MovieChat Forums > Woman in Gold (2015) Discussion > How are we supposed to view Austria ??

How are we supposed to view Austria ??

posted 9 years ago by mpboylanjr-54038
13 replies | jump to latest

Through watching this film I wonder how the writers want the world to view Vienna and Austria as a whole??
It seems like Germany that it's history no matter how they want to distance themselves is still deeply rooted in Nazism. Many of its "national treasures" and historical memories are always going to be tainted and looked at by the world differently because of what the people stood for during the rule of Hitler and the Nazi and nationalist social party some 75+ years ago.
Though you cannot hold a country and its people to the sins of their ancestors one must still not forget what the people did and the crimes in which they committed.
While watching this film and truly thinking about what the government is doing by still holding onto pieces of others heritage as their own through the crimes that were committed against the mostly Jewish population in Austria at the time , I for one conclude that much of its history is fraudulent and still rooted in its old ways.
I'm not saying that the people that live there now are nazis and bad people but they have to realize that the world will view them in this negative way and that the truth is that many wrongs are still not close to being made right by the govt and it's people who probably still live behind some dirty secrets. These are just MO but from what the film shows you (and it is a true story) that many of these points are true.

THERES NO ROOM IN MY CIRCUS TENT FOR YOU !!!!

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] sweetbitchness 9 years ago

I believe Austria was in the wrong since the beginning, taking a very shameful stance. It's okay to distance itself from the past, but what they do at times is denial - they paint themselves as victims too when, in fact, they were willing participants in the annexation by Nazi Germany.

You can't pick and choose which side of history you want to favor and still be just. You can't pick and choose your own history to the point that the government can say crimes committed by the nazis in Austria are irrelevant. The original crime makes everything else fraudulent, therefore criminal, especially when artwork is concerned.

I don't feel much for Austria, what the government does doesn't tarnish much of its beauty for me, but I do pity the Austrians and their politicians. You can't call something a national treasure and have no regard for the painter, the subject, the patron, the commissioner, the history of the piece itself - if you dismiss all of this information just for the sake of a pretty picture, than what is the point of art and history?

Maria Altmann was an elderly woman, she did good with the proceedings. I saw the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I at the Neue Galerie in 2012, it's stunning, truly one of a kind, and overall, I can't help but agree with the heirs' decision. Austria did not deserve to keep these paintings. Families are also a part of history, which for some, is still being told.

[–] popeyesucks 9 years ago

How are we supposed to view Austria ??

By understanding that the entirety of Austria not been obsessing over this issue 24-7 since 1945. This is just one aspect of Austria, just like slavery and the Civil War was just one aspect of America.

Since 1945,

-Austria invented the most popular civilian and police pistol on the planet, the Glock

-invented the Stey AUG Rifle (used by the bad guy Karl in Die Hard, which is the official service rifle of, not only the Austrian Army, but also the Australian, New Zealand, Irish and Tunisian armies

-produced a Governor of California who also happens to be the big part of the Terminator franchise

-produced Claire Gmachl, who invented quantum cascade lasers

-invented the highly popular Red Bull, which sponsors a wide variety of sports from Formula One to the Dakar Rally to snowboarding to pylon racing

-has hosted the Formula One Grand Prix several times

-has produced a Formula One champion, Niki Lauda, who, despite getting third degree burns over much of his body in the middle of the 1976 season, came back and finished second overall that year, then became an aviator running his own airline (pushing Boeing to reveal why one of its planes in his service crashed in Thailand) and is now an non-executive Principal at the winning Mercedes Formula One Team

-hosted the Winter Olympics twice (1964 and 1976)

Long story short, thinking The Woman In Gold represents the entirety of what Austria is today is like thinking that Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing represents the entirety of America today or that Brigadoon and Trainspotting represent the entirety of Scotland.

Benoit killed 2x as many w/o a gun than Belcher did with one/S&W fighting climate change since 1852

[–] harveythepooka 9 years ago

For the movie, it's obvious that Maria didn't like Austria because she associated them with welcoming the nazis with open arms, and then having the nazis show up at her house and basically destroy her life. I honestly don't think the movie is making any statements about Austria or Austrians as a whole. They are saying that a small group of people are unfair, while Austrians like the reporter were seen as being kind and noble.

The bigger question you're asking is how Austrians identify themselves and I honestly don't know the answer to that, I don't even think most Austrians could answer for the whole country. But if I had to guess, I would say it's a bit like Americans today view their slave holding ancestors. Some are totally ashamed, like Ben Affleck, some people don't care and just view the sins of the father and exactly that and don't feel guilt over it, some people feel like they have to do something to make reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, some people want to pretend it didn't happen and don't talk about it, and some people are proud of their slaving holding ancestors. I would assume this is similar to the way the average Austrian might feel.

Basically, they seem to be caught in the crossroads of wanting to forget it happened and just look forward and also wanting to be morally responsible and make reparations, forcing them self as a country to look back.

This movie makes the government look bad because they were basically walking all over this little old lady just because they could. I first got interested in the issue of looted art after seeing The Rape of Europa on PBS, and it seems like that's what happened to this woman. She was raped over and over again, by being systematically victimized by the nazis, then by the legal system and the Austrian government.

I would love to visit Austria and I am not going to hold this against them. Every government has bureaucracy because it wouldn't be government without it. But in the end, the morally right outcome happened and happening in Austria.

