Max (2002)

A film studying the depiction of a friendship between an art dealer named Rothman and his student, Adolf Hitler.

Director:

Menno Meyjes

Writer:

Menno Meyjes

Stars:

John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Leelee Sobieski

3 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Cusack	...	Max Rothman
Noah Taylor	...	Adolf Hitler
Leelee Sobieski	...	Liselore von Peltz
Molly Parker	...	Nina Rothman
Ulrich Thomsen	...	Captain Mayr
David Horovitch	...	Max's Father
Janet Suzman	...	Max's Mother
András Stohl	...	NCO
John Grillo	...	Nina's Father
Anna Nygh	...	Nina's Mother
Krisztián Kolovratnik	...	Nina's Brother
Peter Capaldi	...	David Cohn
Yuliya Vysotskaya	...	Hildegard
János Kulka	...	Mr. Epp
Kata Pálfi	...	Mrs. Epp (as Katalin Pálfy)

Storyline

Munich, 1918. German-Jew Max Rothman has returned to much of his pre-war life which includes to his wife Nina and their two children, to his mistress Liselore von Peltz, and to his work as an art dealer. He has however not returned to being an aspiring painter as he lost his dominant right arm during the war. He is approached by an aspiring painter, a thirty-year old Austrian war veteran named Adolf Hitler, who wants him to show his works. Although he doesn't think the paintings are all that original and he doesn't really like Hitler as a person, Rothman takes Hitler under his wings if only because of their camaraderie of being war veterans, and knowing that Hitler had nothing and no one to come back to after the war unlike himself. Rothman believes that Hitler has promise if only he can find his original artistic point of view. In part out of need for money, Hitler, on the urging of Captain Karl Mayr, agrees to work for the army as a political spokesman in anti-Semitic propaganda. ...

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Plot Keywords:

art dealer | painter | mistress | jewish | scantily clad female | 

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Taglines:

Art + Politics = Power

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Noah Taylor would later play Adolf Hitler again on the TV series "Preacher" (2016).

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Goofs

The family gathers to listen to the reports of the Armistice Agreement Terms (November 1918) on a radio. However, broadcasting in Germany didn't start until 1923 and was strictly experimental and limited before that.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[George Grosz crashes and drunkenly runs stumbling in, looks around at the paintings on display, and begins to vomit]
Max Rothman: George, so glad you like it.

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Connections

Referenced in Children of the Setting Suns (2006)

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Soundtracks

Happy Birthday
(uncredited)
Written by Mildred J. Hill and Patty S. Hill

User Reviews

not bad, but misunderstood

Overall, I would say the film wasn't bad. Full marks for embracing the radical concept that Hitler was a human being.

Reading many of the comments posted here, I would say that the film has been somewhat misunderstood. Understandably, the viewers focus on the portrayal of Hitler. But the film is titled "Max", not "Adolf." Max, the art dealer, is the focal character of the story, not Hitler. I think that the film shows the blindness of so many Germans in the interwar years, people who saw what they wanted to see in Hitler and ignored the rest. Max saw Hitler as an amusing ex-soldier artist and futurist, and brushed off the ideology underlying his futurist visions. Max is emblematic of an army that saw his desire to rearm and ignored the ideology that would strip the army of its historic identity, of business owners who saw his committment to controling labor but ignored the ideology which would also put a stranglehold on business, of ordinary Germans who saw a strong leader to deal with their country's problems but ignored his desire for war and conquest. As recently pointed out in Woody Allen's "Anything Else", there were German Jews who supported Hitler, because they saw a strong leader. To me, "Max" is the story of the blindness that overcame so many Germans, blindness that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power.

I've read in a few comments that Hitler claims, in the film, to have not been anti-Semitic. That is not correct. Rather, as he says in the barracks, he opposes "emotional" anti-Semitism. In his mind, anti-Semitism should be based on "scientific" fact rather than raw emotions. To him, it is a self-evident truth arrived at logically by observing the Jews and their ways. This is historically correct. His big anti-Semitic speech at the end of the film is taken straight out of Mein Kampf, and shows this approach.

Details

Country:

Hungary Canada UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 June 2003 (UK)

Also Known As:

Hoffman

Filming Locations:

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Box Office

Budget:

$11,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$30,157, 29 December 2002

Gross USA:

$539,879

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$660,763

Company Credits

Production Co:

AAMPI Inc., Aconit Pictures, Alliance Atlantis Communications

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1