Arts and Culture

Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen in The Good Liar: The consequences of light-mindedness

By David Walsh, 17 August 2020

Essential conformism on important matters seems an apt summing up of Bill Condon’s film career to date. At any rate, The Good Liar will not do much to change one’s attitude.

British filmmaker Alan Parker (1944-2020): An establishment rebel

By Paul Bond, 14 August 2020

A genuinely popular director of no small talent, he subordinated his critical instincts to a popularist slickness.

The debut of Coriky, a new band featuring members of Fugazi and The Evens

By Matthew Brennan, 13 August 2020

The new self-titled album distributes a considerable amount of opposition and anger across 11 songs. The results are uneven.

Producers push reckless resumption of North American film production in face of pandemic

By Lee Parsons, 11 August 2020

In an indication of the studios’ disregard for the health and safety of workers, now showing up in film production contracts are waivers designed to give the employers legal immunity from suits over failure to provide protection against the virus.

Theater on your personal device

The Line movingly conveys health care workers’ struggles during the pandemic

By Erik Schreiber, 7 August 2020

A powerful play based on interviews shows how New York City’s health care workers battled the pandemic as the health care system collapsed around them.

The Invisible Man: A woman struck by an “unseen hand”

By Joanne Laurier, 3 August 2020

The Invisible Man feeds on the #MeToo mood, becoming the latest entry in what one critic calls “boom times for feminist revenge narratives.”

Shirley: A fictionalized account of writer Shirley Jackson’s life

By David Walsh, 29 July 2020

Even those belonging to certain generations who do not know Jackson’s name will likely recall her disturbing 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” one of the most anthologized pieces of fiction in American history.

What is the New York Times up to at the Detroit Institute of Arts?

By David Walsh, 27 July 2020

Controversies have emerged at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the remarkable art museum, whose director has been accused of a conflict of interest and “a certain deafness on race.”

Hamilton: An American Musical finally available for broader viewing

By Ed Hightower, 24 July 2020

Amid deepening social and political crisis Hamilton came to the Disney Plus streaming service this July 3 in time for viewing on the 244th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

Italian composer Francesco Lotoro rescues music composed in the concentration camps

By Fred Mazelis, 21 July 2020

Lotoro has devoted three decades to the research and discovery of music written and performed in defiance of Nazi barbarism.

Fire damages historic Nantes cathedral in France

By Will Morrow, 20 July 2020

While the structure of the building so far appears to have been saved, the greatest losses are the organ and stained-glass windows behind it, which were destroyed.

#Anne Frank Parallel Stories: The young victim of the Nazis

By Joanne Laurier, 18 July 2020

#Anne Frank Parallel Stories is a documentary streaming on Netflix that retraces the life of Anne Frank, as well as five living women who survived the Nazi concentration camps in World War II.

RTJ4: Run the Jewels melds “rebellion” with reaction

By Erik Schreiber, 14 July 2020

Despite its musical interest, the new album by rap duo Run the Jewels shows Killer Mike and El-P to be seriously disoriented, or worse, in the current upheavals.

Lenox Hill: Portrait of New York City hospital obscures more than it shows

By Clara Weiss, 11 July 2020

Netflix is currently streaming the mini-series documentary Lenox Hill, which focuses on four doctors at the hospital of the same name in New York’s Manhattan.

The campaign to smear novelist Charles Dickens as a racist

By David Walsh, 10 July 2020

Dickens was one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century and a world-historical literary and cultural figure. In the English language, he is perhaps second only to William Shakespeare in enduring significance and popularity.

British government’s token arts rescue package: A “back-to-work” agenda amid an ongoing catastrophe

By Paul Bond, 9 July 2020

The limited financial assistance provided is based on the Johnson government’s claim that the pandemic is on the wane and that theatre, dance and music venues will soon be able to get back to relying on revenue from the paying public.

An appreciation of British painter Leon Kossoff (1926-2019)

By Clare Hurley, 7 July 2020

Kossoff’s death a year ago received such scant notice that one could be excused for not knowing that the artist was considered, by many familiar with his work, one of the great painters of the second half of the 20th century.

