Nazis in the CIA [2013)

Let’s start with Paul Dickopf.

SS.

CIA asset from 1965-1971.

[But all of this goes back earlier.]

Most astonishingly, Dickopf was the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972.

So here is one Nazi (an SS member) that the CIA paid.

And INTERPOL was headed by a Nazi.

And that particular Nazi, Dickopf, was also on the CIA payroll while he was head of INTERPOL.

What if there were Ukrainian Nazis that shared this kind of cozy relationship with the CIA?

There were.

You may know Operation Paperclip.

You probably think scientists.

But there was more (and less) to it.

People avoided Nuremberg merely because the CIA found them useful.

And what this movie points out is important.

How did the CIA control former-Nazis?

By threatening to reveal their past Nazi actions.

Such was the case with Dickopf.

His Nazi activities only came to public attention after his death.

After his usefulness had been gleaned by the CIA.

Of course the Soviets had an analogous program.

Operation Osoaviakhim.

You probably know of Wernher von Braun.

SS.

1937-1945.

A Major in the SS.

Major von Braun.

I believe my father crossed paths with von Braun at Redstone Arsenal.

They did not meet.

But they were there at the same time.

Strange, isn’t it?

Nazi Wernher von Braun worked with Walt Disney (the man) on a series of films about space travel.

1955-1957.

Let me repeat, Disney worked with a Nazi.

For two years.

Von Braun took music composition as a boy from Paul Hindemith.

One of my texts as a music theory and composition undergraduate was by Hindemith.

There is solid testimony that Von Braun picked slave laborers from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp.

There is solid testimony that this Nazi SS Major did nothing to help those who were being tortured and worked to death.

But to Von Braun’s credit, he was (supposedly) arrested by the Gestapo for “not being Nazi enough”.

He was considered a defeatist who knew the war wasn’t going well.

He complained that he wasn’t working on a spaceship.

And POOF, a young female dentist reported him.

Himmler, who was trying to angle in on the production of V-2 rockets, had him charged as a communist sympathizer.

There was also fear that Von Braun, who piloted his own plane, might defect to England.

There were 14 tons of paper (!) documents on the V-2 rocket which Von Braun hid in the Harz mountains.

These were located by Army Counterintelligence (who blocked and have me blocked on Twitter).

Wernher von Braun and his brother Magnus turned over the V-2 rocket technology to the USA (and not the Soviet Union) because they ostensibly perceived the Americans to be “guided not by the laws of materialism but by Christianity”.

Hmmm.

SOUNDS good.

To flesh out the story, I should mention that Wernher von Braun conspired to be captured by the Americans (and not by the Soviets).

Von Braun and his team were housed at Fort Bliss (near El Paso, TX).

Von Braun and team then spent the next 20 years in Hunstville, Alabama.

Redstone Arsenal.

The war we are currently facing is a face-off between two nuclear powers (USA and Russia).

The USA owes its development of rocketry in a large part to a Nazi.

There are American satellites in space because of a Nazi (beginning in 1958 [Explorer 1]).

The idea and dream of traveling to Mars can largely be attributed to this same Nazi.

In 1946, this Nazi had become an Evangelical Christian after attending church in El Paso.

Pretty amazing, eh?

Makes for a good story, doesn’t it?

But is it true???

But let’s get another Nazi into the picture, shall we?

What about Kurt Debus?

The first director of Kennedy Space Center.

A NASA Nazi.

SS.

Debus joined the SA (Brownshirts) in 1933 and the SS in 1940.

By the way, Von Braun signed an affidavit where he erroneously said that he joined the SS in 1939.

He actually joined in 1937.

Hmmm.

Debus was with Von Braun at Fort Bliss.

He was also with him at Redstone.

This roving band of merry Nazis.

In the summer of 1966-67 (southern hemisphere), Von Braun went to Antarctica.

Hmmm.

And guess who came up with Space Camp for kids?

You guessed it.

A Nazi!

[Von Braun]

Jawohl!

So America (and the Soviet Union) took credit for “defeating” the Nazis.

But both countries pilfered important (and not-so-important) Nazis for various purposes.

And now Putin says he is fighting Naziism in Ukraine (which I believe).

Gerald Ford (a 33rd-degree Freemason) awarded the National Medal of Science in Engineering to Wernher von Braun in 1977.

The highest science honor that can be bestowed by the American government.

Good job, Nazi!

Von Braun is buried in Alexandria, Virginia.

Nazis like Von Braun were given American citizenship.

The U.S. Navy took Herbert Wagner.

The U.S. Army took 127 rocket scientists (including Von Braun).

The Bureau of Mines (pre- Department of Energy) took seven synthetic fuel specialists.

The USAF really liked the imported Nazis.

They took 260 of them.

Did Operation Paperclip continue until 1990?

If so, continue in what sense?

Paperclip wasn’t CIA per se.

It was run by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency.

So we could start by calling it an OSS (CIA’s predecessor agency) and Army CIC (counterintelligence corps) program.

Only problem is, the CIA came into existence in 1947.

So in what way was Paperclip NOT a CIA program?

Hmmm.

Paperclip appears to have been overseen by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So you would have:

Army Intelligence

Naval Intelligence

Air Force Intelligence

and

State Department?!?

For instance, Magnus von Braun (Wernher’s brother) had an INSCOM dossier.

Fascinating.

Wernher von Braun’s dossier has never been made public.

Hmmm.

The U.S. military helped Kurt Blome escape to Argentina to avoid trial for human experiments conducted at Ravensbruck.

Ravensbrück.

But the CIA wanted assets.

And access.

We’re not talking about the commonly-known scientists like Wernher von Braun.

We’re talking more about people such as Paul Dickopf.

Let me reiterate, the head of INTERPOL (Dickopf) from 1968-1972 was on the CIA payroll.

We’re not talking about Camp Ashcan and the 86 Nazi leaders in Luxembourg.

But it falls somewhere in the realm of Safehaven, doesn’t it?

Let’s talk about Klaus Barbie.

U.S. “intelligence services” (CIA?) employed Klaus Barbie and helped him escape to Bolivia.

Barbie was a master of torture (as disgusting as that sounds).

This was applied in Bolivia.

Why would the United States support such a thing?

In an effort to “fight communism”, of course.

I agree that communism is bad.

And should be fought.

Indeed, capitalism and communism ought to fight each other (as ideological concepts) on the “battlefield” of economics.

But torture is unacceptable.

It is evil.

To what extent did the “U.S. intelligence services” simply (and cynically) “look the other way” in regards to Barbie torturing people in Bolivia?

We are talking about 1980.

The “Cocaine Coup”.

But you gotta go back to 1973.

And Kissinger.

In Chile.

Pinochet.

To what extent were Italian Fascists allowed to set up camp in Chile by their “intelligence services” (DINA)?

To what extent were Italian Fascists (supported by the Kissinger State Department) responsible for the overthrow of democratically-elected socialist Salvador Allende?

Pinochet.

To what extent did this 1973 coup rely upon Italian Fascists?

Where were these fascists coming from?

Were there any Nazis involved in Chile?

Where had these people been since the end of WWII?

In Francisco Franco’s Spain, perhaps?

When did Franco die?

1980s?

What role did Italian Fascists (who fought on the same side as the Nazis in WWII) play in the Operation Gladio false-flag bombings in Italy?

When did this start?

If Gladio was a stay-behind network (and it was), when was it formed?

Immediately after WWII?

Yes.

But the communists lost the first elections in postwar Italy.

Gladio didn’t really get kicking with their false-flag bombings (blamed on communists) until the 1970s.

Who organized Operation Gladio?

It wouldn’t happen to have been NATO, would it?

I THINK IT FUCKING WAS…

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

But let’s back up to Barbie…because this is a tasty story of evil.

And how the intelligence business is a DIRTY FUCKING BUSINESS.

Barbie.

Gestapo.

SS.

“The Butcher of Lyon”.

Absolutely ruthless.

The Nazi crushing of the French resistance.

And Kissinger apparently said, “Fuck it!  Let’s hire him.”

I’m guessing.

Kissinger didn’t actually say that.

Or maybe he did.

But that is what I imagine he would have said in his thick fuck accent.

So Kissinger is good, right?

He fought communism.

By using torturers like Klaus Barbie.

To what extent did the State Department under Henry Kissinger use Klaus Barbie?

1983.

Extradited to France.

And France are such a bunch of pussies that they gave him life in prison.

No death penalty???

What the fuck?!?

Barbie worked under Adolf Eichmann in Amsterdam.

The Nazis were, by-the-way, anti-Freemason.

Hmmm.

From Amsterdam, Barbie went to Lyon.

And famously set up his headquarters (as head of the local Gestapo) in the Hôtel Terminus.

Here he personally tortured both adults and children alike.

But the pussies France didn’t execute him because dumbass, watery France abolished the death penalty in 1981.

Great job, wusses!

Barbie probably killed about 14,000 people.

That is the estimate.

But he was allowed to die in prison.

Of cancer.

Maybe that is more painful.

Barbie sent 44 Jewish children to Auschwitz.

But he was allowed to die of old age.

Albeit in prison.

Somehow doesn’t seem right.

The punishment doesn’t exactly seem to fit the crime.

For whom did Klaus Barbie work immediately after these 14,000 murders and deportations of children to Auschwitz?

These guys.

IMG_1221 2

It must suck trying to spin that one.

The U.S. government made sure that Klaus Barbie (who was wanted in France) remained free for the next 33 years.

Hmmm.

Who specifically refused to hand over Klaus Barbie?

John J. McCloy.

Who was John J. McCloy?

I think you will find that he was David Rockefeller’s mentor.

Who else helped Barbie escape?

One helper was a Croatian Catholic priest named Krunoslav Draganovic.

Now why on earth would a Catholic priest want to help a Nazi torturer escape???

