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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Degenerating Righteousness
The most negative review of this film derides it as "revisionist" and appallingly anti-American. If you are, like that reviewer, more a patriot than an independent thinker, you'll surely hate this movie. The Americans in it are portrayed as cultural yahoos for the most part. The character played by Harvey Keitel is a country-music-only kind of guy who has only anger and insensitivity toward European civilization, represented by the music of Beethoven and the adulation expressed by "highbrows" for the conducting of Wilhelm Furtwangler. As Keitel's character, an American army officer, investigates the charges of collaboration with the Nazis against Furtwangler, his frustration with the mistique which he can't appreciate grows more and more ferocious, and he degenerates morally into a kind of intolerance not far removed from the mentality of Nazism itself. Make no mistake: this film is about Keitel's character, not about Furtwangler as portrayed with deliberate neutrality and ambiguity by Stellan Skarsgard.
This is easily the most interesting film about the occupation and aftermath of World War II that I've seen - far deeper and more psychologically penetrating than the recent "Lives of Others." It obviously didn't sit well with American audiences when it was released; it isn't simplistic enough for those of us raised on Cold War certainties.
Rating: -
Strange Role Reversals
A previous reviewer opined that if you're a conservative you'll find yourself sympathetic to Furtwangler's persecutor, Maj. Arnold (played brilliantly by Harvey Keitel); if you're a liberal you'll root for Furtwangler (played just a briliantly by Skarsgard). Huh? I'm to the right of Ghenghis Khah but even I saw in the Arnold character a reprisal of Roland Freisler's real-life prosecutorial style. Freisler from 1942 to his death in a bombing raid (saved him from hanging at Nurnberg I'm sure) was president of the infamous Volksgerichtshof (People's Court). He sentenced Sophie Scholl and the other White Rose conspirators to death, represented Nazi justice at the Wannsee Conference where the Holocaust was planned, and prosecuted the officers who tried to assassinate Hitler (the Twentieth of July 1944 Plot)(see how it is used in this movie). In fact Maj. Arnold's prosecutorial style reminded me vividly of Freisler's. To imply that conservative Americans would be attracted to the Arnold character, or that liberals wouldn't, is an insult to both camps. (See "Trial of Strength," by Fred Prieberg if you want to learn more about Wilhelm Furtwanger and the Third Reich.) Yes, Furtwangler furthered the Nazi cause with his art and he accepted vast rewards for his work on its behalf. Did he act from political convictions, professional hubris or was he just plain gullible? Well, watch the movie.
Rating: 
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Appalling Revisionism
Taking Sides is based on the story of the de-Nazification trial German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler.
For those who don't know, Furtwangler refused to leave Germany after the Nazi regime took power, turning down an offer to succeed Arturo Toscanini as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He also declined membership in the Nazi party. Walking a tightrope, he conducted for Adolf Hitler's 53rd birthday, while refusing to give the Nazi salute. Furtwangler's position was that politics and art must be kept separate. Beethoven would have disagreed and there are very few artists today, musical or otherwise, who would support Furtwangler's contention.
Stellan Skarsgard neither looks like Furtwangler, acts like Furtwangler, nor makes any attempt to replicate the conductor's idiosyncratic baton technique. Harvey Keitel gives a one-dimensional performance as Major Arnold, who was in charge of prosecuting, or in the filmmakers' view, persecuting the conductor.
From the start, the Americans, with the exception of a German born American, are portrayed as culturally retarded, tone deaf, and driven by vengeance. It is shameful that such a distinguished cast would consent to perform in such a ham handed display of anti-American fatuousness.
Furtwangler's role -- or lack thereof -- in Nazi Germany has been examined from many sides and merits serious discussion, not only for Furtwangler's culpability -- or lack thereof -- but as commentary of the role of the artist in society in general. This film, which provides neither balance nor depth, does not advance that discussion.
Rating: -
"Kulturreligion" vs Justice
With the decline of traditional moral and religious beliefs in Germany
and other parts of Europe in the 19th and early part of the 20th century, a new "worship" of the arts and culture came to take its place which was called "Kulturreligion"-the "religion" of culture. That is why in many European cities, the central hall for the performance of opera and classica music is called "the Palace of Culture" or some such name, whereas in America, where this "kulturreligion" never caught on to the degree it did in Europe, they simply have names like "Lincoln Center" or "Carnegie Hall".
Wilhelm Furtwangler, the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic during the period of "the Third Reich" of Nazi horror, was one of the "high priests" of this Kulturreligion. Thus, he, and the members of his orchestra are appalled when he finds himself forced to account for his collaboration with the Nazi regime. This outstanding film shows the confrontation between Maj. Steve Arnold (played brilliantly by Harvey Keitel), who views it has his job to bring the Nazis and their sympathizers to justice, and Furtwangler who keeps insisting that "Kultur and politics must be kept separate" which he believes exempts him from any responsibilty for his actions. We hear he and his musicians coming up with lame excuses why they performed at the Nuremberg Party Rallies and a birthday celebration for Hitler. They claim that really Furtwangler was a big hero because he managed to avoid giving the Nazi salute by walking on-stage holding his conductor's baton in his right hand. On the other hand, this "high priest" of Kultur was found to have used his position and close connections with the regime in order to have a hostile music critic sent to the Russian Front to perish at Stalingrad.
Much of this is predictable, but the real punch the film gives occurs when Maj. Arnold's assistant, Lt Wills, who is a Jewish refugee from Germany and whose family members were destroyed in the Holocaust, in addition to his secretary, whose father was executed as a result of his involvement in the unsuccessful 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot on Hitler's Life, end up DEFENDING Furtwangler, claiming that Maj. Arnold is too harsh on him.
This shows how insidious this "Kulturreligion" cult came to be.
Maj. Arnold confronts Lt. Wills and says "You are a Jew, how can you defend him?". The Jews fell into "Kulturreligion"'s web doubly, not only using it as a crutch to replace their traditional Jewish religious and moral code, (just as the German non-Jews with their traditional morality), but they thought it would be their "entry card" into "cultured" German society, from which they had been previously excluded. Even when "cultured" Germany turned into a monstrous, barbaric tyranny, Jews like Lt. Wills seem strangely attracted to it and Arnold's secretary admits that her father only turned against the regime when it was clear that Germany was going to lose the war.
The lesson of this film is that justice and morality can be too easily waved away by false deities and without a clear moral compass, even the most "civilized" people, AND EVEN their victims
can fall into the abyss. A warning for our time as well.
Rating: 
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Well done but underdone. A great underacheivement!
This movie went far, just not far enough. It brimmed with intriguing thought-provoking dialogue offered via reasonably consistent quality acting. Exploration of the few characters in cast was above stereotypical. As a thought-provoking medium on de-Nazification of post-war Germany it scores on several levels, however the tragedy is that this movie held within it's immediate grasp seeds of magnificient opportunity which might have bloomed with a bit more complex plotwork. As a result, it felt more like a 'piece of a movie', for just as another 'session' of the interrogating winds down and you expect a plot twist to flare, the end credits start rolling when you're halfway through your popcorn.