Neil Young’s Homegrown: Time capsule from the 1970s

By Kevin Reed, 4 July 2020

Canadian-born singer-songwriter Neil Young has released Homegrown, 45 years after it was recorded, an album of twelve songs that brings us back to his music of the early 1970s.

Inhuman Resources: In French Netflix series, an unemployed man takes extreme measures

By Joanne Laurier, 3 July 2020

The French Netflix miniseries concerns the plight of a middle-aged, middle class man who seeks to redress his long-term unemployment through extreme measures.

Season 4 of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why: Biting off more than it can chew

By Nick Barrickman, 1 July 2020

The latest season is the final one in the series about the lives and difficult circumstances of a group of teenagers at fictional Liberty High School.

The Kominsky Method: The mostly comic challenges of aging

By Ed Hightower, 30 June 2020

The Kominsky Method on Netflix looks at aging through the experiences of a pair of long-time friends: Sandy Kominsky, a once well-known actor and current acting coach, and his agent Norman Newlander.

The Salisbury Poisonings: Skripal drama framed as anti-Russian propaganda

By Thomas Scripps, 27 June 2020

The BBC’s three-part The Salisbury Poisonings uses drama as state propaganda and is designed to reignite the Skripal affair that dominated UK politics in 2018.

British actor Ian Holm (1931–2020): Classical performance adapted for the screen

By Paul Bond, 27 June 2020

It is difficult not to see his subsequent representation of a character’s inner life as being drawn from his family background.

Veteran curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum latest to come under racialist attack

Institution accused of “white supremacy and culture of systemic racism”

By David Walsh, 26 June 2020

The attack launched against Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Keith Christiansen for his remarks concerning the danger of valuable art works being destroyed in the course of upheavals is without any merit whatsoever.

The coronavirus crisis, the government’s aid package and the attempt to strangle German art

By Verena Nees, 25 June 2020

On closer inspection, the German government’s aid package proves to be a sham and a step towards neutering and strangling a diverse cultural landscape.

Antigone from Canada recounts the struggle of an immigrant youth to defend her brother against state violence

By Laurent Lafrance, 24 June 2020

Unlike insipid mainstream Canadian cinema, Antigone deals honestly with critical issues such as the oppression of immigrants, police violence, a mounting youth revolt and, to some extent, social inequality.

The Strokes’ The New Abnormal and Hamilton Leithauser’s The Loves Of Your Life: Two decades on from the rise of “indie rock”

By Matthew Brennan, 23 June 2020

Two of the more notable bands to emerge from the early 2000s “indie rock” music scene, which was centered in New York City, have recently produced new albums.

“It’s bigger than black and white, it’s a problem with the whole way of life”

Rapper Lil Baby’s new single begins to address “The Bigger Picture”

By Elliott Murtagh and J. L’Heureau, 22 June 2020

Atlanta rapper Lil Baby has released a new song about the ongoing protests against racism and police brutality.

Quebec film distributors censor Roman Polanski’s J’accuse

By Louis Girard, 20 June 2020

Yielding to the anti-democratic #MeToo campaign, distributors in Quebec refused to buy the rights to Polanski’s remarkable film about the Dreyfus Affair.

Seven Days in May (1964): When American filmmaking envisioned a military coup

By Joanne Laurier and David Walsh, 19 June 2020

Directed by John Frankenheimer and featuring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Fredric March, the film envisions an attempt to overthrow constitutional rule in the US. Where do we stand 56 years later?

The BBC’s Sitting in Limbo: Compelling dramatization of the anti-migrant Windrush scandal

By Margot Miller, 17 June 2020

Vicious measures were introduced in the aftermath of the 2008 banking crash and subsequent bailout to try and divide the working class by scapegoating ethnic minorities and migrants for the austerity that followed.

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich reviews life, crimes and death of financier

By Kevin Reed, 16 June 2020

The Netflix series paints a picture of the life and times of the late billionaire hedge fund manager and convicted sex offender in the style of a true-crime documentary.

Classical musicians face unprecedented challenges amid COVID-19 pandemic

By Fred Mazelis, 15 June 2020

The New York Philharmonic and other orchestras are canceling performances for the rest of this year.

