Parsons: "Anything that makes people happy can't be bad, can it?

In the film Good a female character states “anything that makes people happy can’t be bad, can it?” This single line seems to sum up the moral internal struggle of the character John Halder. In this film he fights with his innate belief, the Socialist Party of 1930’s Germany is wrong, and the social and career pressures that are put on him. In this tough situation Halder chooses the easy, self-helping, safe road of joining the party and becoming an honorary Nazi. I think this is the reason the film is entitled Good. Though Halder is not a bad man, by the end of the film his choices have classified him as a morally incorrect man, and the title of the film goes for a type of irony. By using the title Good the writers were able to make the audience go in to the film with the idea of good vs. evil in their minds, and they were ultimately able to see the ironic nature of the title because Halder is not a good man. He chose the easy path for himself, one with promotion, approval and power, over what he truly believed to be right, and this makes him not a “good” man.

I think the film was not distributed in the United States because the film would have made Americans look to hard at what the word “good” truly means, and it would have had us second guessing who was responsible for the Holocaust. Americans would be put in the position of deciding whose fault the death of thousands of people was, and that is not a position we want to be put in. This movie would not have done well in the United States for this reason, so it was not released here.

The picture is of John Halder and his mistress Anne. The picture is telling of the film in an odd way. Halder is dressed very darkly, looking serious and imposing, and this makes him the dominant in the frame. From here out eyes turn to Anne who is dressed all in white yet the side of her face closest to Halder is covered in shadow. This shows the odd contrast in her character, she is young and beautiful and brings life to Halder yet she is dark and loves the power that he comes to possess. The rest of the frame is all blurred and all we can see is there are people. This makes a lot of sense because they are at a Nazi Party gathering and the people around them are all secretive and shadowed. Their morals and ideas are as blurred as Halder feels about his life.