We did not do--others did.
Feb. 7th, 2009 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolfpangsI am trying to watch all the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. I'm watching The Reader now. I know Kate is getting all the attention for this movie and rightfully so, but so far, it's a scene with Dieter, a classmate of Michael's, that I've found the most moving. Cut for mild spoilers.
So Michael, the young man that Kate's character, Hanna, was involved with is a law student and they're now observing a trial of six former Nazi guards. After a day in court, a class member has this to say:
Dieter: I don't know. I don't know what we're doing here anymore.
Professor Rohl: Don't you?
Dieter: You keep telling us to think like lawyers, but there is something...disgusting about this.
Professor Rohl: How so?
Dieter: This didn't happen to the Germans--it happened to the Jews. What are we trying to do?
Michael: We are trying to understand!
Dieter: Six women locked 300 Jews in a church and let them burn--what is there to understand?!
Tell me, I'm asking--what is there to understand?!
I started out believing in this trial--I thought it was great. Now I think it's...it's just a diversion.
Professor Rohl: Yes? Diversion from what?
Dieter: You choose six women. You put them on trial. You say, "They were the evil ones--they were the guilty ones!" Because one of the victims happened to write a book. That's why they're on trial and nobody else! Do you know how many camps there were in Europe? People go on about how much did everyone know? Who knew? What did they know? Everyone knew! Our parents, our teachers--that isn't the question! The question is, how could you let this happen? And better, why didn't you kill yourself when you found out?
There's so much in this scene, from the frustration when justice slips from our grasp to the anger felt at the realization that authorities are fallible. And of course, the easy judgment from someone who's never had to ask those questions before.
And now my thoughts on this are all derailed, because in lulzbigot news, I googled to doublecheck a line from The Twilight Zone episode "Deaths-head Revisited," from which this entry get its title and found a hilarious discussion about depictions of race on TV over at [I'm not giving any credit to white supremacist websites]. "What really bothers me is the way two of the formerly white Teletubbies have gradually transformed into an obvious black and the other an Asian." WAT.
So Michael, the young man that Kate's character, Hanna, was involved with is a law student and they're now observing a trial of six former Nazi guards. After a day in court, a class member has this to say:
Dieter: I don't know. I don't know what we're doing here anymore.
Professor Rohl: Don't you?
Dieter: You keep telling us to think like lawyers, but there is something...disgusting about this.
Professor Rohl: How so?
Dieter: This didn't happen to the Germans--it happened to the Jews. What are we trying to do?
Michael: We are trying to understand!
Dieter: Six women locked 300 Jews in a church and let them burn--what is there to understand?!
Tell me, I'm asking--what is there to understand?!
I started out believing in this trial--I thought it was great. Now I think it's...it's just a diversion.
Professor Rohl: Yes? Diversion from what?
Dieter: You choose six women. You put them on trial. You say, "They were the evil ones--they were the guilty ones!" Because one of the victims happened to write a book. That's why they're on trial and nobody else! Do you know how many camps there were in Europe? People go on about how much did everyone know? Who knew? What did they know? Everyone knew! Our parents, our teachers--that isn't the question! The question is, how could you let this happen? And better, why didn't you kill yourself when you found out?
There's so much in this scene, from the frustration when justice slips from our grasp to the anger felt at the realization that authorities are fallible. And of course, the easy judgment from someone who's never had to ask those questions before.
And now my thoughts on this are all derailed, because in lulzbigot news, I googled to doublecheck a line from The Twilight Zone episode "Deaths-head Revisited," from which this entry get its title and found a hilarious discussion about depictions of race on TV over at [I'm not giving any credit to white supremacist websites]. "What really bothers me is the way two of the formerly white Teletubbies have gradually transformed into an obvious black and the other an Asian." WAT.
