Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German (2006) is a film noir set in Berlin during the months immediately following the surrender in 1945. The film mainly occurs in July and August. Soderbergh makes excellent use of documentary footage from Berlin in those months. The setting is one of complete devastation, of chaos and disorder. The Potsdam Conference is about to occur, and uncertainty about how Germany will be reorganized, and about how many Germans will be indicted for war crimes, is a constant subtext.
Other themes in the film have to do with the tensions that characterized international relations for the latter half of the twentieth century, especially the impending cold war and nuclear competition between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. A basic question, investigated from numerous vantage points, is one of responsibility: who is responsible, who must bear blame? — for the War, for the atrocities against the Jews and other groups, for the nuclear threat, for a developing schism between East and West, for a general breakdown in fundamental human decency. The film’s black and white cinematography creates continuity between the documentary footage and the fictional portions of the film — it’s difficult to distinguish them.
The Good German is about the efforts of American and Soviet officials to locate a missing man named Emil Brandt. He was supposedly the secretary of a German rocket scientist whom both the Americans and Soviets want to enlist to build weapons for them. In fact, the Americans already have him in secret custody. We are told that he wants his secretary to accompany him to America, and that for this reasons the Americans want to find him. Although Brandt was reported to have died in the war, he may still be alive. And there may be other reasons why the Americans want him. The film centers on efforts to locate Brandt, and on the characters involved in the search. Like many films in this genre, the motivations and the credibility of characters constantly shift throughout the film.
With Tobey Maguire, George Clooney, Beau Bridges, and Cate Blanchett among the leading cast members, The Good German offers good acting. Maguire does present difficulties. Sincerity and good old American boyishness are basic traits of the Maguire persona. In this film he plays a driver, Patrick Tully, who is exploiting the chaotic post-war situation to his own benefit. He makes clear that money is all that matters to him — the measure of all things. He sells counterfeit goods to the highest bidder and attempts to sell to the Russians the husband of the woman who is his mistress. She is Lena (Blanchett), the wife of Emil Brandt. Tully is nothing more than a gangster who abuses Lena and viciously beats up Clooney, whom he serves as a driver. Yet at a moment’s notice he can transform into the midwestern American boy-soldier, innocent, wide-eyed, and eager to get back to his family and his girl. The fact that he doesn’t know where Brandt is doesn’t matter to Tully. It’s difficult to divorce the characters Maguire usually plays from this one. With his boyish high-pitched voice, sometimes his character doesn’t seem real; at other times he seems all the more sordid and evil.
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Article comments
1 - Black Hole
It seems to me that you have deliberately refrained from commenting on Blanchett's portrayal of Lena.
2 - H. Ruppersburg
In response to the previous comment, I did not deliberately leave Cate Blanchett's portrayal out, though clearly I overlooked her. I commented on the elements in the film that struck me as interesting. Although I admire Blanchett's acting, especially in such a film as Notes on A Scandal, I don't find her performance as Lena to be a strong point in The Good German. I felt the character was flat, without much affect, though one could argue that flatness was a result of what she had gone through during the war.