Respond to these rapid questions in our Max quiz and we will tell you which Max character you are. Play it now.
And… Hitler was a much more talented artist than Churchill was! — A Play Called “The Producers”
In a recent article for the Times Literary Supplement, William Boyd posed the question, “How on earth could a dysfunctional, deranged, down-and-out homeless person in pre-First World War Vienna become, 20 years later, Chancellor of Germany?” This question gets to the heart of the mystery surrounding Adolf Hitler. A peculiar and intriguing movie called “Max” makes the case that he was successful not only because he had a strong desire to be acknowledged, but also, of course, because of luck, which was favorable for him but unfavorable for us. It’s possible that the history of this century would have been very different if Hitler had achieved fame as an artist. It’s a shame about his art.
The film “Max” imagines a fictional scenario in which a young Adolf Hitler (played by Noah Taylor) becomes friendly with a Jewish art dealer named Max Rothman (played by John Cusack) in Munich in the years immediately following World War I. Both served in the German army and participated in the same battle, which resulted in the amputation of Rothman’s arm. The art dealer opens an avant-garde art gallery in a vast abandoned factory, displaying the work of artists such as George Grosz, and attracting important collectors, as well as Hitler, who is clutching his portfolio of kitsch. Because Rothman is moved by the pathos that lies beneath this man’s bluster, he shows compassion for him and befriends him.
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The criticism stems from the fact that the movie tries to “humanize” a monster, and it was written and directed by Menno Meyjes, who was also the screenwriter for “The Color Purple.” However, it is imperative that we first grasp the fact that Hitler was a human being before attempting to comprehend anything else associated with him. To dehumanize him is to fall under the spell that elevated him into the Fuhrer, a mythical being who transfixed Germans and obscured the silly little man with the mustache. Dehumanizing him is to fall under the spell that elevated him into the Fuhrer. When one considers the early years of Adolf Hitler with the knowledge gained from his later years, one is able to comprehend how life can play cosmic tricks that end in tragedy.
Max Quiz
Even when he was still a young man, we see Hitler doodling with swastikas and designing comic-book uniforms, which lends credence to the idea that Hitler’s true “work of art” was himself and the Nazi state that he initially envisioned in fantastical terms. The adage “clothes make the man” is certainly true, and Hitler’s talent as a fashion designer helped turn many men into Nazis. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that he tells Rothman, “I am the new avant garde, and politics is the new art.”
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If Hitler remains a mystery, then Max Rothman must also be interpreted as a conundrum. John Cusack’s portrayal of him as a man of empathy shows him as someone who puts up with the outbursts of his artists and has compassion for a disheveled Hitler, whom he first encounters in the role of a liquor deliveryman. Rothman himself had aspirations of becoming an artist but had to postpone those plans after he lost his arm. In Munich, where he lives with his doctor father-in-law, his secure wife Nina (Molly Parker), and his stimulating mistress Liselore, he has returned to the bourgeois comforts of his previous life (Leelee Sobieski). When questioned about his friendship with the weak Hitler, he provides straightforward responses, such as the following: “After the war, he found that he had lost everything. He is friendless and has no acquaintances.” Hitler is anti-Semitic, and he doesn’t try to hide the fact that he is. However, during that time period in Germany, anti-Semitism was treated similarly to the weather: there was nothing that could be done to change it, and people were forced to go about their lives regardless. Rothman listens to Hitler’s rantings with weariness and sadness, and at one point he tells Liselore, “I told him his insane f——— ideas are holding him back as an artist.” Rothman is referring to Hitler’s ideas as “insane f——— ideas.” There is not the slightest shred of evidence to suggest that Adolf Hitler might have been a talented artist at any point in his life. Not even for a second. His drawings appear to be cartoon caricatures of the sort that antsy young men draw in their notebooks while sitting in the back row of geometry class, fiddling with their protractors and daydreaming about becoming supermen. Hitler is fundamentally incapable of understanding the purpose of abstract art; at one point in the story, he suggests that Rothman frame his diarrhea. It is brought to our attention that when they were in power, both the Nazis and the Soviets prohibited and destroyed abstract art. Curious, that the artwork that was supposed to represent nothing actually meant a great deal to the people who viewed it. It is possible that art poses a risk to totalitarianism when it does not have a distinct subject that can be condemned and when it is left to the musings of the citizen.
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The focus of “Max” is not so much on Hitler as it is on Rothman, as the film’s name suggests. We can only assume that Max experienced some of the horrors that were caused by that particularly nasty war, but he is a good-natured, dreamy, and optimistic man who believes that art is leading him in the right direction. He is also sophisticated and smooth, a master of the one-armed cigarette technique, and he moves fluidly between his bourgeois home and the cafes and dives of bohemian Munich. He is a master of one-armed cigarette technique. He is worldly in a way that Hitler is not, and the contrast between the two is suggested when he says to the resolute failed artist, “Listen — do you want to meet some girls?” in an exasperated tone. “Listen — do you want to meet some girls?” Another one of Hitler’s backers was a German army propagandist by the name of Mayr (Ulrich Thomsen), who, like Hitler, was an outcast due to the economic collapse of Germany. He is a member of a relatively minor breakaway party and has the opinion that Hitler would be an effective spokesperson for the group. It is difficult to speculate as to what Mayr sees in this hapless nonentity; however, he is quite correct, and it is not long before Hitler is fascinating crowds in beer halls with his developing Nazi vision. (I come to learn that Mayr was a real historical figure who was eventually executed by Hitler as punishment for his actions.) But, we might ask, echoing the realism of the Soviet Union, what exactly is the point of watching this film? What is the meaning of it? It is not an abstract concept, but rather introduces us to two main characters whose cultures are headed toward a showdown with fate. I believe the answer lies with Rothman, who is a compassionate liberal humanist who cares about those who are in need but leads a life of the mind that causes him to be oblivious to the dangerous rise of Nazism in Europe. Is it possible for a man like this, who holds such strong values, to prevail against someone like Hitler, who has no other values besides the desire to be in power? It is the responsibility of the civilized state to make it possible for him to do so. The expression of dissent serves to inoculate the body politic against the totalitarian disease.Also, you must try to play this Max quiz.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Gift Quiz.