By 1965, Barbie was working for West German Intelligence (BND).

A little later, you would have Putin working for the KGB in East Germany (where the Stasi [not really independent of the KGB] held sway).

Perspective: the “good guys” (West Germany) had Klaus Barbie, a child-torturing, child-murdering, mass murderer on their payroll starting in 1965.

All of Klaus Barbie’s BND payments passed through San Francisco.

You know, the place where Satanism started (around this same time [1966]).

But Satanism’s just a big joke, right?

It’s just about being “individual”, right?

Barbie was on the BND payroll by 1965, but he had been in Bolivia since 1951.

Barbie was even in the Bolivian Armed Forces!

Barbie literally TAUGHT torture in Bolivia.

He taught the Bolivian military.

So you had non-Nazis in Bolivia with names like Castro.

Associates of Klaus Barbie (who went under the alias Klaus Altmann).

Barbie armed Bolivian drug cartels.

Barbie made connections with Colombian drug traffickers.

Barbie even met with Pablo Escobar in the late-1970s.

Barbie did security for the Medellín cartel.

Making sure the raw coca was safe–from cultivation to processing.

Which made Pablo Escobar a funder of anti-communism.

Are you beginning to see how fucked up all these interlocking relationships are?

The Grooms of Death.

Wasn’t that in Chile?

Barbie armed the coup plotters in Bolivia who were successful in 1980.

Luis García Meza.

Cocaine Coup.

1971.

Barbie was spotted by Nazi hunters in Peru.

Let’s change gears.

Stefano Delle Chiaie.

He almost made it to the COVID years.

Only dying in 2019.

Italian Fascist.

Friend of Licio Gelli [important].

P2 masonic lodge.

Propaganda due.

And the Nazis were anti-Masonic…

Operation Gladio.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

Important.

NATO.

Now A Terrorist Organization.

“Now”.

Always?

Operation Condor.

1975.

Start.

Kissinger.

Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina).

50 years in prison.

Torture.

Murder.

Kidnapping of babies.

Number of victims?

30,000+.

Twice as prolific as Klaus Barbie.

And this is just one country’s (Argentina’s) commander for Operation Condor.

Same thing in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

Now you see why Uruguay called for Kissinger’s arrest.

Because Kissinger oversaw this program (apparently).

What time period are we talking about?

1968-1989.

We are talking about 60,000-80,000 deaths under Operation Condor.

Who was targeted?

The left-wing.

Communists.

Socialists.

But also right-wingers who “weren’t right-wing enough”.

It seems the CIA had a big role in this.

U.S. government operation.

Support often “routed” through CIA.

The U.S. military was concerned about “perceived threats” and “subversives” in Latin America.

Similar to Operation Gladio.

The end justifies the means.

A brute-force way of preventing communist takeovers.

Dirty.

Clumsy.

Evil.

Fighting one evil (communism) with another (murder/torture).

But what brought Operation Condor into being?

It was a series of coups.

Paraguay (1954).

Brazil (1964).

Bolivia (1971).

Uruguay (June 1973).

Chile (September 11, 1973).

Peru (1975).

Argentina (1976).

Wow.

That is SEVEN coups in 22 years.

And FIVE coups in FIVE years.

In five DIFFERENT Latin American countries.

How the fuck did that happen?

Did they all just spontaneously get infected with anti-communist fervor???

It seems our CIA was “watching” dissidents in Argentina and Uruguay.

And don’t forget about the Brazilian “death squads”.

With whom the CIA worked.

This communism thing must be really powerful.

Granted, it’s a fucked-up, inefficient system.

A perverted, perverse system.

But was it really necessary to “disappear” and murder all these people over???

Why not just let capitalism show its merits?

Capitalism is a value-creating juggernaut (it is!).

Why did the U.S. government feel so threatened by communism?

One reason was the USSR (which no longer exists).

All those Soviet Republics.

That giant monolithic block.

Let’s name ’em:

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Estonia

Georgia (Tbilisi, not Atlanta)

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan 

Latvia

Lithuania

Moldova (Moldavian SSR)

Russia

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Uzbekistan.

Wow.

How many is that?

15.

The U.S. has 50 states.

So we are more impressive, right?

The USSR covered about 8.6 million square miles.

The USA covers about 3.7 million square miles.

The Soviet Union was twice as big as America.

And it was (WAS!) communist.

And it had (and HAS!) nuclear weapons.

ICBMs.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Hell, they even have hypersonic missiles now.

And the USA doesn’t.

So Russia (the main successor) could definitely fuck us up (WIPE US OUT).

But that’s not what they wanna do.

They just want us to get the fuck off their doorstep.

Because if they wipe us out, they know we will also (simultaneously) wipe them out.

And we should understand this equation too.

But apparently we don’t.

Because we have led a NATO (Now A Terrorist Organization) that has continuously gobbled up former Soviet territories for the past 30 years (since the fall of the USSR in 1991).

But I understand why America was concerned.

I understand the concept of fighting communism in Vietnam.

I respect those soldiers who went.

Maybe that war needed to happen.

Maybe the United States was right for fighting.

But let’s be frank:  what’s the strategic significance of Vietnam?

There is none.

Unless you’re in the heroin business.

Which may be the main reason we were ACTUALLY there.

Same with Afghanistan.

Heroin.

Poppies.

Oil?

The pipeline across Afghanistan?

Sure, maybe.

But that never materialized.

And why were we in Bolivia?

And Peru?

Cocaine.

Perhaps.

The “Cocaine coup” in Bolivia.

1980.

When the mafia took over the country.

With the help of Klaus Barbie.

Who worked for American intelligence (CIA?).

By the way, Russia is still the biggest country on Earth.

6.6 million square miles.

But they didn’t come to Mexico.

They don’t have a mutual-defense treaty with Canada.

They don’t have troops and military bases on our border.

Hell, they don’t even have nukes in Cuba anymore (Havana being 230 miles from Miami).

Tallinn (Estonia [part of NATO]) is 230 miles from Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Are there nukes in Tallinn?

Probably not.

But there are NATO troops in Estonia.

Right on Russia’s fucking border.

And same with Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Norway.

NATO was not content to border Russia with merely Norway for 50 years (since 1949).

NATO saw fit to add Poland in 1999 and the Baltic countries in 2004.

FIVE NATO members border Russia.

That is unacceptable.

USAoutofNATO.

Now!

NoMoreNATO!

America first!

Who founded Operation Condor?

Pinochet?

Hmmm.

Don’t forget about Orlando Letelier.

Car bomb.

D.C.

Pinochet.

Operation Condor.

30,000 dead in Argentina alone.

Nuns.

Anyone even tangentially-Marxist.

I hate Marxism as much as the next capitalist (I am a proud capitalist!), BUT YOU DON’T FUCKING KILL MARXISTS JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE ADOPTED AN INEFFICIENT ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY!!!

Violent Marxists are another thing.

I have no tolerance for violent Marxists.

Whether they be BLM or Antifa.

But there should be a proportionate riposte.

If somebody commits and arson, YOU ARREST THEM.

You don’t just indiscriminately kill people.

Rule of law is the best way.

Rule of man is a pitfall.

There is, however, a problem.

The 2020 election was stolen.

And I believe Trump left office.

I believe he threw us to the wolves.

I believe our military leaders are pussies.

But Vladimir Putin, who was presented with an immediate threat on his doorstep (a creeping invasion by NATO that he personally oversaw and had patience for FOR 30 YEARS), actually did something.

So I respect Putin more than I respect Trump.

Putin, at this rate, is going to save Russia.

Trump, at this rate, will have no America left to save.

I respect Putin more than I respect the American military’s top leaders.

The American military, at this rate (if they ever decide to actually PROTECT the country), will have no America left to protect.

Death flights.

Taking dissidents out to sea by plane or helicopter and dropping them in the water.

Argentina.

Chile.

Disgusting.

Something the French also apparently did in Algeria.

Bodies washing up in Buenos Aires.

1977.

Kidnapped babies.

Illegal adoptions.

Babies taken to punish mothers who are in jail.

Don’t have a different economic philosophy.

Or we will kidnap your children.

Disgusting.

Latin America as one big network of torture and psychological warfare.

DINA in Chile (Pinochet) and SIDE in Argentina.

Propaganda.

Counter criticism.

Cultivate national pride.

I love America!

I really do.

But the best thing for America to do right now is to get the fuck out of NATO.

America first!

Operation Condor was going to murder a Uruguayan opposition politician.

And leaders of Amnesty International.

That’s pretty fucked-up!

Operation Condor really had a “if you see something, say something” mentality.

A big police state across the entirety of Latin America.

Number of dead as a result of Operation Condor:

Paraguay:  2,000

Chile:  3,196

Uruguay:  297

Brazil:  366

Argentina:  30,000

Archives of Terror.

Archivos del Terror (Spanish).

Arquivos do Terror (Portuguese).

Found in a police station in Paraguay.

4 tons of documents.

[14 tons for V-2]

Operation Condor:  50,000-90,000 people killed in South America

Condor ended in 1983 after Argentina’s defeat in the Falklands War.

The military dictatorship was ousted and democracy restored.

Desaparecidos.

The disappeared.

Perpetrators of Operation Condor who were executed:

General Carlos Prats (Chile)

Uruguayan MP Zelmar Michelini

Uruguayan MR Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz

former Bolivian President Juan José Torres

Argentina was involved with the Cocaine Coup of Klaus Barbie in Bolivia.

1980.

Italian fascists in South America.

December 1977.

Two French nuns and several founders of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo disappeared.

Put on death flights.

Dropped in the ocean.

Remains washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977.

Remains identified.

A commission.

COVID.

Forced disappearances.

Crimes against humanity.

Kudos to writer Ernesto Sabato.

Argentina.

