April 1, 2015, - 5:32 pm
“Woman In Gold”: Charming, Funny, Touching Movie About Nazi-Looted Art & Getting It Back
Helen Mirren should win the Oscar for her portrayal of Maria Altmann in “Woman In Gold,” which debuts in movie theaters today.
Whether or not you are into art or history, you will likely enjoy the charming, witty, funny, and touching movie about the real-life Altmann’s fight to get back her family’s beloved painting, stolen by the Nazis during the Holocaust. And, as a practicing attorney, I don’t usually say that movies get it regarding the ups and downs and legal niceties of the courts. This movie does that and more. It’s a thriller, a slice of history, and a study in a nerd–lawyer Randol Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), who courageously steps up to the plate–risking everything to do what’s right.
Altmann came from a prominent, wealthy Austrian Jewish family during the Holocaust. She and her opera singer husband escaped and ultimately settled in Los Angeles, but her parents and all of their belongings were taken from them. Among those was a famous painting by renowned artist Gustav Klimt, entitled “Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” The painting, featuring gold paint, is also known as “Lady in Gold.” Adele, the woman in the painting, was Mrs. Altmann’s aunt, and Mrs. Altmann wants the looted painting (and four other looted Klimt paintings owned by her family) back. But Austria and the Austrian gallery that possesses the painting want to keep it. Lawyer Schoenberg is a struggling young lawyer with a new family. He is the grandson of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, and his grandmother and Mrs. Altmann were best friends. At first, he is resistant to taking the daunting case–fighting a foreign government and its army of lawyers, potentially all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (which is where it ends up). But he takes the case and risks and nearly loses everything to pursue it.
Mirren and Reynolds are great in this movie and they have terrific chemistry in this platonic love story. Her portrayal of a feisty European Jewish woman displaced by the Nazis reminds me of many such women who were friends with my Holocaust survivor grandparents and went to our synagogue. A de-glammed, nerded-up Reynolds is almost unrecognizable and he definitely does well in capturing the nerdy, studious, hungry, underdog lawyer in his portrayal.
The movie flashes back and forth between the past–at the beginning of the Holocaust–and the present, during Altmann’s and Schoenberg’s legal fight, which takes them back and forth to Austria, where they are helped by a young Austrian journalist. The movie makes much of Mrs. Altmann’s old age and that she may not live to see the outcome of her legal fight. And that is clearer in real life. Helen Mirren is 69 years old, but Altmann was nearly 90 when her litigation was resolved.
The flashbacks in the movie accurately capture the attitude of Jews like the Bloch-Bauers. They were JINOs–Jews In Name Only. As wealthy, secular Jews, they mistakenly thought they were part of Austrian high society. They really had little to do with the Jewish religion and were in denial that the Nazis would target them like the other Jews. In fact, as they watch their Jewish friends and neighbors being beaten, humiliated, and otherwise brutalized by the Nazis on a Saturday afternoon (which is the Jewish Sabbath), Maria’s father insists on playing his treasured cello, as he does every Saturday afternoon. As Maria’s uncle–the husband of the woman in the Klimt portrait–warns, they must all leave. When Maria’s father finally faces the music, it is too late for him.
This movie is entertaining, educational, and well done. I wasn’t bored for a second.
Nazis are the betes noires of Hollywood liberal elites, as they should be. I doubt, though, that in 40 years Hollywood will have the courage to show others fighting for the property that the modern-day Nazis–Muslims–looted from them all over the Middle East. I also doubt the courts will find in their favor.
FOUR REAGANS
Watch the trailer . . .
Tags: Adele Bloch-Bauer, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Arnold Schoenberg, Austria, E. Randol Schoenberg, Gustav Klimt, Holocaust, looted art, Maria Altmann, movie, movie review, Movie Reviews, Nazi looting, Nazi-looted art, Randol Schoenberg, Woman in Gold, Woman in Gold movie, Woman in Gold movie review, Woman in Gold review
I recall seeing this case in the news. The Government of Austria and the gallery acted horribly. Maria Altmann was a remarkable woman in that she would not let people off of the hook.
Worry on April 1, 2015 at 8:43 pm