True History of the Kelly Gang: Little resemblance to the real story

By Jason Quill and Richard Phillips, 13 June 2020

Justin Kurzel’s film is the 16th about the late 19th century Australian bushranger and anti-establishment outlaw.

Book Review

Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

By Shannon Jones, 11 June 2020

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech is considered, along with the Gettysburg Address, one of the most important in US history.

All Day and a Night: Life in prison to look forward to

By Kevin Martinez, 8 June 2020

Although no doubt well-intentioned and containing realistic elements, the film, unfortunately, follows a rather predictable path.

Uncut Gems: How to win bets and alienate people

By Erik Schreiber, 6 June 2020

The latest film from the Safdie brothers has much momentum, but little insight into its grasping protagonist or his tawdry world.

The Eddy: Struggling musicians in Paris—how unprepared artists are for the present situation!

By David Walsh, 5 June 2020

The eight-part series focuses on an expatriate American musician-composer and his attempts to keep his nightspot open and confront some of the problems in his personal life.

Letting the cat out of the bag about American television police shows

Writer on Law & Order: SVU spinoff threatens to kill “looters”

By David Walsh, 4 June 2020

Dick Wolf, the creator and executive producer of the Law & Order franchise, was obliged this week to fire a writer on an upcoming series after the latter posed with a weapon and threatened to kill “looters” in Los Angeles.

Unorthodox: Netflix series tells story of young woman’s flight from Hasidic community in New York

By Fred Mazelis, 3 June 2020

Esty Shapiro, a 19-year-old unhappily married woman in Brooklyn, leaves her Jewish ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, traveling to Berlin to find her mother and begin a new life.

The “experience of the pandemic has made me more aware that it comes down to capitalism”

Impact of COVID-19 and George Floyd killing on artistic life: An interview with a young artist-actor in Brooklyn, New York

By Clare Hurley, 2 June 2020

Artist and actor Bamoozie (his artist moniker) spoke with the WSWS about the impact of the pandemic on his economic situation, artistic work and political perspective, as well as his thoughts on the police murder of George Floyd.

The History Channel’s Grant

By Tom Mackaman, 1 June 2020

Grant was motivated, in the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction that followed, by his belief in the democratic ideal of human equality proclaimed by the American Revolution.

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Impressive raw material, but a non-committal approach

By Matthew Brennan, 1 June 2020

Few musicians were involved in as many stages of development in jazz, or popular music generally, after World War II as Miles Davis (1926-1991).

The Accident unambiguously indicts the corporate elite

By Joanne Laurier, 30 May 2020

The British television miniseries, The Accident, tells the story of a decayed former mining and steel town in Wales, in which a factory under construction collapses, resulting in a horrendous tragedy.

Singer Johnny Cash’s first wife: My Darling Vivian shows us the woman who walked the line

By Erik Schreiber, 29 May 2020

An often-touching documentary recounts how Cash’s first wife coped with unwanted media attention, her husband’s increasing emotional distance and racist threats.

Pessimism and the Unhuman: The Overstory by Richard Powers

By James McDonald, 28 May 2020

The Overstory is a novel about trees and our relationship with them, revealing through narrative, argument and richly informative detail just how dependent humans are upon arboreal nature.

“Lost our connection after the war”

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band—a documentary film

By James Brewer, 25 May 2020

Robbie Robertson: “The story of the Band is beautiful. It was so beautiful it went up in flames.”

Social problems begin to come to the fore in Billie Eilish’s debut album

By Elliott Murtagh and J. L’Heureau, 23 May 2020

The 18-year-old pop star’s debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was the most popular album on the planet in 2019.

World on Fire: Dramas of World War II

By Joanne Laurier, 22 May 2020

World on Fire, a seven-episode series, is set at the beginning of World War II and follows characters from five countries. Colored by anti-war and anti-fascist views, it takes place in France, Britain, Germany and Poland.

Lost Girls: The everyday cruelty of American life

By David Walsh, 21 May 2020

Much of Lost Girls is taken up by Mari Gilbert’s painful, persistent struggle for some police or official action in regard to her daughter’s fate.

Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider: The pioneer of electronica (1947-2020)

By Paul Bond, 19 May 2020

The cultural background of a disoriented avant-garde in the aftermath of World War II and the division of Germany helped shape the music of Schneider and his peers.

Television adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere: Small change, in fact

By Joanne Laurier, 18 May 2020

Based on the 2017 novel, Little Fires Everywhere, an eight-episode Hulu miniseries, focuses on several families and individuals in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, who come into conflict.

Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York: A little more of an edge than usual

By David Walsh, 16 May 2020

Disgracefully, A Rainy Day in New York has been suppressed in the US. The film was completed in 2018, but Amazon Studios refused to distribute it.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters: One small step for Fiona Apple

By Erik Schreiber, 15 May 2020

The new album, which resonates during our time of quarantine, reflects the singer’s personal growth, as well as the regressive influences of her Hollywood-celebrity environment.

Beethoven’s opera Fidelio for a new online audience of millions

By Bernd Reinhardt, 14 May 2020

A new staging of Beethoven’s Fidelio is a highlight in these times of lockdown and quarantine.

Tony Allen (1940-2020): Pioneering drummer of Afrobeat dies

By Paul Bond, 13 May 2020

His long-time collaborator Fela Kuti once declared “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat.”

Rock ’n’ roll great Little Richard dead at 87

By Hiram Lee, 12 May 2020

Little Richard played a significant role in shaping rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s and left an indelible influence on the world of music and pop culture in the decades that followed.

Ricky Gervais’ After Life: To be or not to be, that’s one of the questions

By David Walsh, 9 May 2020

Tony Johnson (Gervais) is devastated by the death of his beloved wife Lisa (Kerry Godliman) from breast cancer. He finds it difficult to carry on with life and frequently contemplates suicide.

What Do We Need to Talk About?: Richard Nelson’s “Zoom theater” in the midst of the pandemic

By Fred Mazelis, 8 May 2020

The Apple family in Rhinebeck, New York, tries to carry on, as the world faces disaster and social upheaval.

The coronavirus crisis and its impact on the conditions for artists and arts workers

By David Walsh, 5 May 2020

The present crisis is devastating the lives of many artists, threatening to drive smaller galleries and related enterprises out of business and resulting in an even greater divide between haves and have-nots.

Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures: An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art

By Clare Hurley, 2 May 2020

Lange’s turn to documentary photography was spurred by the Great Depression as she sought to address economic inequality and social injustice through activism and the lens of her camera.

Resistance and The Resistance Banker: Dramas of the struggle against Nazism

By Joanne Laurier, 1 May 2020

The crimes of the Nazis, the greatest ever committed against humanity, generated some of the noblest and most self-sacrificing actions in the struggle against their barbarism.

German photomontage artist John Heartfield: A new online exhibition

By Sybille Fuchs, 30 April 2020

The virtual exhibition is in many respects highly relevant in the present situation.

One World: Together At Home—A noble gesture married to official cynicism

By Paul Bond, 30 April 2020

Huge global audience figures show a support for the keyworkers at the frontline that is not answered by any corresponding practical measures from the ruling class.

Tiger King on Netflix: Approach with caution!

By Ed Hightower and Kathleen Martin, 28 April 2020

Tiger King centers on the feud between Joe Exotic—a flamboyant zoo owner in rural Oklahoma—and the animal rights activist who aims to shut down the cub petting industry in the US, Carole Baskin.

The Innocence Files on Netflix: Freeing frame-up victims from prison

By Joanne Laurier, 27 April 2020

The production of and interest in the nine-part documentary are part of the growing opposition in the US both to the death penalty and to mass incarceration.

Sincerely Louis C.K.—Comedian returns with a stand-up special

By Shuvu Batta, 25 April 2020

Despite the hostile and concerted campaign in the media, Louis C.K. returns to the public eye with his new comedy special.

The concluding episodes of The Plot Against America: In 1940, an America gone fascist

By David Walsh, 23 April 2020

The sixth and final part of HBO’s adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel aired April 20. The series imagines an alternate history in which right-winger Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 US presidential election.

