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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Be careful what you pretend to be, June 21, 2002
Throughout his acting career, Nick Nolte has never particularly inspired my admiration. Until MOTHER NIGHT, that is. In a film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same title, Howard Campbell is an American playwright who grows to manhood in Germany before World War II. He marries Helga, a German actress. During the war, he elects to broadcast anti-Semitic speeches for the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Unknown to his Nazi bosses, he was recruited as an agent by the U.S. Defense Department shortly before the outbreak of the conflict, and Howard's radio sermons pass along coded messages to the Allies. Only three other Americans know of his role: his mysterious recruiter Frank (John Goodman), FDR, and the head of the OSS. Frank tells Campbell that the American government will eternally disavow his heroic actions as the Soviets would twist the story into some sort of anticommunist German-American plot. By the war's end, Helga is dead. (Or is she?) Campbell is captured by the U.S. Third Army, but then released, apparently on the intercession of Frank, who also manages to spirit him to New York to restart his life. After 15 years living there unnoticed, Howard's role as Hitler's tame American is revealed to the public by an admiring neo-Nazi organization. Both the Israelis and Soviets clamor for his repatriation to stand trial. MOTHER NIGHT plays more like a live stage production. It begins with Campbell being escorted to an Israeli prison to the song of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas". The film is a series of long flashbacks. At one point, Howard observes in a voice-over to the viewer that one must be careful what one pretends to be for that is what one truly becomes. Although MOTHER NIGHT has been criticized for its lack of a message, I rather believe that it's that an individual must in the end take responsibility for his/her actions in life regardless of the role, real or pretend, that's been played. For Campbell, realization of the consequences to humanity of his wartime persona comes at three widely separated points. The first, as the Red Army drives on Berlin's outskirts, Howard's father-in-law, the Chief of Police, tells Campbell that even though he (the Chief) suspected his son-in-law of being a spy, he now realizes that Howard served the Reich more than he might have ever served the enemy. Why? Because Campbell, with his broadcasts, made the Chief (and presumably other Germans) better Nazis. The second point comes in New York as Campbell views archival footage of one of his more rabid diatribes. And the last, in the Israeli prison, when Howard has a stunning insight during a conversation with Adolf Eichmann regarding the amount of self-credit the latter takes (or not) for the annihilation of 6 million Jews. I can't give MOTHER NIGHT five stars for the simple reason that the neo-Nazis that Campbell eventually meets in New York are rendered as almost comic characters whose racist views don't come across as menacing as they truly are. Had they been portrayed with more seriousness, the overall impact of the film would have been, I think, greatly enhanced. Nevertheless, MOTHER NIGHT is well worth viewing.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book adaptation., July 30, 1999
By A Customer
So far there have been three movies made from Kurt Vonnegut works. "Slaughtehouse Five", "Mother Night", and "Harrison Burgeron." "Harrison Burgeron" was really an amalgam of numerous Vonnegut themes and ideas, but based on the very short story of the same name. "Slaughterhouse Five" required that you read the book to get a full appreciation of the story in the film. "Mother Night" followed the book by the same title with precision, clarity and intensity. Wonderfully cast and acted, this is a dark tale of cause and effect on people's lives. To paraphrase the moral of the book "be careful what you pretend to be." Nolte is perfect as the lead with surprising and excellent roles by Arkin, Sheryl Lee, and John Goodman. If you are a Vonnegut fan you will not be disappointed with this interpretation of his book.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Vonnegut on Film Yet, August 12, 2001
This is the best adaptation of a Vonnegut novel to film yet. I would even say that the movie had more of an impact on me than the book. Howard Campbell, Jr., "The Last Free American," is an allied spy who broadcasts Nazi propaganda from Berlin during WWII, but his copy has been marked up by Allied intelligence in such a way that coughs, pauses, emphasis in his delivery are sending out intelligence to the west. The question is should he be condemned for who he is pretending to be and for the overt message of hate that he sends out on the airwave; or should he be absolved because his covert (unconscious) communication is providing vital information to the Allies and thereby freeing concentration camp prisoners and defeating the Nazis? Campbell is a character who really doesn't know what he's saying. He spews hate and believes he is sending out useful hidden information, but he can't be sure. He doesn't believe in the propaganda -- it's a useful cover for speaking the deeper truths in a society that will only hear what it can hear. Ironies and ambiguities compound on one another until Campbell loses sight of who he is or where he belongs or where he can go. He comes to a dead stop. He has no reason to move in any direction. Vonnegut is a moral writer -- funny, but moral. There is a small bit of humor here, e.g. an African-American Nazi! Irony taken to absurdity. And as a GE-brat myself, I can always count on Vonnegut to work GE (Schenectady in particular -- his old employer)into the storyline somewhere. The moral of this story seems to be two: "You must be careful what you pretend to be, because in the end, you are who you pretend to be." On this basis, Campbell would be condemned. And so he is. The other bon mot of note is from Alan Arkin's character -- a painter friend of Campbell's who turns out to be a Russian spy -- who says, "Maybe art is the one thing you can't fake." But of course art is faking it -- art is making it up, telling the lie that reveals the deeper truth (Picasso). In the end Howard Campbell because the charcter of his fiction and as the creator and writer of that man's tale, is able to pass judgement on his character. The end of Campbell is of a piece with his life. Nick Nolte, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Sheryl Lee all turn in great performances. Its a terrific literary film. Highly recommended.
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