Erik Dorf is my new favourite TV villain!
The scene in which Dorf tells Himmler (nice to see Ian Holm so young) they shouldn't be ashamed of what they did left me speechless. He speaks with such conviction and lack of emotion that it's chilling. How could he possibly believe what he was saying?
Michael Moriarty did an amazing job!
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
He is.
but I see this scene a different way
It's his wife speaking through him. He knows at this point, what he is doing is wrong, but he has gone too far. His wife is the force in this relationship and shows what can happened to ordinary decent educated people in this situation
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With warmest regards
Yes, I noticed in the way he abandons the room that he's not certain about what he just said. He seemed to live in a constant inner conflict. But still I found amazing the conviction and seriousness he showed in his speech.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
I think his wife is the dominant one in the relationship, she goads him into everything, including joining the SS in the first place.
I think in a way she is speaking through him, and it goes back to what she said about being afraid they'd be punished.
Deep down, I think, Erik is terrified of what he's involved in, and he's in a constant state of inner conflict, with denial narrowly winning out. He doesn't want to see the camps destroyed, because it would be like validating his inner doubts about what they've done.
He needs the camps to stand proudly, to prove to himself that he has nothing to be ashamed of.
In the scene with the American interrogator at the end, when he's justifying everything to him, it also sounds to me like he's really trying to justify it to himself.
People are good at tricking themselves into feeling justified about something that deep down they know is wrong.
my movie review website: http://www.angelfire.com/blog/jester_1/
When people do something wrong they always have a "reason" and the more intelligent the person, the better the "reason".
Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting.
If I remember right there is a scene where a film crew was about to film a mass execution and after one SS people tries to stop them Dorf tells them to go ahead because they needed a record of what they were doing or something like that.
Some of this might be the result of not believing Germany would lose the war and they would face judgment for there actions but there was also a perverted sense of pride. In there minds they could justify the unjustifiable by telling themselves by telling themselves they were doing a great thing for the fatherland and future generations would thank them for their deeds.
When defeat was eminent most of these people either tried to cover up there action; often by attempting to kill off the surviving concentration inmates or the camps themselves. When the Americans liberated Dachau the Commandant was in the process of trying to distroy the files. Still there was more then enough documentation, photos, film footage and accounts from survivors to prove what had happened.
As with the fictional Eric Dorf when the Nazis were rounded up they tried to justify their actions by saying they were saving the world from Bolshevism or some such thing. The excuse the Commandant of Auschwitz gave was the best known. "We were just following orders". One wonders if these people still believed in the justifications they gave, for their unspeakable acts, when the trap door opened under them or, as in a few cases, the smuggled cyanide pills entered their mouths.
What is really tragic is, over the years, there are those in places like Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, who have continued to justify the unthinkable and to try to excuse their action when their acts are exposed.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
I, too, felt that Dorf was merely parroting his wife in this scene. He lacks the strength of any convictions, so he simply borrows those of his wife. But it was a spectacular moment for Moriarty; I wonder if the looks on the other actors' faces were feigned, or genuine?
shareI know this is an old thread, but I think people have missed a big part of what's going on here. Dorf is a lawyer (so am I), and he's used to making arguments. Defense attorneys frequently find ourselves on the side of truly evil people -- we don't always have a choice -- and having to "make a case" for, say, a child murderer. No matter what he's done, we have a duty to find a way to help him, if only to mitigate his punishment.
When I took legal ethics in law school, our first question was, "What would you do if you were defending an accused serial killer, he had admitted to you that he was guilty, and you saw a way to get the prosecution's main evidence excluded for a bad search?" The reason that's the first question is that it's the "easy" one, the one that doesn't admit of two answers. Of course you get the evidence kicked; there's no alternative. You always have to "make a case" for your client. That's what it is to be a lawyer.
That's one thing, but Dorf takes that cast of mind into his own moral reasoning. He starts "making the case" for his own conduct -- and in his own mind. That's very different.
As I recall, the other Nazis in the room look at him like he's lost touch with reality, which, in a sense, he has. But it's just what can come from being a lawyer.
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Rather changed when the Americans caught him.
share