THE OPPENHEIM FAMILY
(Mosfilm)
F you saw Professor Mamlock, you have pretty well sten The Oppenheim Family. Which isn’t to say that it is not worth seeing, but you will
at least know what to expect — the gradual decay of decent standards within Germany, the mounting boldness of the Nazis, the spread of the slow poison of racial hatred which finally destroys some of the country’s greatest benefactors, the men of science and culture who have made the mistake of being born Jews. Concurrently, there is the organisation of revolt against the Government by the Communists; all this being portrayed with ruthless realism and considerable dramatic art by one of those casts of talented character types which Soviet producers know so well how to assemble. When a Soviet producer makes a film about Nazis, Jews and Communists, the Nazis certainly look like Nazis, the Jews are unmistakably Jewish, and this being so we may assume that the Communists resemble Communists. The propaganda is similarly clear-cut black and white. Indeed, as a friend remarked to me after the preview, in these Russian films they aren’t merely content to cut you open and ram the propaganda inside, they practically crawl in after it and poke it into the corners! However, The Oppenheim Family is not as naive in its propaganda as some of its type, and for this reason perhaps I found it interesting if not exactly joyful entertainment. The reaction and revolt against the Nazi tyranny which it
depicts takes place as much in the intellectual sphere as in the physical. There is the heroic Communist chauffeur who organises active revolt and sabotage and gets beaten up for his pains; but there is also the quiet, intellectual student who dies by his own hand rather than retract what: he knows to be the truth. And there are the Jewish doctors who go on quietly doing their job until the Nazis crash into the clinic and pack them off to concentration camps. You feel that the director wants you to believe that the chauffeur and his fellow party-members played the nobler and more useful part, and that the student who insisted that the Germanic hero, Arminius, was more of a barbarian than a demi-god would have been better employed making bombs than writing a thesis in defiance of the Nazis. But in spite of the director it doesn’t quite seem to work out that way.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19420904.2.39.2
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 167, 4 September 1942, Page 16
Word count
Tapeke kupu
403THE OPPENHEIM FAMILY New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 167, 4 September 1942, Page 16
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.