Valkyrie and Tom Cruise
Posted on December 31, 2008
Filed Under East meets West | Leave a Comment
Tom Cruise has defied expectations and won favorable reviews from German critics for his portrayal of a Prussian army officer who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944 in the Hollywood film “Valkyrie.” German reviewers were initially skeptical, described it as a serious work. Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg , who planted a briefcase bomb under a table at Hitler’s military headquarters in eastern Prussia on July 20, 1944. The heavy wooden table saved Hitler, who suffered only minor injuries. Stauffenberg was executed the same night with his co-conspirators and his legacy helps ease the burden of guilt about World War Two and the Holocaust Germans still endure. The Germans didn’t like the prospect of Cruise, star of blockbusters such as ” Top Gun ,” playing Stauffenberg initially. Stauffenberg’s son even called on Cruise to “keep his hands off my father” and go home.
Many Germans objected to the actor’s ties to Scientology, the movement founded in the 1950s by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard , and Berlin made it difficult for the crew to film in the Bendlerblock building and courtyard where Stauffenberg was shot dead. Germany does not recognize Scientology as a religion and regards it as a cult masquerading as a church to make money. Scientologists reject this view. Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer , opened in the United States on December 25 and fared better than skeptics had predicted, reaching No. 4 in the North American box office ratings for the three-day weekend starting December 26. Before its German release in January, some commentators said Cruise may help to boost the country’s image by taking the tale of Stauffenberg to a broader audience. Frank Schirrmacher , co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , said Cruise’s depiction would change the image the world has of Germans.
In the ZDF review, German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck , whose ” The Lives of Others ” won a foreign language film Oscar, described the casting as a stroke of good fortune. The Koelner Stadt Anzeiger added: “(The fear that) the myth of the German resistance would be put through a Hollywood filter has turned out to be wrong and prejudicial. On the contrary, the American origin of this film is its biggest advantage.”
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