According to Art Info, there’s more true crime film on the way. (We’ve mentioned before that true crime is really hitting its stride in film these days, and this is just more confirmation.) This time, the project comes from George Clooney and is based on 2009’s Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter.
The Art Info article is worth reading in detail, and not only because it describes in detail which of the more than 300 men and women who risked their lives to rescue and restore the art stolen by the Nazis the movie is apt to focus on. And which of the thieves.
The most outrageous of the Nazi art thieves was Reichsmarschall Göring, whose 1,800 paintings and sculptures — including fifty works by Lucas Granach the Elder, thirty by Peter Paul Rubens, and many of nude women — amounted to the largest private collection on the continent and is the subject of Nancy Yeide’s book “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice.” Clooney said that Hitler won’t be appearing in the film. “Who wants to see Hitler? And who really wants to play Hitler?” he said. Maybe, though, a symbolic part can be found for Göring, who, as quoted at the beginning of Edsel’s book, said in 1942: “It used to be called plunder. But today things have become more humane. In spite of that, I intend to plunder, and to do it thoroughly.”
This looks fascinating to me, but it’s only just being written now, so it will be a while before I get to see whether it lives up to my imagination.
This sounds really interesting. We’ll have to see how they do on the implementation…