If an artist claims to be apolitical, even as his or her subject matter is inherently political, does that grant him or her immunity to possible backlash or fallout from the work? Does it absolve them of responsibility? If you accept their self-protective stance, then what questions can still fairly be put to them? What if the work in question actually stokes bigotry that results in death – does absolution still apply?
Those are just some of the questions raised in the documentary Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss, about German filmmaker Veit Harlan. Harlan’s career not only flourished under Germany’s Third Reich, but made him one of the country’s most popular figures of the day, and one of Germany’s most successful filmmakers ever. Yet, if you’re not a dedicated film student, Germanophile, or white supremacist (or some combination of all of the above), chances are you have never heard of him or his most infamous film, Jew Süss, a controversial 1940 work of anti-Semitic propaganda that so impressed Goebbels he mandated that all police and SS members see it. The film has long been banned (as have many others of its ilk, by assorted directors) and a dark mythology has grown up around it.
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Director Felix Moeller grapples with the mythology by tackling the big moral and ethical questions embedded in his subject. He does so by delicately splitting the film’s POV between the domestic and political (with-an-uppercase-P) spheres. The viewer is given a detailed look at the workings of Goebbels’ propaganda arm of the Nazi Party, and a succinct historical overview of the Nazis’ genocidal machinations. In the foreground, though, is a considered examination of the life, career, and death-drenched legacies (including within his own family) of Veit Harlan. Rather than softening the sting of the political critiques leveled at the man and his films, the emphasis on his family powerfully underscores points being made about culpability, responsibility, the ways that art and politics stretch far into the future, often affecting lives in ways that someone has to be accountable for.
In the Shadow spends a lot of time with Harlan’s living kin to make sense of his relationship to Hitler’s propaganda machine and the fallout from it – kin that includes his children, grandchildren, nephew and niece. Their roles in the film range from helpfully functional (one granddaughter draws a detailed family tree for the viewer to track Harlan’s descendants) to layered philosophical debate. One son was so eaten up by what his father’s work wrought that he fashioned himself into an activist whose work included tracking down living former Nazis and bringing them to justice. A granddaughter who is a journalist cuts him no slack whatsoever (within the family, she has paid one of the steepest prices in a “sins of the father” way). And his niece Christine, widow of Stanley Kubrick, is also scalding, and talks about the ways Harlan’s work and reputation affected Kubrick.
This has created tension-filled rifts in the family. Harlan had two sets of children, one with his second wife, and another with his third spouse. (His first wife was Jewish, which leads to all sorts of speculations about the roots of his possible anti-Semitism.) We see some in the bloodline defending the man, but not the work, and they view those who speak out against the man as traitors of a sort, while others are withering in their assessments of both Veit and his work. It’s fascinating, riveting stuff that is brought to life by a generous helping of rare film clips, still photos, and assessments from various experts (filmmakers, historians). While coming at the matter from several angles, allowing for diverse opinions and analyses, Moeller doesn’t spoon-feed answers, doesn’t take you by the scruff of the neck and lead you to a specific conclusion. He’s crafted a film meant to spark serious conversation and thought, and it does.
Ernest Hardy is a Sundance Fellow whose music and film criticism have appeared in the New YorkTimes, the Village Voice, Vibe, Rolling Stone, LA Times, and LA Weekly. His collection of criticism, Blood Beats Vol. 1: Demos, Remixes and Extended Versions (2006) was a recipient of the 2007 PEN / Beyond Margins Award.
