The Good German
Directed By: Stephen Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges
| Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Year: 2007 Rated: R Film Length: 105 minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Subtitles: English, Spanish, French Release Date: May 22, 2007 |
The Film
"The Good German" adapted by screenwriter Paul Attanasio from the novel by Joseph Kanon, is a neo-noir set in postwar Berlin. George Clooney plays Jake Geismar, an American war correspondent arriving in Berlin in the summer of 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference. Through his driver, an enlisted man named Patrick Tully (Maguire), he learns of the presence of his former lover, Lena Brandt (Blanchett), in Berlin. His curiosity is further piqued when he discovers the corpse of someone he knows with a wad of reichmarks in his pocket on a riverbank outside of the conference site. Geismar seeks out Lena, and despite warnings from nearly everyone with whom he comes into contact, finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue involving the competing interests of the ocuppying powers, rocket scientists, war criminals, and Lena's presumed dead husband. Being a classic noir protaganist, he takes more than his share of beatings on his way to learning the awful truth.
Director Stephen Soderbergh made the interesting stylistic choice of applying many of the technical restrictions of 1940s filmmaking to this modern production. As such, the film was shot without the use of modern zoom lenses, was lit with incandescent lights, and was recorded with overhead boom microphones requiring actors to project their voices clearly. In addition, the film was shot entirely around Los Angeles, with stock footage used to establish the Berlin location and rear projection process shots used when necessary to simulate car trips and location exteriors.
The film is presented in black and white, although my understanding is that color film stock was used during principle photography due to limited availability of black and white film with the desired speed properties. The film is also presented on this DVD at the classic approximately 4:3 academy ratio, although it was reportedly shown in theaters at something more like 1.66:1 (windowboxed on 1.85:1 prints). I did not see it in theaters and do not know whether this was done to allow for variations in theatrical projection or some other reason. For what it is worth, the 4:3 version released on DVD looks well-framed with strong compositions, and the aspect ratio seems in keeping with the film's desired 1940s aesthetic.
A lot of the film really does look as wonderfully evocative of classic cinema as was intended, but Soderbergh (who worked under a pseudonym as his own cinematographer) does tend to go a bit overboard on the high contrast lighting -- sometimes shrouding one character in darkness while another one appears to be on the verge of going supernova in the same shot. Fans of classic cinema will have no trouble finding homages to "Casblanca", "The Third Man", and even Roman Polanski's king of the neo-noirs, "Chinatown" (It's no coincidence that the protaganist is named "Jake", he wears a conspicuous bandage sticking out of his head for much of the movie, and he is constantly being given advice that amounts to 'forget it, Jake, it's Berlin). Despite the period limitations that were intentionally imposed by Soderbergh, no restrictions were applied to the film's narrative content in terms of profanity or frankness about sexuality.
As technically interesting as the film is in its execution, it falls a bit short in some fundamental areas. First and foremost, the story, whether due to deficiencies in the screenplay or in editing, is not as tightly constructed as it needs to be to make the film work. While basic character motivations that lead to the various crosses and double crosses are established soundly enough, details that would make sense of things like how Jake knows exactly where to find Lena versus everyone else looking for her or how he manages to easily stumble onto a critical "MacGuffin" in a ransacked apartment are left sketchy or unexplained. The film also suffers from the noir-narrative "kiss of death": excessive voiceovers from not one, but three characters. The dialog frequently sounds like imitation noir, and rarely has the clever snap and bite of the best films in the genre, even though the characters deliver it like it does.
While Clooney and Blanchett both seem comfortable with the technical challenges of the production and are as evocative of old Hollywood as any film actors working today, Maguire, cast against type as a duplicitous foul-mouthed black marketeer, comes off very unconvincingly. His dialog sounds like it is being read by an actor rather than spoken by his character, and his somewhat squeaky voice is better suited to more intimate modern film acting styles. His ineffectiveness in "hard-boiled" mode undermines the intended contrast with the all-American apple-pie loving gee whiz front he puts up for his superiors.
The Video
The 4:3 black and white transfer, while quite striking in appearance, is not without its share of problems. Because of how the exposure is pushed, there is a lot of grain in some shots that occasionally gives the compression some difficulty, resulting in a noticeable digital haze when viewed closely or on a very large screen. There is also a noticeable shimmering artifact along vertical edges in some shots. Due to how it was photographed, the film is inherently softer in appearance than most modern productions, but the DVD producers wisely avoided adding any significant artificial edge enhancement. The inherently high contrast also results in less shadow detail and frequent blooming of bright white areas of the screen.
The Audio
Consistent with the film's retro aesthetic, the English 5.1 track uses the surrounds and LFE very sparingly, but the soundtrack offers excellent fidelity and balance between dialog, effects, and the Oscar-nominated score of Thomas Newman. Keeping with the film's vintage intent, Newman's music manages to be gently evocative of classic scores from the likes of his legendary father, Alfred, Max Steiner, and, especially, Bernard Herrmann. An alternate English track encoded as Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo is also included along with French and Spanish 5.1 dubs.
The Extras
Despite the interesting nature of the film's production, the DVD has no extras whatsover, not even its own theatrical trailer. When the disc is first spun up, viewers are greeted with skippable promotional trailers for "Infamous", "Letters from Iwo Jima", "Ocean's 13", "The Painted Veil", and "American Pastime".
Packaging
The film is presented on an RSDL DVD-9 in a standard Amaray-style keepcase with no insert.
Summary
"The Good German" is an interesting exercise in retro style, amounting to a homage to several much better movies from 30-60+ years ago. Unfortunately, its screenplay prevents it from being much more. The DVD is presented with a striking high contrast black and white transfer that renders the occasionally overcooked noir cinematography with infrequent but conspicuous shimmering along vertical edges and some grain smearing. The soundtrack is appropriately restrained given the films retro aesthetic, but offers excellent fidelity. There are no extras.
Regards,
