Mother Night (1996)

Mother Night is the best film adaptation of a Vonnegut novel and a truly great film written by a great American treasure. It is a brilliant tale that also lends itself to an abbreviated film version. The film is wonderfully faithful to the novel but this doesn't mean you shouldn't rush down to your local library and check out Mother Night.One of the drawbacks of scaling down a novel for a screenplay is, of course, what is omitted. One of the most charming parts of the book was how Campbell's works were recovered by a Russian who spoke German who later plagiarized them in Russian to wide appeal. The man was later executed, not for stealing the ex-Nazi's works but for writing his own critique of the Red Army.Hats off to the cast.

Kurt Vonnegut claimed that the film of "Mother Night" captured the spirit of his book so well that he could never think of Howard Campbell Jnr without visualising Nick Nolte in the part.Nick Nolte seems to get better with age. He is in nearly every scene of this film and sustains his character through the passage of more than thirty years.The story begins in 1960 with Howard Campbell Jnr awaiting trial in an Israeli prison for anti-Jewish broadcasts he made during the war. The Israeli authorities order him to write his memoirs and through narration and flashback his story is revealed.An American who grew up in pre-war Germany, Howard Campbell Jnr is a successful playwright when the Nazis come to power. Married to a leading German actress played by Sheryl Lee, he ignores the excesses of the Nazis by absorbing himself in work and love for his wife. Just before America enters the war, an agent, Frank Wirtanen played by John Goodman, convinces him to ingratiate himself with the Nazis in order to relay coded information to the Allies via radio broadcasts even though he will be regarded as a traitor by America and the truth will never be revealed.As cover for his espionage work, Campbell's broadcasts are vitriolic in their denunciation of the Jews and he becomes a hated figure among the Allies. At war's end, he is given a false identity and disappears back into American society. The story takes a number of unpredictable turns and ends with Campbell burnt out and disillusioned by a life over which he has had little control. He sums up his life with the philosophy that runs through the film, "You must be careful what you pretend to be, because in the end you are what you pretend to be".In his guise as a Nazi collaborator, Campbell's tirades against the Jews have the power to shock even in the context of this movie. Not unexpectedly this was where a few critics felt the movie stepped over the line of acceptability. To dismiss "Mother Night" in this way is to miss its power as a cautionary tale that does not insult the audience by delivering easy answers or a predicable plot.The film comes close to falling apart in the New York scenes featuring the neo-Nazis. Treated as caricatures, they almost capsize the story. However if the filmmakers had attempted a more serious approach with this material, apart from missing the Vonnegut touch, they may have produced a work of such oppressive gloom that the ironic tone that underpins the movie would have been lost.One scene in "Mother Night" stays in the memory. Crushed by the forces that have buffeted his life, Howard Campbell Jnr stops walking and remains motionless for hours in a crowded New York street, because, as he says, "There did not seem to be any direction in which I needed to go".Unique and challenging, "Mother Night" leaves an indelible impression, and Nick Nolte's performance is simply unforgettable.

There are numerous films relating to WW2, but Mother Night is quite distinctive among them: In this film, we are introduced to Howard Campbell (Nolte), an American living in Berlin and married to a German, Helga Noth (Lee), who decides to accept the role of a spy: More specifically, a CIA agent Major Wirtanen (Goodman) recruits Campbell who becomes a Nazi propagandist in order to enter the highest echelons of the Hitler regime. However, the deal is that the US Government will never acknowledge Campbell's role in the war for national security reasons, and so Campbell becomes a hated figure across the US. After the war, he tries to conceal his identity, but the past comes back and haunts him. His only "friend" is Wirtanen, but even he cannot do much for the avalanche of events that fall upon poor Campbell...The story is deeply touching, as we watch the tragedy of Campbell who although a great patriot, is treated by disdain by everybody who surrounds him. Not only that, but he also gradually realizes that even the persons who are most close to him, have many secrets of their own. Vonnegut provides us with a moving atmosphere, with Campbell's despair building up and almost choking the viewer.Nolte plays the role of his life, in my opinion; he is even better than in "Affliction", although in both roles he plays tragic figures who are destined to self-destruction. Sheryl Lee is also excellent, and the same can be said for the whole cast in general.I haven't read the book, so I cannot appraise how the film compares to it. In any case, this is something of no importance here: My critique is upon the film per se, and the film wholeheartedly deserves a 9/10.

In order to enjoy Mother Night, I recommend that you have a lobotomy first. This has to be one of the most unpleasant and unbelievable movies ever concocted. More is required of the viewer than the usual suspension of disbelief: hence my recommendation of a lobotomy. But don't do it; you probably would not understand the movie afterwards, only now the reason would be having too low an IQ, whereas the previous reason was having one that was too high. To focus on just one of the many implausible, indeed absurd, features of the movie, the chief character, played by Nick Nolte, is a German-speaking American asked by the American government to pose as a Nazi in Nazi Germany; via his hate-filled radio speeches, he transmits surreptitious messages to the Allies that help us win the war. He is married to the daughter of a vicious Nazi policeman, who really believes in Der Fuehrer and Nazi ideology. We are given no reason to doubt that the daughter was successfully indoctrinated in the Nazi hatred of non-Aryans. So we have to wonder about this couple presented as being very much in love: what do they talk about? How does Nolte manage to love his Nazi wife?To focus on just one of the many unpleasant features of the movie, at the end Nolte is given the opportunity to prove to the world that he was indeed a double-agent. To say the least, he squanders this opportunity. I guess we are supposed to believe that he does so for a noble reason - to keep his spy activity a secret, so that prospective future American spies can engage in the same work - but to me this rationale doesn't make much sense and it is painful to watch the Nolte character accept it, if that indeed is what he does. You would think, after all he has been through, that he would want to educate the world as to just how painful the life of a spy is, so that prospective future spies would appreciate in advance what they were signing up for. Before signing up, these potential spies could apply moral pressure to the governments of the world that seek to recruit them: they could demand that these governments support them when the mission is complete, instead of abandoning and renouncing them.