Getting to the bottom of the 30,000 dead/missing/disappeared.

Life in prison:

Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina [d. 2013])

Emilio Eduardo Massera (Argentina [d. 2010]) P2 Masonic lodge member

Roberto Eduardo Viola (Argentina [d. 1994])

Armando Lambruschini (Argentina [d. 2004])

Orlando Ramón Agosti (Argentina [d. 1997])

Omar Graffigna (Argentina [d. 2019])

Leopoldo Galtieri (Argentina [d. 2003])

Jorge Anaya (Argentina [d. 2008])

Basilio Lami Dozo (Argentina [d. 2017])

In 1986 and 1987, amnesty laws were passed to protect military officers involved in human rights abuses.

What?!?

No more prosecutions of the Dirty War.

In 1989-90, the leaders of the junta were pardoned.

An attempt at “healing”…

FUCK THAT!!!

Massera was pardoned in 1990 and lived to be 85 (d. 2010).

Massera imprisoned again in 1998.

Viola was pardoned in 1990 and died four years later.

Viola served a mere seven years in prison.

Lambruschini pardoned in 1990.

Later came under house arrest (2003).

Died 2004.

But here’s an interesting fact.

Lambruschini’s 15-year-old daughter was murdered in 1978 when a bomb was placed under her bed by an Argentine left-wing guerrilla organization.

Equally disgusting.

All because one side loves communism and the other side hates communism.

Fucking idiots!

But Operation Condor started in 1975.

So was this payback?

Either way, it’s disgusting.

Murdering children is the lowest of the low.

Total insanity.

Total EVIL!

Agosti.

Convicted of eight counts of torture.

Served a mere three years and nine months.

Was accused of 88 murders.

11 abductions of minors.

Was pardoned in 1990.

Graffigna was initially acquitted.

2003 arrested again.

Was not sentenced until 2016.

Was found responsible for the abduction, torture, and murder of a married couple in 1978.

The woman was eight-months-pregnant.

The child was born and given to an Air Force Intelligence operative.

Galtieri was sentenced in 1986 to 12 years in prison for human rights violations during the Dirty War.

He was pardoned in 1989.

Still received an Army pension for the rest of his life.

Invited to military parade in 2002.

New charges of kidnapping of children and disappearance of 18 people brought against him in 2002.

Because of his poor health, he was allowed to remain at home.

Bullshit!

Anaya was acquitted in 1985.

Spain intervened in 1997 because some of their citizens had disappeared during the Dirty War.

Extradition requested.

Request denied.

Criteria amended.

Proceedings proceed.

Extradition ceased.

Overturned.

Extraditions continue.

Heart attack.

House arrest.

Dozo was acquitted in 1985.

1989 sentenced to eight years.

Pardoned in 1990.

Didn’t even lose his rank.

Came under same extradition request from Spain.

What happened?

Lived until 2017.

Brazil’s military dictatorship lasted 21 years.

1964-1985.

Brazil also had a bullshit amnesty law that protected the human rights abuses of the military leaders.

In 1978, the Uruguayan Army crossed into Brazil and kidnapped two activists and their children:  ages five and three.

The Uruguayan Army made the mistake of capturing two Brazilian journalists during this operation.

This probably saved the lives of the couple and their children.

Otherwise they would have been tortured and dropped in the ocean on a death flight.

But the couple was tortured and imprisoned for five years.

The children were sent to live with grandparents in Montevideo because the whole operation had been fucked up by the presence and arrest of the Brazilian journalists (and the ensuing international attention of this particular case).

In the case of the Brazilian reporters, they were actually kidnapped by the Brazilian military regime.

Uruguay also passed a bullshit amnesty law.

No one ever got in trouble for torturing the couple.

It is likely that two ex-Presidents of Brazil were assassinated as part of Operation Condor.

João Goulart (“heart attack” )and Juscelino Kubitschek (“car accident”).

Goulart was likely poisoned.

Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998.

The “big wedding” was Franco’s funeral in Spain.

That’s when Pinochet met Italian fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie.

It is quite possible that Pablo Neruda was murdered by the Pinochet regime.

Reagan finally withdrew support for Pinochet after the Chilean Army set two protestors on fire.

We’ll end with this.

Colonia Dignidad.

Chile.

Germans.

Nazis.

Internment, torture, and murder of dissidents in the underground tunnels of a farm known as the Dignity Colony (Colonia Dignidad).

1970s.

During Pinochet regime.

Leader of Colonia Dignidad:  Paul Schäfer.

German fugitive.

Colonia Dignidad later changed its name to Villa Baviera.

This facility existed about 200 miles south of Santiago from 1961-2005.

Sexual abuse and torture of young children were committed there.

Torture and execution of political dissidents (under Pinochet) were committed there.

Schäfer spent a mere five years in prison at the end of his life.

He had been a rumored child molester (in Germany) since 1945.

He lost his job as an Evangelical preacher on account of this.

In 1959, he was charged with sexually abusing two boys.

He fled.

The Chilean ambassador to Germany invited him to Chile.

He set up a cult near Parral, Chile (the Colonia Dignidad).

Schäfer had a bit of David Koresh about him.

A coup against Salvador Allende was organized at Colonia Dignidad by Germans including Roberto Thieme.

Schäfer began punishing children in his cult by electric shocks to their genitalia.

After the coup, Colonia Dignidad became a secret detention, torture, and execution center for DINA (the National Intelligence Directorate under Pinochet’s military government).

Then the biological weapons production began.

#biolabs

Nazis in Ukraine.

CIA Nazis.

CIA protecting Ukrainian Nazis after WWII who should have been subject to Nuremberg.

Schäfer used sedatives on children and then raped them.

The farm contained “subterranean living containers”.

Tunnels.

Schäfer was charged with all matter of crimes.

He fled.

He was found in 2005 in Buenos Aires.

There was a plethora of military weaponry buried at Colonia Dignidad.

2006:  Schäfer sentenced to 20 years for abusing 25 children.

He was found guilty on five counts of child rape.

The compound was surrounded by barbed wire and had searchlights and a watchtower.

There were underground prisons.

There may have been cooperation between the BND (Klaus Barbie’s employer from 1965 onwards) and Colonia Dignidad.

Only German was spoken inside the colony.

Children were “imported” from German.

Schäfer first arrived in the early-1960s with kidnapped children.

Illegal adoptions.

Torture in the tunnels.

Torture specifically tailored to their personality.

At least 100 murders at Colonia Dignidad.

A Soviet-born math professor from Penn State disappeared while hiking near Colonia Dignidad in 1985.

Escapees of the colony claim that the facility housed former Nazis.

But who did Chilean secret police operative Michael Townley report to about the DINA/Colonia Dignidad links?

Fucking INTERPOL!!!

Was the head of INTERPOL in 2005 also on the CIA payroll (as the head of INTERPOL from 1968-1972 had been)???

What Townley seems to have done right is expose Colonia Dignidad as a LABORATORY ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE!!!

Biological experiments were done on political prisoners at Colonia Dignidad.

Now here is the fucking kicker.

The CIA and Simon Wiesenthal have both proven that Josef Mengele was at Colonia Dignidad.

This South American network for escaped Nazis was partially supported by Juan Perón in Argentina.

Was Klaus Barbie at Colonia Dignidad?

I would not doubt it.

Former SS and Gestapo TAUGHT torture methods at Colonia Dignidad to the Chilean secret police.

Just as Barbie would later do in Bolivia–teaching the Bolivian military.

Hartmut Hopp was Schäfer’s “right hand man” at Colonia Dignidad.

He went with Schäfer at age 17 to Chile in 1961.

Michael Townley, an American-born former agent of Chile’s DINA (wait…what?!?  how the fuck did he get that job???) pled guilty to the 1976 car-bombing murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt.

There was a plea bargain.

He was not extradited to Argentina (where he was wanted for the 1974 murders of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife).

He was convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1975 murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.

What was Townley’s specialty (apart from being a prolific assassin)?

Chemical and biological weapons.

And who did he develop these for?

For his employer DINA.

With the help of Colonel Gerardo Huber and DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.

Townley moved to Chile in 1957 at the age of 15.

His dad worked for Ford.

In Chile.

Townley came back to Miami.

Hooked up with anti-Castro Cubans.

Prats and his wife were killed with a radio controlled car bomb.

Enter Italian fascists again.

Townley was the go-between for DINA and Avanguardia Nazionale.

Enter Stefano Delle Chiaie again.

Connection to DINA.

Townley got a mere five years and two months in jail for the murders of Letelier and Moffitt.

Whether truthful or not, DINA’s now-deceased chief Manuel Contreras claims that Townley was partially working for the CIA when he murdered Letelier and Moffitt.

This was around the time that Lt. Gen. Vernon Walters was Deputy Directory of Central Intelligence (CIA).

Walters proposed an American military intervention in Italy in 1961 if the Socialist Party had won.

Townley give us the goods on the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica de Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory of the Army) that was located at Colonia Dignidad.

Carmelo Soria (a Spanish diplomat) was assassinated in 1992 with sarin gas produced at Colonia Dignidad.

It is thought that Pablo Neruda was assassinated with an injection of Staphylococcus aureus.

The sarin gas was produced with the expertise of biochemist Eugenio Berríos.  

Other bioweapons Berríos produced were anthrax and botulism.

Berríos also produced cocaine for Pinochet.

There is a suspicion that he worked for both drug traffickers and the DEA.

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was likely killed with a poison devoloped by Berríos.

Did Operation Condor continue as La Cofradia?

Don’t underestimate Chile’s role in Haiti.

MINUSTAH.

Eduardo Aldunate Hermann.

Berríos producing “black cocaine”.

Gerardo Huber also worked on the DINA biochem program.

Stepan Bandera.

2010.

