Review of “The Good German”
Opening like The Third Man and paying clear tribute to Casablanca with its ending, The Good German works more as a celebration of classic 1940’s filmmaking style than it does as a great story in its own right. This is director Steven Soderbergh (who also made Solaris with George Clooney) paying homage to a bygone era with extreme attention to detail both in front of and behind the camera (he used old style lenses, rear projection, and shot the film on Warners’ back-lot in black & white). The result in some extraordinarily beautiful film noir shots, but also rather stilted performances from a patchy screenplay.
Set in a Berlin divided by the Allies at the end of the war, Jake Geismar (George Clooney) is an American journalist sent to cover the meeting of Allied leaders at the Potsdam Peace Conference. Through his black-market racketeer driver (Toby Maguire), Jake comes across Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), femme fatale and wife of a Nazi scientist who both Russians and Americans seem desperate to find. As Jake digs deeper into Lena’s shady past, he is forced to run a delicate and dangerous line between the American’s who are looking to prosecute anyone connected to the Nazis, and the Russians who just want revenge.
Soderbergh filmed this himself, and demonstrates great skill as a classic cinematographer. He also asked the actors to work in the more theatrical style of the 1940s, and Clooney and Blanchett very much look and sound the part, lurking in shadows and climbing bombed out staircases. Sadly though, the screenplay doesn’t give them anywhere to take their characters - they enter and exit the beautifully lit, smoke filled scenes, but have nowhere to go. And with the self-conscious style of the film foregrounded, they also seem unable to show us any of the frailty and longing of the two key characters in the story. These should be desperate people in desperate times, but the emotional intensity is buried by the style. Soderbergh and writer Paul Attanasio also resort to switching the narrative voice over between characters, a device they use poorly to explain - with a throw-away line - some critically important information that could have been the basis for some highly dramatic scenes.
By the end of the film, you can only be in awe at Soderburgh’s technical ability (he also edited the film), but wish that he’d captured some of the charm and warmth of the great films he is honouring.
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