The Monuments Men

[hatguy1]

Tough call which area of TFL to post this in WW2 or "The Silver Screen," but since the movie's about WW2, I'm tossing it here. Bartender, if you need to move it, I unnastand.

Anyway; saw a preview for "The Monuments Men" tonight (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2177771/) about a team of art experts trying to recover European art stolen by Hitler's Nazis. Anyone seen it yet? Not debuting here for another month.

If you've seen it or heard anything about it, I'd be interested in hearing it. Thanks.

 

[Shangas]

I have heard of it, and I would very much like to see it. I think it would be very funny, but also very interesting.

 

[hatguy1]

Is it supposed to be based really on fact and anyone who really served in such a way or is it complete fiction? I don't mean that complete fiction stories are all bad, but it really adds something to it when a movie/story has solid basis in fact and real people's experiences.

 

[hatguy1]

I'll answer my own question here (from IMDB): "Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys - seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 - possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements."

Sounds like a pretty good flick.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Here's a bit of information on the subject. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/gang/stolen_art/8.html
The pic of the Polish officer holding DaVinci's painting of the lady with the ermine is wild. I can just imagine how he might have felt at the moment, holding one of the most famous paintings in the world in his hands.
I read a story just recently about some more artworks confiscated by the nazis that were discovered in Munich. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/04/authorities-in-germany-reportedly-find-trove-nazi-looted-art/

 

[hatguy1]

Good info, Horace. Thanks.

 

[1930artdeco]

I started to read book the movie is based on it is wild. What they did not have as far as people, equipment and support. I ended up stopping due to the writing not the story. I can't wait for the movie to come out.

Mike

 

[hatguy1]

I started to read book the movie is based on it is wild. What they did not have as far as people, equipment and support. I ended up stopping due to the writing not the story. I can't wait for the movie to come out.

Mike

Oh?

 

[m0nk]

According to Fandango it'll be out Feb 7th... and yes its based on a true story... but we all know how Hollywood handles true stories... that said, I do want to see it.

 

[Tomasso]

Tough call which area of TFL to post this in WW2 or "The Silver Screen," but since the movie's about WW2, I'm tossing it here.

As far as I know,
all films go in the Moving Picture section regardless the subject.

As for the movie: I'm looking forward to seeing it. It should be pretty good as Clooney is rarely is attached to bad films these days.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Yeah, should be good. It's not often that 2 of my favorite subjects , WW2 and fine art appear in one movie together.

 

[hatguy1]

I started to read book the movie is based on it is wild. What they did not have as far as people, equipment and support. I ended up stopping due to the writing not the story. I can't wait for the movie to come out.

Mike

The wife picked up a copy of "The Monument Men" at the store this weekend for me. So far looks pretty good and well-written. But I've only read the intro and first couple chapters. It's a fairly thick book (couple 3 inches maybe clothback). Author says he had to leave out all the contribution and effort and struggles of the MFAA troops working in Italy for another book cause this one was too thick with it included.

 

[Story]

Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure
By Greg Bradsher

Late on the evening of March 22, 1945, elements of Lt. Gen. George Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine, and soon thereafter his whole army crossed the river and drove into the heart of Germany. Advancing northeast from Frankfurt, elements of the Third Army cut into the future Soviet Zone and advanced on Gotha. Just before noon on April 4, the village of Merkers fell to the Third Battalion of the 358th Infantry Regiment, Ninetieth Infantry Division, Third Army. During that day and the next the Ninetieth Infantry Division, with its command post at Keiselbach, consolidated its holdings in the Merkers area.(1)

During April 4 and 5, displaced persons in the vicinity interrogated by the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) personnel of the Ninetieth Infantry Division mentioned a recent movement of German Reichsbank gold from Berlin to the Wintershal AG's Kaiseroda potassium mine at Merkers. In all of these instances they quoted rumors, but none stated their own knowledge that gold was present in the mine. But just before noon on April 5, a member of Military Intelligence Team 404-G, attached to the 358th Infantry Regiment, who was in Bad Salzungen, about six miles from Merkers, interviewed French displaced persons who had worked in the mine at Merkers. They told him they had heard that gold had been stored in the mine. The information was passed on to the G-2 (intelligence section) of the Ninetieth Infantry Division, and orders were issued prohibiting all civilians from circulating in the area of the mine.(2)

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1999/spring/nazi-gold-merkers-mine-treasure.html

 

[Story]

Jesse Boell had never handled documents like this before, at least none secreted in salt mines.

Two years before he returned to Wisconsin to become the archivist at the state Historical Society, Boell was an Army officer stationed in Europe at the end of World War II. He was working to recover documents the Nazis thought were so important they put them in salt mines for safekeeping.

As Boell retrieved the documents, he realized the paper was embedded with salt dust, and it started to curl and shrivel as it was exposed to fresh air.

"It was just nobody thought about that. The salt was just in everything and had been for a long time," said Frank Cook, who succeeded Boell as University of Wisconsin-Madison archivist. "They did the best they could and fairly quickly realized they couldn't work in the fresh air — they had to stay down in the salt mine and take brushes to clean off the documents."

Boell was not in Germany to fight or carry a weapon, he was a Monuments Man. The little-known U.S. Army group called the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, or MFAA, is now getting the Hollywood treatment in a film starring George Clooney and Matt Damon. "The Monuments Men" opens Friday.

Originally a group of 30 men who were drafted from the ranks of art historians, librarians, archivists and museum directors, the Monuments Men grew to more than 300 men and women who were sent to Europe to search for, restore and repatriate art looted by the Nazis, as well as preserve documents, art and architectural treasures.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscon...ists-b99199997z1-244126441.html#ixzz2shAyMhGV
Follow us: @JournalSentinel on Twitter

 

[hatguy1]

Anybody seen the show yet? Comments if you have?


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[Story]

Saw it opening night - like most 'historical' movies, you'll have to suspend disbelief here and there but overall it was a B+.

 

[hatguy1]

From what I'm reading all the "stars" play fictitious MM not the ones mentioned in the book even. Think I'll save my money.


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[vintage68]

Went to see it today. Loved it.

Evidently looted works of art are STILL being found hidden in Germany as this piece in the WSJ shows:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles...479324?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

 

[Zombie_61]

I saw it last Saturday, and really enjoyed it. I'm sure it's an abbreviated, semi-fictionalized version of the real story, but I can think of far worse ways to spend two hours in a movie theater.

 

[Edward]

If it doesn't have Jon Bon Jovi and a bunch of other Yanks taking credit for what the Brits did, I'd call that a win.