Awarded title Hero of Ukraine.

By Viktor Yushchenko.

Banderites.

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

And here’s the magic bullet, you fuckers:

Mykola Lebed.

Leader of OUN-B.

Responsible for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

Died in 1998 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (aged 89).

Why?

Because he had “a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War”.

His Prolog (or Prologue) Research Organization in New York (where he emigrated) was funded by the CIA.

Lebed gathered intel on the Soviet Union.

The CIA paid him for this.

The CIA shielded Lebed (as late as 1991) from prosecution for war crimes (aka “his wartime connections to the Nazis”).

How many people did Lebed massacre?

50,000-100,000.

And the CIA hired him.

Yes.

Putin is right.

Ukrainian Nazis exist.

And they have for a long time.

And we’re not just talking about the Azov Battalion.

Lebed was the chief of a Nazi Abwehr school for espionage and sabotage in 1939-1940.

Lebed took over Stepan Bandera’s faction in western Ukraine.

During AND AFTER the Cold War, the CIA supported the OUN.

What groups are we talking about?

Svoboda.

Right Sector.

Ukrainian National Assembly — Ukrainian National Self Defense.

Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Babi Yar/Babyn Yar.

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.

Made up of people from Ukrainian People’s Militia.

Svoboda. 2014. Euromaidan. Major role.

Yatsenyuk (installed by U.S./Soros coup) had three Svoboda ministers.

Sich Battalion formed by Svoboda for war in Donbass.

Why is billionaire Ukrainian Jew Ihor Kolomoyskyi an apologist for Svoboda?

He’s the second or third richest person in Ukraine.

Kolomoysky has triple citizenship: Ukraine, Israel, and Cyprus.

Why would a Jew fund the Azov Battalion?

https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604

IMG_7897

THE

AZOV

BATTALION

ARE 

NAZIS.

WHY 

WOULD 

JEW

FINANCIALLY

SUPPORT

A

NEO-NAZI,

ANTI-SEMITIC

BATTALION???

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS60927080220150505

Why is it that Zelensky’s Jewishness seems to automatically remove him from the list of possible Nazis?

If there’s one Nazi-supporting Jew in Ukraine (and there is…Kolomoyskyi…the second or third richest person in the country), why can’t there be two???

IMG_7898

-PD

Histoire(s) du cinéma {Chapter 1(a): Toutes les histoires} [1988]

Times seem apocalyptic.

So here is the greatest movie ever made.

But it is not available on iTunes.

You may have a hard time finding it.

And an even harder time playing it.

I did.

Back in the day.

I had to acquire a region-free DVD player.

And I did.

Solely to watch this film.

It is in four parts.

Each of which is divided in two.

So, therefore, eight parts.

This much-féted masterwork was not only released on television (which is to say, it was not a “theatrical” film per se), but it was accompanied by a soundtrack on the very erudite German record label ECM and further augmented by a book (text and screenshots) published by the most famous French publishing house Gallimard.

The soundtrack is very difficult to find on CD, but it is becoming less-difficult to find in the digital realm (unlike the film itself).

You can at least “listen to the movie” on Spotify.

And so for this film review, we will only be considering (to start with) the first section (which runs 51 minutes).

It is the section with which I am most familiar.

It is my personal favorite.

But it is important to note that the entire 266 minute film is essential to the “weight” of this creation (even if this first part is the most finely-crafted).

But we will reconsider as we go along.

The first section of the film (that which is under consideration) dates from 1988.

The book was not released till 1998 (when the film was completed).

So we have a sort of serial composition here (in the sense of Finnegans Wake).

It came out in parts.

It dribbled out.

Like QAnon.

And its influence spread.

Like COVID-19.

We remember William S. Burroughs and his concept of the “word virus”.

That is certainly germane here.

But I return, again, to Finnegans Wake.

No film creation in the history of cinema is more like James Joyce’s aforementioned masterpiece than Histoire(s) du cinéma.

Indeed, the only other creation I know of which enters into this same sui generis realm is Walter Benjamin’s Passagenwerk (translated in English as Arcades Project).

These are DENSE works…these three masterpieces.

One (Joyce) a “novel”.

One (Godard) a “movie”.

And one (Benjamin) a philosophical book.

Two books and a movie.

And the movie eventually became a book (Godard’s Gallimard creation).

The reverse of the usual.

Here, book doesn’t become film.

And there is not “more” in the book than there is in the film in Godard’s case.

If anything, there is certainly less.

Which doesn’t make it any less poignant.

So, what Godard has created for us with the book is a perfect guide to REMEMBERING WHAT WE SAW.

Which is a big theme of Histoire(s) du cinéma.

Film preserves the holiness of real life (to paraphrase).

Film (and video…of which this movie makes extensive use) preserves a moment.

Film can be (and is, always) a document.

Godard outlines a very French dichotomy here.

Film can be either predominantly of the Lumière brothers’ tradition (what we might call “documentary”).

Or of the Méliès tradition (a doctored reality…a “staged” document…what we might call “drama” [and its various subgenres such as “comedy”]).

But this dichotomy is not strictly “mutually exclusive”.

And here Godard brings us the example of Robert Flaherty.

Known as a director of documentaries, Godard points out that Flaherty “staged” his documentaries (which blurs the lines between the Lumière/Méliès dichotomy).

And what of Histoire(s) du cinéma?

Is it a documentary?

In many ways, yes.

It is a history of film.

But it is also a history of the filmmaker who is MAKING that very same history of film (namely, Godard himself).

To add further layers of surreality, Godard must address his own contribution to the history of cinema (which is considerable by even the most unbiased estimation).

Which is to say…

Godard is important to the history of film.

Very important.

Whether you like him and his films or not, he cannot be ignored.

And so we have here a very curious and “loaded” document indeed.

It is a matter of historiography.

Godard cannot (and indeed, does not even try) to remove his own opinion from this exercise of surveying the history of cinema.

That may be, ultimately, because Jean-Luc Godard never stopped being a film critic.

It was as a lowly film critic that he started…and it is as a film critic with his caméra-stylo (“camera pen”) that he continues to create today.

All of his films are, in and of themselves, film criticism.

From Breathless to The Image Book, he is always making a statement.

Pointing out how vapid Hollywood can be.

Pointing out what doesn’t exist in the marketplace.

Perhaps he is creating that which he would most like to watch…as a film lover.

His favorite film didn’t exist (except in his head–except as a vague concept).

No one had made it.

So, in order to watch it, he had to create it himself.

Then he could (theoretically) “enjoy” it.

I imagine he does this with each new film he makes.

It is always an attempt (“essay”…from French etymology…”to try”) to materialize what he would like to watch.

No director has his cutting wit.

No director’s mind pivots so nimbly.

So he must become his own favorite director…over and over and over and over again.

But this film is indeed a special case.

Ten years of creation.

Joyce spent 17 years on Finnegans Wake.

Benjamin spent 13 years on his Arcades Project.

And all of this which I have written is merely a preface.

That is how IMMENSE and pithy(!) Histoire(s) du cinéma truly is.

To be a creator is tiresome.

It makes one weary.

To always dream.

To imagine.

And to sweat in pursuance of crystalizing ones inspiration.

Jean-Luc Godard has always been a bitter sort of chap.

Bitter about Hollywood.

A love/hate relationship (LOVE/HATE…Robert Mitchum…knuckle tats).

And it is true.

Godard delves very early on into the parallel birth and adolescence of cinema and the Holocaust.

Cinema and the Holocaust.

Cinema was still young.

Cinema had a responsibility to document.

The Germans were very technologically advanced (particularly in sound and video recording).

They kept records of everything.

Even when they went astray during the Third Reich.

Germany had already produced great directors by the time of the Holocaust.

At the top of the list would be F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang.

But they were not alone.

Wiene, Pabst…

There were others.

UFA (which still exists till this day) was a giant.

Think Metropolis.

So where is the documentation of the Holocaust?

[you can see what a “dangerous” question Godard is asking]

Is he “denying” the Holocaust happened?

I don’t think so.

But he’s asking a relatively simple and (I think) sincere question.

Where is the video record?

All that has been passed down to us of the concentration camps (and “death” camps) is the record made by American directors like George Stevens AFTER the camps had been liberated.

So what really went on there?

Are we to really believe the Germans shot no footage whatsoever in these camps?

And if so, why can’t we see it?

Wouldn’t it truly help us to “never forget” and “never again” and stuff etc. etc.???

It is a very inconvenient fact that, as far as the general public has been made aware, there are NO (and I repeat NO) films (NO FOOTAGE) shot by the Nazis in the concentration camps during WWII.

Surely it exists, right?

But where is it?

Who has it?

What does it show?

Godard is the ultimate enfant terrible here (and elsewhere).

He wants to know.

He’s curious.

Because he’s a film lover.

And he ultimately blames Hollywood (which had, by WWII, become the global center of the film industry) for not truly DOCUMENTING what happened in the concentration camps (neither while the camps were active nor anytime afterwards).

But here Godard branches off into an aesthetic direction.

Godard flatly rejects the talentless Spielberg evocation of Schindler’s List.

For Godard, a directer as mediocre as Steven Spielberg has no business trying to tackle humanity’s darkest hour.

This is the conundrum at the heart of Histoire(s) du cinéma.

What Godard (I think) is saying is this:  there is no way to “write” a history of cinema…because a large portion of contemporaneous history (1939-1945) was not addressed in any true way by the BUSINESS (ironically represented heavily by Jews) of Hollywood.

Godard seems to be saying that Hollywood’s Jews (which is to say, Hollywood) let down world jewry during the years 1939-1945…all for a buck (as it were).

It is a persuasive argument in many ways.

But let’s back up a step.

To reiterate, a history of cinema cannot be told…because there is a portion of that history which is MISSING.

This is a very important word here (and a very important term).

