Jud Süß

[L.A.]

Just noticed that Amazon has Veit Harlan's Jud Süß (1940) on sale in a The Deluxe Restored Version from a company called International Historic Films, Inc.

Now if anyone happens to own this, is this a normal DVD release or possibly a DVDr?

[oldsheperd]

Has anyone seen this film? If so what's the dvd like and is it even worth watching?

[knives]

It's available on youtube if you're curious.

[matrixschmatrix]

I've seen it as part of a German film class, although I don't know for sure that it was the current dvd release- it was certainly perfectly watchable as far as film quality went. I'm also fairly sure (although I can't find it) that it's available online with a scholarly commentary somewhere.

As for the movie- even more so than Reifenstahl's work, it's impossible for me to consider it dispassionately in any kind of a search for inherent filmic quality under the evil. It seems to be working to tell the audience something pretty specific: that it's not merely Jewish people whom one must fear (there is an old ghetto in place at the beginning of the movie, and this seems to be acceptable in its view) but those Jewish people who try to blend in and look like everyone else.

It's not seductive at all in its message- it's hard to imagine even someone predisposed to racism believing in its medieval conception of Jewishness at this point, and there's not much to the story as presented beyond 'look at this monster, we should kill him'- but it is incredibly queasy, both for the effect it actually had and for the experience of watching a man hung and the Jewish people routed from the city and feeling that the movie expects you to cheer and maybe run outside and burn a few businesses.

[denti alligator]

The film is in pretty good condition and the transfer is quite good. It comes with a decent interview with Eric Rentschler of Harvard. I recommend it. There's no other edition coming, that's for sure.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Eric Rentschler does the commentary and he is a good scholar. I know his writing from my study of Syberberg.

[denti alligator]

It's not a full-length commentary, just a video interview, if I'm not mistaken.

The film is worth viewing, even though it is among the most vile anti-Semitic propaganda.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's not a full-length commentary, just a video interview, if I'm not mistaken.

The film is worth viewing, even though it is among the most vile anti-Semitic propaganda.

I would say that if the movie is worth watching, it is probably because of its historical importance as vile propaganda- again, as opposed to Reifenstahl, I don't think this is a situation where it is a valuable movie hiding under a lacquer of propaganda.

There was a documentary that came out about it last year- did anyone see it?

[oldsheperd]

I would only be able to watch this with a full commentary. I could probably figure out what's going on without listening to the dialogue. I imagine it's along the lines of "The Jew is terrible, the Jew is vile, hate the Jew."

[denti alligator]

I would only be able to watch this with a full commentary. I could probably figure out what's going on without listening to the dialogue. I imagine it's along the lines of "The Jew is terrible, the Jew is vile, hate the Jew."

No, it's a little (though in some parts only a very little) more subtle than that.

[Wu.Qinghua]

I've seen Jud Suess decades ago ... Denti Alligator isn't wrong though I am not sure if "subtle" really is the right concept. JS is not as propagandistic and offensive (hope this word fits) as other NS-films, i.e. "Der ewige Jude" or lots of those anti-bolshevist movies like "Friesennot" etc., but a rather, well, drab and 'boring' historical movie.
I guess watching JS can be rewarding for social historians, but it is, as far as I remember, not a movie, which will appeal to people that much who are interested in aesthetics and emplotment. And if you are interested in German fascist propaganda flicks you may also want to watch other movies ... like "Carl Peters", for example.

[matrixschmatrix]

I would only be able to watch this with a full commentary. I could probably figure out what's going on without listening to the dialogue. I imagine it's along the lines of "The Jew is terrible, the Jew is vile, hate the Jew."

No, it's a little (though in some parts only a very little) more subtle than that.

It's an actual adaptation of a book, albeit one that took a totally non-propagandistic plot and distorted it horribly. It has a plot, and the actors rarely address the audience directly- which, as I understand it, is one of the reasons it was so effective. Stuff like The Eternal Jew weren't anything people were excited to pay money to go see.

[denti alligator]

I think it's an adaptation of an 19th century novella. The novel from the 20s (Feuchtwanger's) has nothing to do with it.

[Tommaso]

I've seen Jud Suess decades ago ... Denti Alligator isn't wrong though I am not sure if "subtle" really is the right concept. JS is not as propagandistic and offensive (hope this word fits) as other NS-films, i.e. "Der ewige Jude" or lots of those anti-bolshevist movies like "Friesennot" etc., but a rather, well, drab and 'boring' historical movie.

Well, up to a point the propaganda tries to be not too much 'in the face' here, indeed quite unlike the truly repulsive "Der ewige Jude". The strategy is to let the audience slowly 'discover' the 'hidden evil' behind the attractive appearance of Suess. I said elsewhere on this forum that this might be the reason why it is possible for a modern viewer to actually sympathize with Suess, because he is shown as intelligent and as a charmer, whereas the good Germans invariably appear as dull and narrow-minded today. So apart from being anti-jewish, the film also has an anti-capitalist and, what's more, an anti-intellectual stance. If we can believe Harlan (and we do that at our own risk, of course): he said that the ending as it is now is due to a change imposed by Goebbels in order to hammer in the message. We now see a whining Suess begging for his life whereas the intended ending was to show a proud Suess making a last inflammatory speech against his enemies. If the film had the intended ending, I suppose the possibility to sympathize with Suess would be even greater.

It's indeed interesting to hear Rentschler's points on the film: he argues - not always totally convincingly - that a lot of what is ascribed to Suess in the film reflects the actual coming to power of the nazis, and that perhaps unwittingly the film is a sort of 'dark mirror image' of the deeds of the nazis and their infiltration of the Weimar republic.

Whether the film is interesting as a film depends on how far you can adapt to the specific style of German filmmaking at the time, which might be seen as far more 'static' in terms of visuals than comparable history films from Hollywood of the same era. But it is certainly not lacking in visual splendour or in quality of acting, and for good reason Harlan has always been considered as one of the best directors of the Third Reich. While it is unavoidable perhaps that his name will always conjure up "Jud Suess" immediately, I would still say that he made better and more important films than this, though sadly they are all not commercially available. But if you manage to track down "Die Reise nach Tilsit" (his version of the same story as Murnau's "Sunrise") and especially the sinister "Opfergang" (which shows the desintegration of a bourgeois family with images only rivalled by Visconti some twenty years later), better watch them, if only to get a more comprehensive idea of the director's work.

[billy98]

It is a normal DVD , Disk type 9, NTSC, region 0.

[Kauno]

I stumbled across a thick stack of black and white pictures of educational posters and exhibitions from Nazi Germany. Some of them were movie related.