those longing looks at the sky! The film is kitschy but complete revisionism in its work. Amazing that Germany submitted this for an Oscar!

I have been to every Lander. It is amazing to see white German reactions when 2 or more Black folks get together! The film does not fit with my lenses. Perhaps I have known too many Jewish refugees, contemporary German exiles, Turks living in Germany, or Americans who have lived in Germany. I am an Auslander, and really do not value normative Deutsch mentalite. I love Munich but it is not Paris, London nor New York with a vibrant diversity of peoples as well as histories.

Is the film good for domestic German TV.. yes! Is it art or critical thinking.. no. The gemeinshaft was suffocating! Forgive the filmmaker Sophie! I think the filmmaker would make a great story of the lives of Marianne Hoppe and Gustav Grundgens, perhaps the ultimate Deutsch film couple!

ethics

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Film/Video list to relate to my family ethics course. Endless films but looked for poignant stories that show some history, role status or crisis, diverse family constellations. For instance, put in the "Charlie Chan" film as in actualite, few Chinese families had the "joyous" family as Americans still lived under immigration rules such as the Chinese Exclusion Act that was not really repealed until the 1960s. Picked films from IMG "my movies" listing:

“A Woman under the influence” (1974) Faces.

“ La Belle et La Bete” (1946) Jean Cocteau.

“Big Love” (2006) HBO

“Brief Encounter (1945) Cineguild UK

“Cabin in the Sky” (1943) Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

“Children of Men” (2006) Universal.

“The Color Purple” (1985) Amblin Entertainment.

“Charlie Chan at the Circus” (1936) Twentieth Century Fox.

“Love with the Proper Stranger” (1963) Pakula-Mulligan.

“Noah’s Arc” (2005) Open Door Productions.

“The Soprano’s” (1999) Home Box Office.

“Transgeneration” (2005) LOGO Entertainment.

“The Women” (1939) Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Both of my courses (research, ethics) there was discussion about marriage equality. Amazingly enough, only one of my 30+ students, older working adults, mostly parents, NYC, multi-ethnic, has attended a same-sex wedding. One student works for a lgbt community org and has not been to a ceremony. In fact, I have not been to a same sex wedding. I certainly know a number of couples with domestic partnerships, but no ceremonies. Couples with children have legal rights for the children but no commitment ceremonies, to date. Just interesting sidelines to the media focus on same sex marriage.

Once again, students will have group projects and at least 2 teams will look at lgbt issues. The teams decide on their own phenomena to explore. It is always fascinating to see the range, depth of the projects!

Watched "Goodbye Lenin" today and thought of past Marz und April in Berlin. Posted photo of my favorite Berlin DDR cafe in the Alexanderplatz, April, 1987.

peace, hugs, compassion

Black Madonna et faux AfroSwiss

Long chat with one of my almost 30jahre of friendship buddies about her experience in Poland being called the "Black Madonna", her hand stroked, people even bowed! Her visit was during the "cold war" on one of those junkets organized to get Western currency. She went to an international social work conference and then on to the tour junket. Visiting one of the Black Madonna shrines, she encountered many who obviously never met a person of color, or a "Western" person of color. The simplicity of real feelings and simple respect! Great story, and of course in my mind, she is a Black Madonna. She furthermore related the story at a nonprofit board meeting. Most of the members were bewildered having little understanding of the nuances of race, class, geography. The apartheid of class what with a board being primarily very wealthy "white people" helping the poor, primarily working class people of color. The dynamics of high/low... but I say "God Bless Obama" for changing some of the lenses!

Interesting history of the Black Madonnas in Europe. Often destinations for pilgrimages due to histories of "miracles" around the statue/painting. One of the most interesting in Bavaria where the heart of King Ludwig kept. And, the Black Madonna of Croatia!

In April, 1987, travelled in Western Europe with a NYC buddy. In Zurich, on the quai alongside the ZurichSee, an entertainer stopped him, delighting in his being an African American. My buddy delighted in his celebrity at times being an African American in Switzerland and Germany. The simple exchanges of interactions in other locales! A big event in his life being outside the subway universe many of us only traverse for years! Great cross-cultural stories! It was fascinating to watch people interact with him!

Reminder also of how one never really knows how another processes their interpretation of who one is, what one is saying. A similiar notion of how people present who they want others to think they are albeit the reality may be very different. But mostly, the reality that one can change the lenses and be seen and survive in a very positive light. of course, that is the story of American Babylons such as NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago! In more high/low, Madonna uses religious imagery such as in the probably Martin de Porres to comfort her in a video. Reality.. loved seeing Cocteau's La Belle et la bete again! toujours la belle!

Monday, a new, short semester. Happy to have had the story of my friend's experience in Poland whilst thinking of how I will start a new semester. Once again, the importance of my reminding students that they are a distinct minority in actually getting a college degree from an accredited college. Jobs, whatever may come and go, but no one will phone and ask for one's diploma back. Research can be a stress for many students but I remind them that everyone else in their degree area finished and they are no different! It is about changing the lenses so that one can process how much is known research but thinking out of the scientific method, or just critical thinking is not always developed! It is part of the responsibility of being an educated person!

thanks again to the universe for my Black Madonna buddy, and that first Euro tour with a NYC buddy!

hugs, peace, compassion

Turk thoughts March 08, 2009

President Obama is making a brilliant decision to visit Turkey this April after the G20 summit in London! Turkey is one of the countries that I look at in keeping some paradigm about the world. I have known a number of Turks over the years, and I read theorists who see Turkey as that bridge between the Europe and Asia.

1987 pastel of a graduate school friend from Columbia University. She and I would pal around a lot. She came with me to visit my Mom and siblings one holiday. She came to a Citibank company picnic with me one summer. We were residents at the International House. She worked in television. She was one of the political refugees from the Turkish Army coups in the 1970s. She came to NYC from Paris. One of the many who could not go back home. Dunno what happened to her... she moved to Queens and we lost touch.

This past year I read Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul! Wow, such a fascinating read! A book I lived through, looking up references online, looking at my own memories in other ways. A fascinating book.

From my SIPA days, I have thought about the end of the Ottoman empire and the absence of a muslim political entity in international politics. The Ottoman empire was cut up into pretend nations by the European powers after WWI. Today we have nations such as Iraq, almost 100 years old, part of the Ottoman empire for centuries, and still the power vacuum. The whole mideast and the Muslim world does not have that power it had as an international broker for centuries. We have yet, as a world community, to figure that power gap out. Today, we have Iran versus Saudi Arabia, orthodox versus modernists say in Lebanon, and the sad legacy of no resolution for Palestine.

I think it quite astute that Open Society aka the Soros Fund, has an office in Istanbul. Turkey plays a significant role by its years of brokering as a NATO member and part of other multinational relationships. Not only the Ottoman legacy, but also the years of Turkish emigration in the EU. The Turk presence particularly in Holland and Germany. I am quite pleased by Obama's decision!

peace, hugs, compassion