COVID-19 kills jazz saxophone master Lee Konitz

By John Andrews, 20 April 2020

COVID-19 has claimed the life of Lee Konitz, one of the foremost improvisers of post-war jazz.

Star Trek: Picard—The prospects of an aging icon

By Lee Parsons, 18 April 2020

Set late in the 24th century, Star Trek: Picard concluded its 10-episode season in March to generally favourable reviews, if a mixed reception from the faithful.

Curtiz: A film about the filming of Casablanca in 1942

By David Walsh, 17 April 2020

Michael Curtiz was one of the most prolific, talented directors in history, with some 180 films to his credit—a third of them made in his native Hungary and other European countries by the time he emigrated to the US in 1926.

Five Came Back: Hollywood filmmakers and World War II

By Joanne Laurier, 16 April 2020

The three-part documentary focuses on five major American directors—John Ford, John Huston, William Wyler, George Stevens and Frank Capra—who enlisted with the US War Department to create propaganda films between 1941 and 1945.

Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela and the endless night

By Erik Schreiber, 14 April 2020

The newest movie from acclaimed Portuguese director Pedro Costa offers visual beauty, pessimism and little insight or hope.

Country singer-songwriter John Prine dies in pandemic

By Hiram Lee and Matthew Brennan, 13 April 2020

In his art and his very personality, Prine pursued an existence entirely opposed to the sort led by those whose criminal negligence made possible his death from COVID-19.

A conversation with Mark Harris, director of Black & Privileged

By Nick Barrickman, 11 April 2020

The World Socialist Web Site spoke last week to the Chicago-based director and discussed issues related to his recent film.

New York Philharmonic forced to reinstate two musicians victimized by #MeToo campaign

By David Walsh, 11 April 2020

Oboist Liang Wang and trumpeter Matthew Muckey disputed their 2018 firings. An arbitrator heard the case and found that the musicians had been terminated without just cause.

Colewell: The people and places in America that don’t count

By Joanne Laurier, 10 April 2020

Colewell follows Karen Allen as Nora, a postal clerk in a fictitious rural Pennsylvania town. The one-person post office is the center of her existence and has been for numerous decades.

Musicians speak out on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

“A devastating blow financially and emotionally”

By Elliott Murtagh, 9 April 2020

The deepening crisis has left musicians and DJs across the United States, most of whom are part of the gig economy, reeling.

Prominent jazz musicians die in COVID-19 pandemic

By Hiram Lee, 6 April 2020

Among the more than 1.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the nearly 70,000 lives lost, may be counted those of numerous well-known musicians and performers.

Black & Privileged: Poor African Americans “intrude” on an affluent Chicago neighborhood

By Nick Barrickman, 4 April 2020

Mark Harris’s television film tells the story of a middle-class black community “disrupted” when low-income people are forced to move in.

With publication of Woody Allen’s Apropos of Nothing memoir, venomous #MeToo attacks continue

By David Walsh, 3 April 2020

The book, treating Allen’s life growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and ‘40s, as well as his film career and more recent personal troubles, has become the target of abuse in the Washington Post, New York Times and elsewhere.

An ominous warning ignored by governments

Netflix’s Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak

By Toby Reese, 1 April 2020

As the US became an epicenter of the current pandemic last week, the series jumped into the top ten most-viewed on Netflix.

Andrew Bird’s My Finest Work Yet and Ian Noe’s Between the Country

By Matthew Brennan, 31 March 2020

The songwriting and musicality on both, at its best, is unusually direct, serious and invigorating. The two performers attempt to grapple with changes in social life—and social moods—and manage to give them intriguing musical expression.

70th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 5

Strike or Die and several shorts: Filipiñana, Union County, Huntsville Station: A renewed interest in workers’ lives

By Verena Nees, 30 March 2020

This year’s Berlinale showed films featuring workers and their families as central characters who, despite oppressive living conditions, exhibit self-confidence, pride and a degree of rebellious spirit.