[–] Sammy35-873-772735 9 years ago

Austria always has been trying to show itself as victims of the war, they say "We were victims, it is Germany". The fact is that Austrians were Nazis and welcomed Hitler with open hands. They never had told the world about its blame. They never said "We are sorry".
In Austria you will find monuments of Wehrmaht soldiers who in fact were burning villages and shooting people in occupied countries. They still preend when you ask them about the war: "we do not know what happened during the war, we did not know about concentration camps...". Oh, really? How it is easy now to pretend it. Many Nazis live in Austria even now, they avoided punishment. And others? Read the story of Kurt Valdheim and who he was. Austrians do not talk about the war. It is a hush hush topic.
And their paintings and art.? Many of them stolen during the war.😣

[–] berniegfletcher 9 years ago

Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. A dictatorial, blowhard egomaniac who trashes his opponents and scapegoats racial minorities while giving blustery speeches about making the country great again. What could possibly go wrong with that? I'm talking about Hitler. Who did you think I was writing about?

[–] politicidal 9 years ago

Good call, Bernie. Good call. Some people think the Hitler comparison is overreaching but hell it doesn't have to be Hitler. It could be any 20th century despot to compare Trump to.

What's missing in movies is same as in society: a good sense of work ethic and living up to ideals.

[–] marudd50 9 years ago

Having lived in Germany and visited Austria several times, I can tell you that it is important to make a distinction between people who were old enough to know what was going on and those who were not yet old enough or even born during WWII. The "elders" often did not tell the truth to their children, and the real history was not taught in schools or talked about in media. There was a major TV series that came out in the 70s that revealed how widespread Nazism was, and many young people were shocked and rocked to their cores when they came to realize what their parents had done. In a lot of cases, it led to family splits that never healed. I was born in 1949. I was part of a therapy group of mostly Germans that was conducted in English. This was an incredibly close group. The Germans in the group were completely haunted by the Nazi past. They could not believe their own country and their parents had done something so horrible. Many of them were so devastated that the Nazi past was inescapable and life-destroying. Of course, these were people about my age who were the "type" that would be in therapy. I know there were other people who thought Hitler was a swell guy. But overall I don't think we should continue to blame people who were not alive then. BTW, I think this whole thing is made even worse for Germans because a prominent national trait there is to venerate and obey authority. Our iconoclastic culture causes Americans to stretch even to comprehend how awful this is, to be told "authority" must be obeyed yet to find that "authority" is evil.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

[–] gorgsharpy 9 years ago

Hmm

I think the decision of the arbitrators showed that the Austrian people wanted to refuse its past.

You should not forget that it was Adele's will to let the painting stay at the museum. I know the will was not formally correct from a stricty legal point of view but it was still her intention.

Maybe Adele owned the painting and maybe not. Paying the artist is not necessarily the same as being the owner if the painting was a gift to Adele. Maybe she wanted to give him the painting or maybe she just wanted to let him use it while he lived.

The movie is good because it forces you to discuss if Maria misused the nazi "card". Not for want of money but to punish the Austrians because she hadn't forgiven the Austrians. So don't go on offending each other on these boards for having opinions on the movie.

I personally would have liked Maria to sell the painting to the Austrian Gallery in order to repay the arbitrators' gesture, because it would have shown that she had put her personal past behind her.

What the painting meant to her was sort of a Rosebud. A memory of a happy time before being separated from her parents. But I guess it's too much to ask for such an ending. And being based on a true story my wish for such an ending is not r-e-a-l-i-s-t-i-c either.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] gorgsharpy 9 years ago

Do you think she still would have felt that way if she'd known that the Austrian government would round up and murder her family, driving her niece and her husband to flee the country or risk their own murders? I don't think so!

I think you are confusing the government with the gallery. Why would the government's actions make any difference?

If the will is invalid, it doesn't matter what her "intention" might have been before her family was persecuted and annihilated simply for being Jewish.

That's a legal point of view that I mentioned I concur with. But not necessarily a moral point of view. And morals is what interests cinema.

How does someone forgive the people who murder your innocent family, and thousands of other innocent men, women and children? Why would or should anyone? There are things that should never be forgiven.

People keep sidestepping the fact that the painting NEVER belonged to Austria. It had been stolen from her family, taken right off the wall of their home by thugs who forced their way in and robbed them of everything of value.

And the truth is the painting was Maria's property to do with as she wished. She could sell it, burn it, or keep it in her garage if she chose. But she sold it to an art gallery with the proviso that it would always be on public display so all could enjoy it -- and she spent the money on good causes, living modestly until she died. I think that was definitely the right choice.

I couldn't believe the nerve of the guy imploring her to leave it to Austria, after denying her ownership of it all along. Why in hell would she want to? Had they even offered to buy it from her? Not that I ever heard. They thought it was already theirs. Wrong.

I think she realised that her revenge on the Austrians was somewhat empty at the end. And she was bitter. You can't reasonably hate a people since it would imply collective guilt and even if so, not for three generations. Even the present day Germans are relieved of guilt today.

But I liked the movie for initiaing these discussions. I think you should give it second thoughts. Certainty in this matter is no quality.

"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several

[–] Davey-Matthews 9 years ago

It's true. My grandfather's cousin lives in Poland and still hates Germans because of the war.

[–] pjcassa 9 years ago

I was in Vienna last week and I was amazed by its beauty and warmth but above all, I was delighted to see signs everywhere saying 'refugees welcome'. Here in the U.K. we have a lot of people constantly complaining that we have too many refugees already (we actually have a tiny amount).

If Vienna were the bad guys and we were the good guys, it's very hard to tell these days.