| The Monuments Men | |
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| Directed by | George Clooney |
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| Cinematography | Phedon Papamichael |
| Edited by | Stephen Mirrione |
| Music by | Alexandre Desplat |
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Running time | 118 minutes[1] |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $70–91 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $156.4 million[2] |
The Monuments Men is a 2014war film directed byGeorge Clooney, and written and produced by Clooney andGrant Heslov. The film stars anensemble cast including Clooney,Matt Damon,Bill Murray,John Goodman,Jean Dujardin,Bob Balaban,Hugh Bonneville andCate Blanchett.
The film is based on the 2007 non-fiction bookThe Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History byRobert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. It follows anAllied group from theMonuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program that is given the task of finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items beforeNazis destroy or steal them duringWorld War II.[4][5]
The Monuments Men was co-produced byColumbia Pictures (in association with20th Century Fox) andBabelsberg Studio. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $156.4 million worldwide against a $70 million budget.
In 1943, theAllies are successfully pushing back theAxis powers in Italy. Frank Stokes convincesPresident Roosevelt that victory will be meaningless if the artistic treasures of Western civilization are lost and is directed to assemble an Army unit of museum directors, curators, art historians, and an architect. The "Monuments Men" will guide Allied units in the search for stolen art so it can be returned to the rightful owners.
In July 1944, the Allies are ashore in France and Claire Simone, a French curator, has been forced to assist German officer Viktor Stahl in thetheft of art which goes toAdolf Hitler'sFührermuseum or other Nazi officials such asHermann Göring. She confronts Stahl at a railyard after learning her gallery's collection has been loaded on a train for Germany, to no avail.
Stokes' unit finds its work frustrated by Allied officers who refuse to endanger their troops for the sake of his mission. The unit splits up to cover more ground, with varying degrees of success. James Granger meets Simone, but she refuses to cooperate, suspecting the Americans want to confiscate the stolen art for themselves. British officer Donald Jeffries is killed sneaking into occupied Bruges to saveMichelangelo'sMadonna of Bruges. Richard Campbell and Preston Savitz learn thatVan Eyck'sGhent Altarpiece, removed by the priests ofGhent Cathedral for safekeeping, was stolen during transit. Viktor Stahl, hiding as a farmer, is arrested when they identify the paintings in his house as stolen masterpieces from theRothschild Collection. In December 1944, Walter Garfield and Jean Claude Clermont blunder into a firefight in the countryside. Garfield is unable to find medical help for a wounded Clermont, who dies.
Simone agrees to help after Granger shows her the GermanNero Decree ordering widespreaddestruction in the event of German collapse. She witnesses the Monuments Men return a looted painting to a Jewish family, and provides a comprehensive listing of stolen art and the rightful owners. The team learns of artwork hidden in mines and castles, such asNeuschwanstein, but realizes they are competing with Soviet forces who are also seizing artwork fromits occupation zone of Germany aswar reparations. Colonel Wegner is also systematically destroying entire art caches.
The team's successes include discovery of a mine hiding over 16,000 art pieces and discovery of the German national treasury's entire gold reserve. As the war ends in May 1945, the team finds anothermine in Austria that appears to have been demolished. Racing to beat the Soviets, they find the entrances blocked by the locals to prevent the Nazis from destroying the contents. The team evacuates sculptures, theGhent Altarpiece, and theMadonna of Bruges, but are unable to retrieve the entire collection before the Soviets arrive.
Stokes reports toPresident Truman that the team recovered vast quantities of artwork and culturally significant items and requests to stay in Europe to oversee further searching and restoration. When Truman asks Stokes if his efforts were worth the lives of the men he lost, he says they were. Truman then asks if in thirty years anyone will remember those men died for a piece of art. The elderly Stokes, showing his grandson theMadonna of Bruges in 1977, says "Yeah."