There are films which SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE, but weren’t (by Hollywood).

And there are films which may have be made (by the Nazis), but as far as we know (factually) were not made.  They do not exist (officially).

Two kinds of films missing.

Hollywood was responsible for the Méliès portion.

Hollywood should have used its immense power (and magic) to save the Jews of Europe.

EVERY FUCKING FILM should have been about the plight of the Jews in Europe who had been rounded up.

But we know very well that that’s not what Hollywood did.

The Nazis were responsible for the Lumière portion.

As twisted as the Nazis were, there is no way in hell those sick fucks did not film (with their Agfa technology, etc.) what was going on in the camps.

No fucking way.

Of course they filmed.

Like a goddamned serial killer.

And it was of pristine quality.

So where the fuck are those films?

But, sadly, Godard is called an “anti-Semite” for asking about these films.

Very sad.

He is coming from a “pure film” stance.

He wants to see the films.

He wants the world to see them.

And so the history of cinema is incomplete.

There is a gap.

Irving Thalberg.  Howard Hughes.  CIA.  RKO.  Starlets.

Film directors have been projecting their fantasies onto the screen since the beginning.

Their perfect women.

Their dream lovers.

But you can’t approach film history without approaching Hitler.

Film was at such an important point in its development.

And along came Adolph.

Chaplin and Hitler overlap.

They have the same mustache.

The Great Dictator was a comedy…more or less.

But it was also an attempt (“essay”) to address Hitler’s presence on the world stage.

An attempt to repudiate Hitler.

And yet, Chaplin could not quite hit the right tones.

It is maudlin.

As a comedy, The Great Dictator is pretty superb.

But it hasn’t aged that well as a piece of poetic philosophy.

Not really.

In that moment, the great Chaplin was powerless.

But at least he tried.

He tried.

But something was missing.

The camps.

Direct reference to the camps.

Addressing the problem with no beating around the bush.

No horseshit.

We need to see the bodies rotting.

We have seen that.

But we need to see the gas chambers.

We need to see the German efficiency and precision.

We need to see their documents.

Their film documents.

No Hollywood recreation can convey what those mythical reels contain.

No backlot will suffice.

We have the propaganda films.

Leni Riefenstahl.

I think what Godard is saying is this…

Hollywood has, since WWII, had to live with the guilt of NOT DOING ENOUGH during the Holocaust.

At the time (while it was happening), it was not kosher (no pun intended) to address the camps.

The public needed uplifting fare.

And Hollywood provided.

Hollywood provided a service.

Entertainment.

But Hollywood (as an entity) was permanently cheapened by not addressing the deep philosophical issue of mass death…mass murder.

Hollywood could have yelled, “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

And, indeed, the theater WAS on fire.

But Hollywood said nothing.

Hollywood told jokes.

No medium is perfect.

Hollywood is people.

But as an institution, Hollywood was exposed as being essentially artless and vacuous.

There were exceptions.

Hitchcock (British…but part of Hollywood).  Chaplin (British…but part of Hollywood).

Nicholas Ray.  Erich von Stroheim (Germanic…but part of Hollywood).  D.W. Griffith.  Howard Hawks.  Orson Welles.

But WWII was also the death of European cinema.

This is a very important concept that Godard conveys.

Not only were European Jews liquidated by the Nazis, but European cinema was effectively liquidated by Hollywood.

Europe would never be the same.

Fritz Lang.  Jean Renoir.  Abel Gance.  Jean Vigo.  Jean Cocteau.  Roberto Rossellini.  Max Ophüls.

America won the war.

The Soviet Union also won the war.

Germany lost.

France was “liberated”.

Italy lost.

And as Europe was subsequently split in half (the capitalist West and the communist East), the hegemony of American film [Hollywood] spread.

At the end of the Cold War, that hegemony became complete.

And so Godard is lamenting the death of his national film industry.

Godard is Swiss.

But he is, in many ways, also French.

He is a French speaker.

His years of highest-visibility were spent in Paris.

And there is not really a Swiss film industry of which to speak.

French film died (“liberated”/occupied).

Italian film died (lost war…occupied).

German film died (lost war…occupied).

Scandinavian film died.

Everything was pushed out by Hollywood.

Europe was relegated to the the realm of “art film”.

European cinema was put in a corner.

The wrecked economies of Europe could not compete with the war-machine-rich studios of America.

America had the magic–the fantasy–the special effects–the Technicolor.

Weary Europeans wanted happiness.

And they bought into the American idea of happiness.

To the detriment of their own unique cultures and philosophies.

Europe became Americanized (at least in the realm of the cinema).

To be continued…

 

-PD

La vita è bella [1997)

If would be a shame if there were any lies wrapped up in Holocaust historiography.

Because, if there were, they would have the potential to seriously degrade what should be a pure remembrance.

If, for instance, the majority of concentration camp prisoners/workers died as a direct result of the Allies cutting Nazi supply lines.

And when these camps were “liberated” or otherwise found, public relations needed a story (and fast!) to account for this horrible loss of life which technically fell on the shoulders of the Allies.

If (and it’s a big if) that was the case, then such a “noble” lie might have been “borrowed” by the emerging Zionist state of Israel.

Anything to make way for the Jewish homeland.

To recap, if a majority of Jewish casualties in WWII were actually the result of the Allies attempting to starve the Nazi state into submission through siege tactics, then the Allies would have had motive and opportunity to foist upon the world a caricatured distortion of the facts.

Caricatures do not do true honor to the victims.

And if the emerging Jewish state of Israel used such distorted facts to further lobby for a “homeland” (a place where people were already living…non-Jews…for a long time), we could say that “Israel” also had motive and opportunity to participate in this “noble lie” (for different reasons).

But what is most sad is that what I have just written would get me arrested in several countries of the world (mostly in Europe).

We will mention one:  France.

I have spoken about the Loi Gayssot in critical terms before.

And I do not think it is a smart piece of legislation.

It is, ironically, a very authoritarian law.

If I understand it correctly, this law (aimed at “Holocaust deniers”) punishes even those who object on critical grounds to any factual aspect of Holocaust “history”.

As we know, history has been wrong before.

And it can be wrong again.

Furthermore, we never close the door on a particular epoch.

For every other event (except the Holocaust), we welcome new research which brings the situation into clearer focus.

The Holocaust is the one period of history which is off limits (verboten) to any sort of skepticism.

And it is this sort of authoritarian attitude of anti-history which will be the unraveling of whatever the liars of history are trying to hide.

Lies are a big part of every world event.

Operators at the lower level just want to cover their butts.

White lies.

But these white lies can pile up.

And pretty soon the official historiography bears little resemblance to the actual event in question.

Mid-level operators merely want to move up in life.

They want to keep the bigwigs off their backs.

So they condone low-level lies.

And they even concoct some fairly witty stratagems of their own.

And these regional efforts coalesce into inexplicable gumbos of narrative (like the story we have all been given concerning 9/11).

But the real fuckery happens at the high-level.

Here is where everything is a game.

Here is where hubris reigns supreme.

Here is where the Ivy League and the Oxford/Cambridge set conspire in an unholy matrimony of minds to make “a new world”.

These are the minds which, largely, have been so besotted with “logic” that they can no longer entertain the idea of a God or any sort of higher power.

And it is at this level that public relations and social engineering churn out lies which are meant to shape world history.

Lies which are meant to redraw the map.

If the gas chambers did not exist (except in the propagandistic imagination of Allied copy) in any Nazi camp, then it would have likely been a high-level wonk who conceived of such a grand macabre to once and for all paint the Nazis as “pure evil” and the Allies as “beneficent warriors” fighting a “just war”.

So let’s see how censored the Internet is, ok?

As of today, you can still harbor some doubts.

A mathematician doubts.

Bertrand Russell doubted Gottlob Frege.

And Russell was right to doubt.

Logic and mathematics teach us that most “complete, unified” systems eventually fall by the wayside.

That is because they are flawed.

Our knowledge improves.

Some discoveries are truly special, but it is always a process of learning.

The Gayssot Act in France (and other similar legislation in neighboring countries) wants you to take (on faith) the complete accuracy of Holocaust historiography SO FAR.

Such legislation is eager to CLOSE THE BOOK on all nuance and scholarship.

But there is at least one website which seems to harbor healthy doubts about aspects of the Holocaust.

Remember:  questioning ANY PART OF THE HOLOCAUST in France is a violation of the Gayssot Act.

Excuse my French, but that is fucked up!

Don’t we want the truth?

If Hillary Clinton was running a child trafficking ring, do we want to know that?

Yes.

If Donald Trump was colluding with the Russian government to get elected, don’t we want to know that?

Yes.

If the gas chambers were a fanciful way to paint the Nazis as the ultimate enemies, don’t we want to know that there were (in fact) no gas chambers in any concentration camp?

Yes.

We want to know.

And we also want to know how bad the Nazis were.

We want to know about babies on bayonets.

We want to know every Jew-hating idea they ever penned or yelled.

Because we do not approve of this Jew hating.

But we will not punish speech.

In our quest to quash the Nazi strain of hatred, we will not become (ourselves) “Nazis”.

Because the Loi Gayssot only encourages people to seek out “taboo” knowledge.

I can’t believe I agree with the scumbag Cass Sunstein on an actual point, but I think I do.

In other words:  don’t make the knowledge taboo.

Let the cream rise to the top.

Let the crap sink.

Do not criminalize idiocy.

AND DO NOT EVEN think ABOUT A CHINESE METHOD LIKE REEDUCATION!

So here is the site, dear friends:

Life Sign

Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.

Sounds reasonable, right?

Don’t let some shit-stained-pants-wearing talking head deter you from visiting this site.

Remember when CNN told the world that only “they” could report on WikiLeaks?

These tactics are wearing thin.

