The Great Movies III

It bothers Hoefgen not at all that he is both a Nazi puppet and a black woman's partner because his feelings for Juliette are not love-and not even lust, I think, but a certain enjoyment of the way she understands him. She has his number. They can never be seen together in public, but in her boudoir, she freely insults him. He is such a bad actor, she says, that he can't even drink a beer like a man who wants to drink a beer. And later: "Sometimes your cold, cheating eyes are those of a sad child." How does he respond to that? Almost as if it is a compliment. He looks in a mirror to see if it is true!

The key to Hoefgen's rise is the cultural czar of the Reich, referred to only as the General (Rolf Hoppe). He is oddly attracted to Hoefgen, and sees to it that the actor's leftist past is erased, he gets the best roles, he rises to lead the State Theater. The General is well into middle age, well fed, warm, with a pleasing smile and a feminine seductiveness when he pays compliments. All until his brutal speech that ends with the word "actor!" Hoppe's performance is the ideal counterpoint to Brandauer's; the actor plays every role to please, and the Nazi pleases only himself, whatever it may seem.

Hoefgen's great role is Mephistopheles, the devil. In a mask of stark white makeup, he tempts Dr. Faustus in the classic German drama by Goethe. "My Mephisto," the General calls Hoefgen fondly, over and over again. It is a rich irony, since the General is in fact playing the Mephistopheles role and throwing the world at Hoefgen's feet. Szabo illustrates this contrast in a remarkable scene. Between acts of Faust, Hoefgen is asked to visit the General's box in the theater. He does, in full makeup and costume. Below, the theatergoers turn and look up as the satanic figure with his red-lined cape hovers smilingly over the Nazi in full dress uniform. Szabo ends this interlude with a shot, held just long enough, showing the entire audience standing transfixed. They have witnessed the devil calling on the state.

In the energy they bring to the film, Brandauer and Szabo have made a mighty statement, but it is as much about acting, I think, as Nazism. In Hoefgen, we see an empty man, standing for nothing. This doesn't even bother him. In Paris as a spokesman for Nazi cultural affairs, he reunites with Juliette, who begs him to defect to the West. Later, on the street, he breathes the air of France with that smug contented smile and says to himself, "What could I do here? Freedom? What for?"Then he descends into the black pit of the Metro.

The lineage behind the story is interesting. Szabo adapted a satirical novel by Klaus Mann (son of Thomas), whose mother was a Jew and whose German citizenship was stripped away in 1933; he later became an American citizen. His book was said to be inspired by his brother-in-law, Gustaf Grundgens, an actor and Nazi collaborator. Szabo himself (born 1938) is a leading Hungarian director; his credits include Confidence (1980), Colonel Red (1985), and such English-language films as Sunshine (1999) and Being Julia (2004). Mephisto won the Oscar for best foreign film of 1981, and richly deserved it.

As a physical production, the film is breathtaking. Szabo makes the General's office a throne surrounded by empty space. He creates elegant party scenes at which the connected people gossip about one another; they climax with a spectacular celebration at the Grunewald hunting lodge. Huge swastikas turn ordinary buildings into fearful ones. The mechanism by which some people are exiled and others "disappear" is condensed into brief, fearful automobile rides. No effort is made to depict Hitler or German militarism or large-scale persecution of the Jews; all that takes place offstage, considering that the stage is Hoefgen's life. And Szabo ends the film with a visual masterstroke in which Hoefgen is able at last to have the limelight all to himself.

Paul Schrader's Mishima: ALife in Four Chapters (1985) is the most unconventional biopic I've ever seen, and one of the best. In a triumph of concise writing and construction, it considers three crucial aspects of the life of the Japanese author Yukio Mishima (1925-70). In black and white, we see formative scenes from his earlier years. In brilliant colors we see events from three of his most famous novels. And in realistic color we see the last day of his life.

What he did on that day validated, in his mind, both his life and his work. A fanatic traditionalist who exalted the medieval code of the samurai, he had formed a private army to express his devotion to the emperor. With four of its members, he drove to a regimental headquarters of the Japanese army, held a general as hostage, demanded to be allowed to address the gathered troops, and then committed ritual suicide by simultaneously disemboweling himself and having an acolyte behead him.