A co-production betweenColumbia Pictures (in association with20th Century Fox) and Germany'sStudio Babelsberg,[6] the film was funded by theGerman Federal Film Fund (DFFF) with €8.5 million,[7] Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung,Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg as well as Medien- und FilmgesellschaftBaden-Württemberg.[8][9] Casting was held in February 2013 for thousands of extras for the military scenes.[10][11]
Principal photography began in early March 2013, at theBabelsberg Studios inPotsdam, Germany, in theBerlin-Brandenburg region, and theHarz. The mines aroundBad Grund, particularly the Wiemannsbucht and the Grube Hilfe Gottes, were used in the filming of outdoor scenes. Other outdoor locations were the towns ofLautenthal,Clausthal-Zellerfeld,Goslar,Halberstadt,Merseburg andOsterwieck. Some of the scenes, including flights and American war base footage, were filmed atImperial War Museum Duxford,Cambridgeshire, UK.[12][13] A farm inAshford inKent was also used.[14] Filming was scheduled to last until the end of June 2013, wrapping up inRye, East Sussex.[15]
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The film was originally set to be released on December 18, 2013,[16] and a trailer was released on August 8, 2013.[17] The release was pushed back to February 2014, because issues balancing humor with the serious nature of the subject matter caused post-production to take longer than expected.[18][19][20]
The film was screened on February 7, 2014, at the64th Berlin International Film Festival.[21][22] It was also screened atUNESCO, on 27 March 2014, on the occasion of the panel discussion "Modern Day Monuments Men and Women" on the preservation of heritage in times of conflict andthe fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property.[23]
The Monuments Men received mixed reviews from film critics.[24][25] On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has a 30% approval rating, based on 256 reviews, with an average score of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Its intentions are noble and its cast is impressive, but neither can compensate forThe Monuments Men's stiffly nostalgic tone and curiously slack narrative."[26] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on reviews from 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[24] Audiences surveyed byCinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.[27]
Peter Travers inRolling Stone gave it three out of four stars, noting that while some of the dialogue and emotions seemed inauthentic, the physical production and cinematography were "exquisite," with shooting done on locations in Germany and England.[28] In comparing the film with contemporary ones, he considered it a "proudly untrendy, uncynical movie," where the story involved people seeking something more valuable than money. He added, "Clooney [as director] feels there's much to be learned from these unsung art warriors...The Monuments Men is a movie about aspiration, about culture at risk, about things worth fighting for. I'd call that timely and well worth a salute."[28] He also wrote that the film contains "a tone shift that may leave escapism junkies feeling betrayed."[28]
Richard Roeper from theChicago Sun-Times called the film an "...engaging, shamelessly corny and entertaining World War II adventure inspired by true events"; he gave it 3 out of 4.[29]Richard Corliss fromTime stated that "...[r]ather than juicing each element to blockbuster volume, Clooney has delivered it in the tone of a memorial lecture, warm and ambling, given by one of the distinguished academics he put in his movie."[30]
The film is based on real events, but the names of all characters were changed, and a number of further adjustments were made to the historical facts in the interests of drama.[31] According to Clooney, "80 percent of the story is still completely true and accurate, and almost all of the scenes happened".[32] The accounts of some events were altered to serve the film's dramatic portrayal of the retrieval of these treasures.
During the Nazi period, a huge number of European art treasures pillaged by the Germans had been stored in the Altaussee salt mine near the town ofBad Aussee. In the film, it is stated that 'local miners' had blown up the mine to prevent the contents being destroyed. In 1945 a BritishSpecial Operations Executive mission, codenamed Bonzos and led byAlbrecht Gaiswinkler, was responsible for saving the looted art stored in Austrian salt mines. These personnel had been parachuted into the Aussee area, where Gaiswinkler raised a force of around 300 men, armed them with captured German weapons, and spent the last weeks and months of the war harassing local German forces. When the Americans arrived, his information helped them capture several prominent Nazis. He and his colleagues had captured the salt mine, prevented the destruction of the artworks held there, and were able to hand over "a number of Nazi treasure hoards, including a good copy of theMona Lisa[33] (which is subject of debate)[34] and theAustrian Imperial Crown Jewels". Other artworks rescued includedHubert andJan van Eyck'sGhent Altarpiece.[35][36][37][38][39]
Nigel Pollard ofSwansea University was critical of the lack of historical accuracy, and wrote: "There's a kernel of history there, butThe Monuments Men plays fast and loose with it in ways that are probably necessary to make the story work as a film, but the viewer ends up with a fairly confused notion of what the organisationMonuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA) was, and what it achieved. The real organisation was never a big one (a few dozen officers at most), but the film reduces it to just seven men to personalise the hunt for the looted art: five Americans, one British officer, the first to be killed off (Hugh Bonneville), and a Free French officer, marginalising the British role in the establishment of the organisation. This is presented as set up at Clooney's [Stokes'] initiative after thebombing of Monte Cassino (so, after February 1944). In fact, its origins actually went back to British efforts inLibya in 1942, and it already existed (albeit with teething troubles) when the Allies invadedSicily in July 1943."[40] HistorianAlex von Tunzelmann, noted several historical faults and said of the plot: "If you're getting the sense that the film is episodic and poorly structured, unfortunately you'd be right", and "There are far too many characters, so the screenplay splits them up into little groups and sends them off on various errands. Some of these are more exciting than others – but they do not add up to a satisfying plot. A TV series might have been a better vehicle for the "monuments men" stories than a feature film... The story is fascinating, but this film's good intentions are hampered by its lack of pace, direction, tone and properly fleshed-out characters."[41]
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