If the truth is out there (thank you X-Files), then people will find it.

And the frauds will be exposed.

And the genuine articles will be raised up on cheerful arms.

The global media wants you to think that only dumb Arabs and Persians would ever “deny” the Holocaust.

Do some fucking research!

And I fall into the same target.

I tell myself, “Do some fucking research!”

I do.

All the time.

Just as it was impractical to get an unbiased assessment of 9/11 when the commissioners were appointed by the Bush administration, so too is it impractical to think that a Jewish (or, God forbid, Israeli) author can give an impartial account of any aspect of the Holocaust.

And yet, this is a conundrum.

For Jews, no period of history is so important.

And I sympathize with the call to “never forget”.

But we must be extremely careful to get right exactly what it is we are to “never forget”.

“Never forget” rings especially hollow in the United States regarding 9/11…because most people have absolutely no deep understanding of that event.

I have done my research on that fateful day.

And everything which led up to it.

And much of what followed.

So in the case of 9/11, “never forget” is meaningless…because the vast majority NEVER KNEW IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Which is the trouble with such campaigns.

The message, then, is “Never forget…what we’ve told you…happened.”

Well, that’s not very bloody comforting!

And the propaganda is pretty transparent.

Which brings us to the “Holocaust industry” and this masterpiece of a film (really):  Life is Beautiful.

There is very little propaganda in this film.

There is very little mindless regurgitation of dubious assertions.

But yet it is still there.

And hence my opening diatribe.

First, let me get in one more jab.

Here is something I have actually read.

By Robert Faurisson.

It is called, “The ‘Problem of the Gas Chambers'”.

http://codoh.com/library/document/868/?lang=en

It is from 1980.

There are 141 pieces by Dr. Faurisson (among many other authors) on the CODOH site.

I have read few of them.

But enough to pique my curiosity.

As I said, it makes me highly suspicious when an obviously brilliant scholar such as Dr. Faurisson is “refuted” solely by ad hominem attacks.

When such is the case, said victim only grows stronger.

And Dr. Faurisson is not attacking the Jews.

He’s attacking history.

With logic.

Read it for yourself.

To be recursive, he seems to have found a “fatal flaw” in the historiography which predominates in such shite as Schindler’s List.

We don’t need a John Williams swooning violin melody to tell us the truth.

We just need the fucking truth.

Whatever it is.

We don’t need music in our museums to drive home a particular point.

We just need the artifacts.

They must be laid out in a way which allows for logical conclusion.

They must not LEAD the museum-goer to a particular conclusion.

If they do, then we have entered the realm of propaganda.

And we should be made aware of our participation as guinea pigs in such attempted thought control.

You can read about Dr. Faurisson’s struggles against the French government here (in his biography on the CODOH site):

http://codoh.com/library/categories/1104/

Ok…

La vita è bella.

🙂

It’s a beautiful movie.

Which I saw many times in the theater.

When it came out.

One of the most important and formative films for me as a cinephile.

Roberto Benigni is my favorite actor ever.

And Nicoletta Braschi is wonderful in this film.

Furthermore, Benigni’s film direction is underrated.

The scene, for instance, where he and Sergio Bustric lay in bed is such a lushly-filmed tableau.

I wanted to live in that scene.

Amongst those antiques.

And their hilarious repartee involving Schopenhauer 🙂

But Life is Beautiful is notable mostly as a work of naïveté.

Like Cinema Paradiso.

Instead of Ennio Morricone’s gossamer score, we get Nicola Piovani’s criminally-unavailable musical backing.

[get on that, Spotify!]

There is true magic in this film.

The kiss between Benigni and Braschi under the banquet table.

Sure…

There is so much Chaplin in this film.

Mistaken identity.

The whole thing starts with a virtual rip of The Great Dictator.

But Benigni tells a new story.

And the details don’t matter.

One death was too many…during World War II.

And one family torn apart…was too many…during the Holocaust.

-PD

Vampyr [1932)

I come to you from the darkest place.

Where all hope has been extinguished.

A maze of study and revelation.

Barely a word here spoken.

Do not give me your attention.

I am not the first person.

You wander in this dream.

He comes to know the horror.

Her and her alone.

Climb climb climb from the mist of history.

Give up your secrets to the light.

Vampyr, Kryptos, Tutankhamun.

IQLUSION.  1Q84.

gravity’s rainbow.  CERN.

In a Glass Darkly.  Published in Ireland.  1872.

Sheridan Le Fanu.  Dublin.

Does Langley know about this?

Always candles.  Always lighting candles.

NYPVTT.  Berlin.

Nicolas de Gunzberg as Julian West as Allan Gray.  Got it?

MZFPK.  We’re losing time quickly.

At an even pace.

Speeding towards the hour.

As slowly as we’ve ever been.

William H. Webster.  The only person to have ever headed both the CIA and the FBI.

Courtempierre.  Loiret.

Ah!  The review…

As if waking from a dream.

Or falling back into a nightmare.

Placing one foot in front of the other.

Rena Mandel could have come straight from Nosferatu.

Like Greta Schröder.  1922.  1932.

Not flapper like Frances Dade.  Blonde on blonde.  Helen Chandler.

UFA wanted Dracula to come out first.

A strange tactic.

And then utter failure.

But Sybille Schmitz has that Nazi jawline.  Like Leni Riefenstahl.

Spoonsful of tea for a dying man.

Candles peer in through the glass.

And the camera stares upwards…at the swaying trees.

It is like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.

To be opened after my death.

Sealed in wax thrice.

Submission is the only slow number.

Mid-tempo.  A revelation.  Talisman.

A crooked doctor.  And you’re giving blood.

They’re putting you on statins.

The drug companies will pay.  And general practitioners will have impunity whoring for big pharma.

A view to a kill.

Berlin.  Surrounded by East Germany.

Mengenlehreuhr.  Yale.

Ooga booga.

Buried alive in the blues.

Come spend a life in Texas.

With no one.

Come be abandoned in Texas.

Not even on the island.

Information warfare.

He is getting his message out desperately.

Franz Liszt as Marguerite Chopin.

No comment from Gounod.

Walpurgisnacht.

Nerval translated 1828.

Gretchen.  Margaret.  Marguerite.

Ettersberg.  Buchenwald.

We see why Godard became suspicious.

Because all but the Dutch declined Resnais’ solicitation for holocaust footage.

Inside the camps.

During the war.

By the most technologically-advanced civilization in terms of film production.

Obsessive-compulsive documenters of expenditures.

The problem with the gas chambers.

Sybille Schmitz looks like a raving lunatic.

The ecstasy of Stockholm syndrome.  A bank.  Those doe eyes and bearded hippie among the safe-deposit boxes.

The Goethe Oak at Buchenwald.  THE Goethe Oak?  George Washington slept here.

The Goethe Oak bombed by the Allies.

Now a concrete stump thanks to the DDR.

Goethe Eiche.

Janus-faced Germany.  Januskopfes Deutschland.  Sounds like a load of rubbish to me.

Schiller’s beech tree didn’t bite the dust till 2007.

Death by flour.

I’ll say it again:  Wikipedia’s masterpiece.  “List of unusual deaths”.

 

-PD

 

 

 

Nuit et brouillard [1955)

A propaganda film by the very talented Alain Resnais.

I wonder, for instance, if Olga Wormser’s script can be tied to David Wurmser’s script?

Wormser and her husband Henri Michel were “historical advisors” for Nuit et brouillard.

“…elle a été conseillère historique”…a historical counselor.

Like Philip Zelikow, perhaps?

Or like Edward Bernays.  The father of “public relations”…author of the 1928 book Propaganda. 

But I have totally skipped over dear Mr. Wurmser.  Nay, Dr. Wurmser.  Mr. Dr.  We’ll get to Ms. Dr. soon enough.

David Wurmser would seem related in spirit to Olga Wormser.

One of the principal authors of A Clean Break:  A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

Such language…”the Realm”.

Only neoconservatives would dream up the projection of Israeli terror on neighboring countries (and Palestine) in terms fit for The Legend of Zelda.

But let’s not forget Ms. Dr.  David’s wife, Meyrav Wurmser.

Also a Ph.D., she’s a doozy.

Why take this tack?

Me.

Because I know too much of Godard.

I know that the greatest film of all time (Histoire(s) du cinema) takes as its focus “the camps”, but also takes issue with history as it has been handed down.

And so let us turn to CODOH.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, CODOH is a “hate group” or some such term.

More terrifying is that, if the SPLC is to be believed, nearly everything is a hate group.

So thanks for nothing, you punks!

(See, now I’m marked too.  It’s as easy as that.)

We must remember the yellow stars that the Jews were made to wear during deportation to the camps.

Resnais makes this all very clear.

But Resnais makes a disingenuous oopsy (in the spirit of faux documentarian Robert Flaherty):  real color footage of the camps (circa 1955…sappy, but at least with no pretense) is intercut with footage which, in context, seems to be from inside the camps during the war.

Resnais can be slightly forgiven…because (supposedly) no such footage exists.

And so he cobbles together replacement footage.

It would, by necessity, largely be from after the liberation of the camps.

Some is perhaps prewar.  Deportation.

Some appears “Hollywood” (i.e. the dramatized becomes real because real footage in this regard is absent).

Even though this film is a classic (a “chestnut”, so to speak), I take issue with the entire thing.

It is not a good film.

The film is neither less vague nor less misleading than my review.

I am vague only because I cannot tell you the exact Hollywood movie.

I cannot tell you exactly what Chris Marker did as an assistant director (though he be naturally drawn to still images [of which several figure prominently within]).

But I can tell you about a very strange and potentially important article on CODOH (that would be, Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust).

It is by a “Franco-British…holocaust denier” named Robert Faurisson (as if that is his profession).

