Keitel as Army officer is major miscasting
Boy, can Harvey Keitel be bad - and not bad like Bad Lieutenant, bad like bad acting. As Steve Arnold, a U.S. Army major in post-World War II Berlin, the gruff, growly Method man sports a pencil-thin mustache, a dismissive scowl, and the kind of arms-flailing theatrics that are oversize on the stage, never mind the movie screen. Taking Sides, from The Pianist screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Mephisto director István Szabó, puts Keitel's character - a dogged insurance-claims investigator before the war - in a room with Stellan Skarsgard, playing Wilhelm Furtwängler, the famous German symphony conductor. The major is there to interrogate the musician at the behest of the American Denazification Committee, to determine whether, during the war, Furtwängler - who led the Berlin Philharmonic and performed for Hitler and his hi
Boy, can Harvey Keitel be bad - and not bad like Bad Lieutenant, bad like bad acting. As Steve Arnold, a U.S. Army major in post-World War II Berlin, the gruff, growly Method man sports a pencil-thin mustache, a dismissive scowl, and the kind of arms-flailing theatrics that are oversize on the stage, never mind the movie screen.
Taking Sides, from The Pianist screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Mephisto director István Szabó, puts Keitel's character - a dogged insurance-claims investigator before the war - in a room with Stellan Skarsgard, playing Wilhelm Furtwängler, the famous German symphony conductor. The major is there to interrogate the musician at the behest of the American Denazification Committee, to determine whether, during the war, Furtwängler - who led the Berlin Philharmonic and performed for Hitler and his higher-ups - was propagating the cultural ideals of the Third Reich, was a sympathizer, a collaborator. Though he never was a card-carrying Nazi, Furtwängler received government honors and appointments. He was, willingly or naively, an esteemed figure representing Hitler's conception of the arts.
Furtwängler also was, by dint of his position in the cultural hierarchy, able to save scores of Jews from the death camps. And he resisted entreaties to join the Nazi Party. There are no easy answers to the question of his complicity - and Skarsgard, as understated and indrawn as Keitel is a hambone, wears that tortured conflict on his face, in his bearing.
A playlike examination of the nature of politics and art, and of the human soul, Taking Sides - which is based on true events - unfortunately comes off as schematic, didactic, and most of all, in the case of Keitel, woefully miscast. While there's something inherently fascinating about putting an uncultured insurance dick in a position of power over an erudite, soul-searching artist, Keitel goes at his role with the jaw-grinding bluster of Popeye the Sailor Man. He is, to say the least, distracting.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea
at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
Taking Sides
** (out of four stars)
Written by Ronald Harwood, directed by István Szabó. With Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgard and Moritz Bleibtreu.
Running time: 1 hour, 45 mins.
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (profanity, adult themes, Holocaust archival footage)
Playing at: Ritz East and Ritz Sixteen/NJ