Coronavirus crisis “devastates” US museums, arts organizations, many of them for good

By David Walsh, 28 March 2020

The bipartisan corporate “rescue” package passed by the US Congress this week provides only $232.5 million for cultural organizations, one-sixteenth of the $4 billion for which the American Alliance of Museums had lobbied.

Knives Out: The decent and honest should inherit the earth

…and The Last Thing He Wanted

By Joanne Laurier, 27 March 2020

Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is an amusing whodunit with some social implications. Dee Rees’s The Last Thing He Wanted is too elliptical for its own good.

Pop star Britney Spears social media posts go viral after telling public to “re-distribute wealth” and “strike”

By Nick Barrickman, 26 March 2020

The Instagram post has been shared millions of times in a widespread reaction to the coronavirus pandemic and efforts by the ruling elite to dump the crisis on the back of the working class.

Adaptation of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America on HBO: If the US had gone fascist

By David Walsh, 25 March 2020

The series imagines an alternate history in which aviation hero and Hitler admirer Charles Lindbergh becomes the Republican Party’s candidate for president in 1940 and wins the general election against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.

John Eliot Gardiner leads all nine Beethoven symphonies at Carnegie Hall, and speaks about their significance

The great composer’s music has “to do with social equality, revolution and counterrevolution”

By Fred Mazelis, 23 March 2020

An opportunity, just before the coronavirus forced the closing of concert halls, to hear the works of the master played on period instruments.

Entertainment industry in North America devastated by layoffs

By Penny Smith, 23 March 2020

The entertainment industry across the US and Canada has effectively shut down, leaving hundreds of thousands of already precariously employed workers suddenly without an income.

Further signs of life: The Best American Short Stories 2019

By James McDonald, 21 March 2020

Editor Anthony Doerr and series editor Heidi Pitlor have assembled in these twenty stories a book well worth reading and with more than one piece that contributes admirably to contemporary American literature.

Metropolitan Opera in New York ends season, laying off musicians and other staff

By Fred Mazelis, 21 March 2020

Hundreds of employees will be joining tens of millions of others as the coronavirus pandemic leads to skyrocketing unemployment.

Emma. and Jane Austen’s realism

By Joanne Laurier, 20 March 2020

Emma. has an added punctuation mark, according to de Wilde, “because it’s a period piece.” This facetious comment, unhappily, threatens to sum up the entire project.

Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue: Documentary about war crimes and historical revisionism in Japan

By Isabel Roy, 20 March 2020

Miki Dezaki interviews revisionists from far-right circles in Japan, politicians and historians who have studied “comfort women,” as well as activists working for the recognition of the victimised women.

Max von Sydow (1929-2020): The long shadow of a great actor

By Paul Bond, 19 March 2020

For more than six decades, the Swedish-born von Sydow, who has died at 90, was a standard bearer for serious, thoughtful acting in a remarkable range of work.

70th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 3

Curveball—Germany’s role in the Iraq war—and the horrors of the concentration camp in Persian Lessons

By Stefan Steinberg, 18 March 2020

Johannes Naber’s film is a political satire rooted firmly in evidence researched by the director and his team. Vadim Perelman’s work follows a man who has to invent an entire language to survive.

An appreciation of jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, 1938-2020

By Matthew Brennan, 16 March 2020

Tyner was the last living member of the famed “classic” John Coltrane quartet, which included bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.

A comment by writer and director Andrew Birkin on Speer Goes to Hollywood

13 March 2020

The WSWS has received a letter from writer and director Andrew Birkin in response to its review, posted on March 11, of Speer Goes to Hollywood .

Right-wing attack on performance of African-American spirituals at Western Michigan University

By Joe Lorenz, 13 March 2020

The concert, “Spirituals: From Ship to Shore,” was organized and led by Dr. John Wesley Wright, an award-winning tenor and professor at Salisbury University in Maryland, as part of a week of study into the history of the musical genre.

70th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 2

Speer Goes to Hollywood: A wake-up call about the danger of trivialising Nazi crimes

By Verena Nees, 11 March 2020

The title of Vanessa Lapa’s documentary, Speer Goes to Hollywood, and its tagline, “The Unbelievable Second Career of the Good Nazi,” are enough to stop one in one’s tracks.