“Hi, my name is Robert.  Oh, what do I do for a living?  Well, a little of this and a little of that.  My real bread and butter is in my capacity as a professional holocaust denier, but I also make some dough on the side as an Egyptologist.”

Main point…being “Franco-” (French), his work would be banned in his home country.  Yes, denying the Holocaust (which is not at all what he does) is a crime in France.  Also in Switzerland too, I think.  Surely in Germany, yes?

[N.B.  Holocaust denial is illegal in 14 of the 28 EU member countries…plus Switzerland…and, of course, Israel.  What a disgusting misuse of police power.]

Why criminalize a thought or opinion?

Because “denying” something as horrible as the Holocaust is somehow evil.  However, in today’s legalistic nightmare world, “denial” IS (among other things) a river in Africa.

Denial could be anything.

Five million Jews died instead of six million?  Holocaust denier!

Seven million Jews died?  Ok, we’ll give you a pass…because you have the right spirit.  But remember:  6 million.  Six, ok?  Six!

And so Faurisson, a very articulate man, tipped many sacred cows in 1980 with his piece “The ‘Problem of the Gas Chambers'” (published in the Journal of Historical Review).

It might be said that Faurisson was the James Tracy of his time.  For me, James Tracy is an American hero.

Faurisson, born in England, was an important part of French society and academia until a witch hunt occasioned by the repugnant Gayssot Act (Loi Gayssot).

Faurisson has his doctorate from the Sorbonne.  He taught there and in Lyon for 21 years at the collegiate level.  But the French are all anti-Semites, right?  Dreyfus?  Zola?  Dream on!

Well, my friends…I’m afraid the “problem with the gas chambers” is also the problem with Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard.

You can judge for yourself here:

http://codoh.com/library/document/868/

Really, that’s what is at issue here.  Read and study and judge for yourself.

The Holocaust was an immensely sad event.

But we must know it in detail.

My ignorance is inexcusable.

And, likewise, any misleading, cynical use of ANYONE’S death (from the Holocaust to 9/11) is the worst sin of all:  knowingly cashing in…perhaps even for geopolitical chips.

Question what you’ve always known.

Learn everything again for the first time.

Be free to speak.

Exercise thought.

Be humble, but don’t grovel.

Do your best.

One of the few things I can be proud of in America today…Gayssot thoughtcrime is not quite here.

But Sandy Hook is censored by Amazon.com, Inc. (Nobody Died at Sandy Hook).

9/11 coverage was/is a joke in the USA (Public Enemy was right).

And with kudos to Mike Adams of Natural News for noticing, Amazon still sells Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

For the five Ph.D.s and one J.D./Ph.D. who contributed to Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, I salute you!

Allors…d’accord.

 

-PD

 

Deutschland im Jahre Null [1948)

The first thing film critics have to get right is the title.

Let me explain a bit.

On my site, I always list a film in its original language (to the best of my ability).

In my opinion, that is the best way of honoring the film.

So far, I have encountered the mild idiosyncrasies of Romanian, Serbo-Croat, Czech, and Polish in addition to the mind-blowing intricacy of Farsi and Japanese.

But with Deutschland im Jahre Null we are seeing a German-language film by an Italian director…sort of.

Italy has a very peculiar tradition concerning voiceovers and direct (or, conversely, indirect) sound.  It is an oddity which caught the attention of Godard in his role as film historian.

I cannot give you as erudite an explanation as my hero Jean-Luc, but suffice it to say that foreign (non-Italian) films in Italy have traditionally been overdubbed into Italian.  So, in other words, no subtitles.

This is distinct from an American viewer watching a Fellini film.  The “American” version (whether on DVD or as a film print in a theater) will be in Italian with subtitles in English.  This goes for almost all foreign-language (non-English) films marketed in the United States.

But getting back to Deutschland im Jahre Null…  It is similar to the Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer directing the French film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc…with one major difference.  Dreyer’s film was a silent one (the only French being the intertitles).  Rossellini’s Deutschland im Jahre Null is very much in German.  We are hearing German actors speak (exclusively) German dialogue.

What is most interesting is the linguistic lineage of this film.  In English, this film is known as:

Germany, Year Zero

Which is quite similar to Rossellini’s preceding masterpiece (in linguistic parallel):

Rome, Open City

To be fair, let’s consider the Italian name (the real name) of Rome, Open CityRoma città aperta.  Fine.  That is the way I recognize the film.  The true name is (in my mind) Roma città aperta.

But with Deutschland im Jahre Null we come to a very strange case.  If we do not recognize the primacy of its English title (Germany, Year Zero), and I do not, then we are directed by that great arbiter of cultural legitimacy Wikipedia to consider our options exhausted by being cognizant of the Italian title (Germania anno zero).

What is the message of this omission by English Wikipedia?  I believe the message is that Germany was (and continues to be) a null.  A zero.  A conquered culture.

We see a similar thing in the kowtowing stereotype of conquered Japan.  And though Japan might be experiencing some moderate-to-light financial troubles in recent years, Germany is by all accounts the economic powerhouse of continental Europe.  Why do I bring economics into the discussion?  Because wealthy nations are able to assert themselves.

But let us step back a bit.  Wikipedia does have some tasty morsels of information concerning this film.  If the source can be trusted, this 1948 film was not shown in Germany (the country from whence the language of the film takes its name) until 1952.  After its single screening in München (Munich), it was not heard from again within those borders until it ran on German television in 1978. 

Wow…26 years.  Either this film was grossly misunderstood, or it was understood all too well.  From my reading, this is a very pro-German document.

Rossellini was not George Stevens making concentration camp propaganda.  Roberto was making art.  The sign of art is the admission of possibilities.  Art seduces us because it is subtle.  Art does not proclaim in blanket statements.  Art does not underestimate the intelligence of the viewer.

Roberto Rossellini did something with his “war films trilogy” which seems to have been unprecedented.  The desire of neorealism was to film fiction as if it were documentary.  This fiction would be, likewise, based on reality.

But why is it, then, that we have very different views of Roberto Rossellini and Robert Flaherty?

I will tell you my guess.  Flaherty’s sin was in the framing of his presentation.  To wit, he presented his staged documentaries (take the oil industry propaganda piece Louisiana Story for instance) as if they were naturally-occurring, spontaneous documentaries. The sin, then, was his duplicitous relationship with his subjects.  He actively made his human subjects into actors.

Rossellini takes a different tack.  There is no pretense that Deutschland im Jahre Null is an ACTUAL documentary.  It merely has the feel of that medium.  Likewise, Rossellini’s use of nonprofessional actors was likely more of a precursor to Robert Bresson than a twist on Flaherty’s bizarre formula (which predated Roberto in both Nanook of the North [1922] and Man of Aran [1934]).  No, Rossellini had created something new. 

It’s not so much the films of Flaherty to which I object as it is the idea of them.  At least one of his concoctions (perhaps thanks to director F.W. Murnau) is very fine indeed:  Tabu [1931].  Flaherty and Murnau co-wrote this ostensible documentary.  Indeed, with Flaherty we come into contact with inchoate, obscure film genres such as docudrama, docufiction, fictional documentary (ethnofiction), etc. etc. etc.

Most importantly, none of what I have written here has even scratched the surface of Deutschland im Jahre Null.   What ever became of the heartrending main child actor Edmund Moeschke?  I do not know.

One thing is certain to me:  no film before Rossellini’s “war trilogy” (Roma città aperta, Paisà, and Deutschland im Jahre Null) [1945/1946/1948] takes on such politically sensitive and important topics in such a raw way.  The closest would be the socialism of Eisenstein or the humanism of Chaplin. 

It is, therefore, no wonder at all that Rossellini spawned a million “new waves” the world over.

 

-PD

 

Monsieur Verdoux [1947)

Being unwanted is a powerful feeling.

A life devoted to a profession, and then (poof!)…

But aging is a powerful experience even when separated from an event of displacement.

Let me clarify:

Aging can make one vulnerable.

We are only all too aware that we aren’t as handsome or as beautiful as we once were.

We are made aware of this decline by way of “the spectacle” (to borrow an idea from Guy Debord).

Sure, we can read it in the glances of everyone we meet, but we must realize that those eyes have glanced upon the ideal.  Those eyes are connected to minds.  Those minds have been imprinted like microchips.

With what?  “The tyranny of good looks…” to quote the brilliant Marilyn Yalom.

The quote comes from her excellent volume How the French Invented Love (2012).  Yes, this nonfiction tome is only too relevant to the subject at hand:  Charlie Chaplin’s bizarre Monsieur Verdoux.

This one won’t have you laughing yourself into the aisle.  Not till the back nine (at the earliest).

Charles Chaplin was a rebel.  When it worked, the world loved him.  When it didn’t?  Ah-la-la…  No one can be completely spared the wrath of the public.

A quick glance at the ever-reliable Wikipedia [cough cough] tells us that Monsieur Verdoux fared better in Europe than in America.

Quickly perusing the section marked “Reception” we might come to the conclusion that audiences in the United States did not “get” this film.

So then did we merely have a cultural barrier (and its opposite) in operation as far as world reception?

I think not.  I think that Europe’s humor was forever changed by the World Wars.  Coming just two years after the second ended, this film was a litmus test.  What could be found funny in this cruel new world?

The entire world had lost its innocence.

And so the comedian was forced to make do with the sordid rubble.

It is not spoiling much to tell you that in this film Chaplin plays a serial killer.  The idea apparently originated with Orson Welles, but the treatment was no doubt a full Chaplin adaption.

Yes, it is shocking.  A bit.  Nowadays.  But then?!?  It must have been much more scandalous.

This was the first time Chaplin took to the screen in a feature film without relying to any extent upon the Little Tramp character.  It was a brave departure!

What I find most fascinating about this film is that the fictional Verdoux, like the real-life Hitler, was a vegetarian and animal lover.

