posted 12-28-2006 11:47 PM               

According to various websites, The Good German opened in select theaters on December 8. The film's website is located at: http://thegoodgerman.warnerbros.com/

The story doesn't center on rocket pioneers; the short synopsis reads:

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US Army correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) is in Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference where the allies are determining Germany's future after its defeat. Chauffeured around by Corporal Tully (Tobey McGuire) he learns that Tully's an opportunist and actively participating in the thriving black market there. Not only that but Tully's girlfriend, Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), used to be his former love.

When Tully goes missing, Jake finds himself drawn further and further into a web of intrigue as both the American and Russian armies are searching for Tully. When Jake winds up with a bullet in his back all lines of investigation lead Jake back to Lena, but trying to establish the truth in this secretive city, just liberated from the horrors of war, is an almost impossible task...

Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon, The Good German is directed by Steven Soderbergh.

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Kanon offers a convincing portrayal of Berlin in the final days of the war, in terms of its ruined buildings, uneasy alliances, and almost-ruined lives. If the book has any central theme it is in that "almost" --- the challenge of determining what and more particularly who can be salvaged from that rubble, of distinguishing between reparations and repair. The "what" in this instance is the fate of the German rocket program; the "who" is the question of which scientists get to come with Wernher von Braun to America and which are left to the Russians.

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There are all sorts of characters, seen and unseen, from the U.S., Germany and Russia. One is a V-2 rocket maker (think Werner von Braun) heading for America to make bombs.

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"It's more a love story, murder-thriller like Chinatown, set inside a real world that we thought was sort of fascinating. I remember we watched this documentary where we saw all the German scientists basically trying to surrender to the Americans and not the Russians 'cause there was a much nicer two-car garage that you got at the end. It's really fascinating subject matter. And watching von Braun getting the Medal Of Honor is always sort of fascinating."

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posted 12-29-2006 02:30 PM               

"Finally, it's sad to report that the movie sees its issues with the utter moral clarity of half a century's hindsight, as it comes to condemn American moral relativists who took in Nazi war criminals who were actual rocket scientists. Unlike, say, "Saving Private Ryan" or "Flags of Our Fathers," which saw that generation as great, this one judges it harshly and cheaply without having risked a thing. James Agee talked derisively about the heroism of Hollywood pilots performing their derring-do "a yard above the ground." That's the altitude reading on "The Good German," too."

I think that's a point worth making--as World War II ended and the Cold War loomed on the horizon, the people in power had to make tough choices. It was hard to be morally pure.