Cassimere Good

The film was entitled Good because the protagonist of the movie has the idea that he is a good man throughout the movie. In the beginning of the film, he prides himself on his moral values. As the movie progresses, he does not seem to realize that his morals have become skewed since he began working for the S.S. He continues to think that he is not one of the Nazis despite the fact that he has joined the party. He does not fully associate himself with the Nazi Party so he thinks that he still is the same man he was before he joined the party.

The film’s title may also be attributed to the way the meaning of the word “good” is manipulated and changed by the propaganda and ideals put out by the members of the Nazi party. They believe that they are doing the right thing and are contributing to humanity and to Germany. The Nazis also believe that they are above everyone else because of their elite moral and ethical standards; they even go as far as to say that the rules do not apply to them. They continue to push their nationalist, socialist, and anti-Semitic views onto John and he hesitantly buys into it. The more John is around them, the more he becomes like them, and his idea of what is “good” becomes more skewed.

The picture represents a point in the movie where it is apparent that John’s morals have become something other than what they used to be. In the beginning of the movie, he was a loyal and dedicated husband and father who refused to join the Nazi party because of his beliefs and because of his Jewish friend. At this point in the movie he is a high-ranking member of the Party and is married to the woman he had an affair with. He believes that he is still a good man because he did the right thing by his wife and divorced her and made an honest woman out of this lady on the side. In this scene, John is approached by his ex-father-in-law who announces that he fears for the party because of its acceptance of a man with “such moral weakness,” an ironic statement considering the actions of the party. It is shortly after this scene when John is informed that the rules do not apply to him.

The film was most likely not distributed in the United States because it depicts a government that controls the information that reaches its agents and the media, hiding the truth form the majority. The United States government has done this on a few occasions, including the containment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the firebombing of Dresden. The United States probably doesn’t want its people to think that their government can easily manipulate them like the Nazi party did to the majority of the German citizens.

Rivera Good is in the Eye of the Beholder

First off, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought Mortensen did a brilliant job of portraying Halden's transition from a timid German father to just another gestapo following orders. I think the word "transition" is really important. In reading the articles posted on Blackboard, I feel as though Mortensen made a really great point. This movie talks place in Germany in a time where the National Socialists were just seen as the new government. Mortensen notes that while filming, there was a young boy playing in the sand with a nazi flag. The boy was having fun, to him, the flag meant nothing. Today, the nazi flag is viewed as a symbol of a horrible time, it's unlikely you'll see anyone playing in the sand with a nazi flag today.

I think there can be a great many interpretations for why the film is titled "Good". From what I gather, however, good is simply a title on Halden's mindset. This film is all about good; a good German, a good new life, good opportunities, living life in a good Germany. The events occuring around Halden cause a slow transition in his life. Initially, Halden is confused, these events seem unimportant to him, it is when he is pulled into the outside life that things, at least to Halden, begin to make sense. Rather, Halden makes them make sense in his mind, he becomes lost in an elaborate illusion that he sets up for himself driven by the want for a feeling of greater importance. The way this film is written, it is hard to shrug off Halden's character as a villian. Even Ann, as evil as her character comes to seem, one cannot say that she is only a young, naive girl following the norm she is exposed to. After all, "if something makes so many people happy, it can't be bad" right? I do think that it's fair to say that Halden's first family in the film are victims. However, they are not victimized by Halden, but by the influence of the German government, just as is Halden. In short, this film is titled "Good" to show how things were back then, that a lot of the people who were involved were confused, maybe even originally had good intentions for their country.

As far as the picture goes, I think this is a perfect frame to show the state Halden has come to. For me, Ann represents the pull of the Nazi party, she mirrors how easily a good person could be pulled into going against their beliefs. Throughout the movie, against many drab colored outfits, Ann can often be seen wearing red, the color of the nazis. The frame symbolizes the connection between Halden, an apparently good man, and his new voluntary connection to bad influences in his life.

I don't have a definite answer as to why the film was not released in the US initially. I would say it has something to do with Americans not wanting to accept that, yes this happened in Germany but, this could happen to anybody, anywhere. Ron James, a former high school teacher attempted to prove this to a group of his students one year. James created a group called the "Third Wave" and only allowed certain students in. James told the students that they were superior to other students and told them their primary goal was to recruit new members that they saw fit. In the end, James lost his job for the events that took place, however, he later wrote a book and it was even turned into a movie in the US and a German version was also released in Germany in 2008. I highly recommend that you try and see "The wave", or read the book. The film itself isn't super amazing, but knowing that these events really took place make it a definite must see. I posted the end of the film below, I think it has importance in this post. I do apologize for the poor video and audio quality.

*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*

The video below contains the end of the US film, "The Wave".

Curtis: Good Germans Go Bad

In the 1930s through the early 1940s most Germans were bad. In the world of academia most college professors who have affairs with their students are bad. In a film dealing with the emerging Nazi party, and on a smaller scale student-professor relationships, Viggo Mortensen, the star of the film who partakes in both situations, is portrayed as Good.

The writers of the film, C.P. Taylor and John Wrathall, must have had some idea of what they were doing when they chose to title their screenplay Good. The films protagonist seems to have lost his moral compass in the labyrinth that is his mind. Good is an analysis of one’s personal principles juxtaposed with those of societies. Viggo Mortensen’s character, John Halder, begins the film as an ethical, well read professor of literature. We watch him admirably cook dinner for his family as his beloved wife plays around with the piano, we watch him respectably disregard his father-in-law’s attempt to persuade him to join the Nazi party, and we watch him honorably care for his ill mother. The audience is witness to all the righteous good Halder exemplifies and we are shown that his good extends into his career as he allows a lost student into his home as a heavy rain occurs outside. However, this good is not so pure, this good is laced with faint nefarious deeds. This “good” is the point in which Halder takes the plunge into a world of shameless wickedness. In the photograph of Halder with his new wife, his former student, we are shown a tight and shadowed view of the couple. The framing and composition of the shot makes it appear as if the characters are trapped or, more specifically Halder is trapped. He is trapped in his downward spiral of rottenness and there is no way of him escaping. 

I believe the film was titled Good for this very reason; so the audience is forced to examine the characteristics of the John Halder and compare him to what is unadulterated good. I believe the film was not distributed in the United States for the sole reason that Americans take every little detail of films far too literally; we are constantly looking for some type of meaning (ie. dog is God spelled backwards). This is a simple enough reason for the distribution of Good in America to have been limited. The president wouldn’t want his public to question his ethicality, would he? The United States has a reason for banning everything.