Fahrenheit 175
Between last night and this morning, I had the dubious pleasure of watching two disturbing documentaries back-to-back: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Paragraph 175. As far as Fahrenheit 9/11 goes - it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know (in fact, it plays almost as a Reader's Digest condensed version of a lot of books that are more compelling than the movie), but when seen (albiet acidentally) back-to-back with Paragraph 175, a far more sober HBO documentary about the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi germany, together the effect is of a darker tone than would exist viewing either documentary on its own.
The parallels are unmistakable: the use of catastrophe for seizing power, the subtle chipping away at freedom, a gradual darkening of a culture that had begun inroads into tolerance of homosexuality. You can almost put Hitler's anti-gay decrees right next to Bush's call for a constitutional amenment and you'd have a rough time distinguishing the two.
The writing's the wall. Hitler had the support of the voters, too.
I could tell Michael Moore that the gravity of Bush's crimes and misdemeanors sorta preclude the need for bloviating (thank you Page Six) and 1950's training film music to accent moments of grand idiocy, but I'm a realist, and I wouldn't watch a Moore movie if I wanted a meditative Errol Morris investigation.
Now there's an idea for a documentary: Errol Morris' Fahrenheit 9/11.
Paragraph 175, narrated by Rupert Everett and based on the holocaust research of Klaus Muller, is on HBO this month and shouldn't be missed...even if only for scenes of naked, teenage Deutschefrolik in Weimar Berlin. It's a dark, wrenching look - hopefully at the past.
The parallels are unmistakable: the use of catastrophe for seizing power, the subtle chipping away at freedom, a gradual darkening of a culture that had begun inroads into tolerance of homosexuality. You can almost put Hitler's anti-gay decrees right next to Bush's call for a constitutional amenment and you'd have a rough time distinguishing the two.
The writing's the wall. Hitler had the support of the voters, too.
I could tell Michael Moore that the gravity of Bush's crimes and misdemeanors sorta preclude the need for bloviating (thank you Page Six) and 1950's training film music to accent moments of grand idiocy, but I'm a realist, and I wouldn't watch a Moore movie if I wanted a meditative Errol Morris investigation.
Now there's an idea for a documentary: Errol Morris' Fahrenheit 9/11.
Paragraph 175, narrated by Rupert Everett and based on the holocaust research of Klaus Muller, is on HBO this month and shouldn't be missed...even if only for scenes of naked, teenage Deutschefrolik in Weimar Berlin. It's a dark, wrenching look - hopefully at the past.
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