Ah!  However…Verdoux was based on a real killer:  Henri Désiré Landru.

They share the same first name (and a rhyming last):

Henri Verdoux?

Henri Landru.

They also share a profession:  used furniture merchant.

It is not clear to me (without further research) whether the vegetarian/animal lover aspects were inventions of Chaplin or not.

I’m guessing they were.

In any case, they are effective reminders about the intricacy of human personalities.

Schindler’s List comes down to us as a hack film because it lacks life.  That is the message I get from reading Godard’s critique of Spielberg.  What is more, Godard seems to lament (mourn) the lack of video footage shot within German concentration camps during WWII.

Some have construed this as holocaust denial.

I don’t think that is the point.

However, Godard’s presentation of his argument brings with it a certain amount of skepticism.  Put simply, his question seems to be (in my own words), “How could the Germans be so technologically advanced (particularly in film and motion picture equipment) yet fail to shoot any footage within the camps?”

What comes down to us today is footage of said camps’ “liberations”…  Indeed, Hollywood directors were tasked with making propaganda of the hideous findings (George Stevens comes to mind) [not that they needed much help there].

And so why have I made this detour?  Simply to illustrate that the human brain is smarter than Hollywood assumes it is.

Spielberg is not a great director.  He’s merely a rich director.

Chaplin was a great director.  Monsieur Verdoux was largely a failure in the United States.

To come back to Guy Debord (and I paraphrase heavily in translation from the French), “Reality has been turned on its head…”

The spectacle reigns supreme.  Who cares if it’s true?  Even better than the real thing.  That is the message of Debord’s La Société du spectacle (published in 1967).  And that message is relevant to Monsieur Verdoux.

Perhaps it was the Letterists (of which Debord was a member)…perhaps it was the Situationists (of which Debord was the guiding light)…one of these groups boycotted Chaplin when he arrived in France.

Ah, I have found it.  Indeed.  1952.  It was the Letterists.  Their screed pamphlet called Chaplin a “con artist of sentiments”.  [translation by Len Bracken]

Indeed, that is just the role Chaplin took up five years previous in our film Monsieur Verdoux.  It is also part of the argument which Godard has made against Spielberg.

As much as I love Debord (one of my three favorite writers), I have to disagree with his early (pre-Situationist) position against Chaplin.  Godard would likely disagree with Debord and the Letterists on this matter as well (judging from the abundance of Chaplin films referenced in his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema).  But I must agree with Godard regarding Spielberg.  It does no honor to the memory of Holocaust victims nor survivors to give the sad event the “Hollywood touch”.

Godard has (along with most of humanity) been called anti-Semitic.  I don’t believe that to be the case regarding the most important director to have lived.  A single glance is not enough to absorb what Jean-Luc is saying in any of his films (not to mention writings or interviews).

Ah, but now I am far off-track.  I have left Verdoux in the dust.

But that is alright.

Perhaps the measure of a film’s greatness is how much it makes us think?

 

-PD

 

 

 

Ici et ailleurs [1976)

God, the horror of struggle

in Palestine Godard filmed

the sadness of conditions

with such beauty of technique

ingenuity of filmic form

And then came the editing.  Back to France.

It was his film and her film.  Anne-Marie Miéville.

Someone with whom he could discuss film.

No more actresses.  A life partner.

And an agitator.  Critique yourself.

Of course Marx offered useful tools.  But there is more than Marx.

And the universe expanded.  You must turn to the images.

Why is the actress not acting?  And why is that beautiful?

Above and beyond (aside from) the fact that she is beautiful.

Just one.  Anne-Marie points it out.  The way things are done.

Early computer console script glowing green and blinking.  Always blinking.

Someone has captured the wrong image.  In the diffusion the stronger image has been diffused.

It was Hitler.  Israel.  Golda Meir in some sort of act of allegiance.

And Godard’s obsession with finding the double s in nature.  kiSSinger, for instance.

The anger of the filmmaker.  Who bombed the editing studio?  Certainly not Arabs.

Certainly not.  Find the true history.  Only one filmmaker was truly brave and crazy.  Godard.

Must be both to be this brave.

The wrong frame again.  “It’s silly to die for an image.”  But not silly to accept death for the survival of your community.

Of course.  Of course.  Bravery.  Simple.

A sad, pathetic Palestinian village.  And how did they come to be pinned in thusly?

Like livestock.

But the true beauty is cautious.  Scared.  Yes.  Tentatively walking the perimeter.

An image which will live a thousand years in the hearts of every serious soul who sees it.

Nameless.

Nothing shocks as much as the bloody face in Amman.  More than the Holocaust.  That the root cause could continue.

A transference of power abuse.  The short step to fascism.  Leaving out a few crucial details.  Voila.

The man in Amman.  Dead.  Text flashing backwards.  Mirrored.  On top of front-facing font.  Palimpsest.

Expired.

Perhaps there was a bad translation somewhere.  Muselmann in the camps.  Not guardspeak.

We don’t know.  I don’t.

Perhaps.

You say for money, to take an unpopular stand.  A pittance.  Film stock.  Plane tickets.

But they did finally recognize that they were borrowing a revolution.  Because making one was too costly.

At home.  France.  Texas.  Ici.  And the endless possibilities of ailleurs.  Elsewhere.  And here.  Here.

They only meant to send a statement.  Probably.  And the film sat for five years.  1970-1975.

But some images are too beautiful.  Too powerful.  Too important.  Indelible.

Godard never forgot.  Anything.  The camps.  Palestine.  Ghettos.  Prisons.  1789.

Only art speaks.

Study and respect.  Change your world.

I have ordered the images from room service.  And Google has only given me a popularity contest.

Click and vote.  Perhaps.

For film to destroy your soul so beautifully and so hard.

Ah, now I can’t even talk like everyone else.

A hard-earned style which jettisoned pretense long ago.

Almost fashionably dead.  To the doubters.

Mais, sanguine!

-PD

Rope [1948)

For many years this was my favorite Hitchcock movie.  Sure…I secretly thought Psycho was better, but I didn’t want to be ordinary.  It was long before I understood the metaphorical reading of Rear Window; long before my mind was mature enough to wrap itself around the slippery plot of Vertigo; long before I realized that North By Northwest was truly sui generis. 

What was it about this film?  I had first run across the title in a quote attributed (I believe) to Peter Bogdanovich.  Rope was a film to be studied.  Rope was a feat of trickery.  The Rope trick.  Long, unedited shots…  It was only later that I discovered how they reloaded the film.  Once you know, it seems obvious, but upon first viewing it does seem like the master and slave reels had unlimited 1000s of feet to spool out and take in.

But that’s not it.

What was it about this film?  It was Jimmy Stewart.  Good, old Jimmy Stewart of It’s A Wonderful Life.  Jimmy Stewart as Louis-Ferdinand Celine.  Jimmy Stewart the misanthrope.  The novelty of it!  But the “kicker” was bloodlust.  Jimmy Stewart redeemed with Emersonian integrity.  His words thrown back in his face.  Even at an old age.  Stewart’s character realizes he has been wrong all these years.  Would Nietzsche have had the same reaction to Hitler?  Would Wagner?

There is no way to accurately “read” this film without placing it in history:  three years after the end of WWII.

Inferior.  Superior.  Intellect.  Beyond good and around again to evil.

It is Hitchcock commenting on himself.  The character of Rupert is the dark, sardonic, macabre humor of Alfred the auteur and joker.  But what of that ending?

There is no more blood-curdling pronouncement of justice in the history of cinema that when Jimmy Stewart proclaims, “You’re both going to die.”

The character names don’t matter.  The tricks of filming even less.

This is the inquisitive Stewart of Rear Window already suspecting.  This isn’t the Hitchcockean trope of “the wrong man:”  this is the right man.

Stewart can’t believe it.  We can’t believe it.  And we saw the whole thing.

We don’t trust our instincts when the conclusions go (as Dick Cheney said) “beyond the pale.”  Look up that phrase.  Look up Arnold Rothstein.  The “pale of settlement.”

In King of the Jews the author Nick Tosches touches on this phrase.  My contention is that Tosches knew in 2005.

Rope is the story of two young men who strangle an “inferior” being (who just so happens to be a Harvard man).  Hmmm…from where then would that make our killers?  Yale, perhaps?  Is this an quasi-establishment jab at the Skull & Bones fraternity?

And Rupert…dear old Rupert…the house master from our murderers’ prep school days…  Could the reference be Phillips Academy?

I will leave these remarks as a thumbnail sketch to inspire discussion.  But it was certainly the novelty of Stewart as a villain…and his redemption as the voice of reason.  Yes.  The message is clear.  All who have killed in this eugenic manner will die.  You’re all going to die for what you’ve done.  It is what society is going to do to you.  The public doesn’t want to hear your advanced theories and your avant-garde morals.

Hollywood failed the Jews.  Cinema failed those in the death camps of WWII.  This is Godard’s grand theme in Histoire(s) du cinéma.  Film has the ability to preserve the “honor of the real,” to quote Jean-Luc.  No country was more technologically advanced (arguably) in terms of motion pictures during WWII than Germany.  Why were their scientists so sought after by Operation Paperclip (and the Soviet equivalent) following the war?  Why were they so successful?  Because they were brilliant.  It doesn’t make sense then that there is no available footage from the pre-liberated Nazi camps.  Cinema failed to prevent the holocaust and this cinematic gap in history likewise has rendered the medium irreparably hollow.  That was Spielberg’s failure with Schindler’s List:  one cannot portray what has never been seen.  The camps no doubt existed.  There is no disputing that.  But there is a hole in the heart of cinema’s history.

The 21st century has offered cinema another chance.  And contrary to Dick Cheney’s quote and its context, there is nothing beyond the pale.

 

-PD