If stripping a country of its art is akin to rape, then "The Rape of Europa" should be labeled a snuff film in the abstract sense. The Nazis not only violated the architecture of each city, they eviscerated it, by leveling everything they came in contact with to the ground. Germany penetrated so many European mothers, the audience may feel bludgeoned by the monotony of their serial greediness. "The Rape of Europa" gets repetitive but that's not the fault of the filmmaker. He has to tell the whole story; to leave any country out would be unconscionable, even though an unabridged comprehensiveness to the Nazis' relentless plundering of Europe's most prized possessions inevitably leads to audience fatigue. By the time the Nazis reach Russia, we're spent, exhausted, by their insatiability for beautiful things.
Adolph Hitler was a real piece of work, wasn't he? But are we ourselves, entirely innocent? If Gustav Klimt's "Gold Portrait of Frau Bloch-Bauer can sell at auction for $135 million dollars, doesn't such an exorbitant price make us accidental Nazi sympathizers in the sense that we too place such a high value on art over the welfare of people? Think about how many mouths $135 million dollars could feed. A human life must be cheap; that's why people kill each other all the time without a second thought. Conversely, no sane person alive would willfully stick a knife or squeeze a bullet into a Vermeer.
In "Schindler's List", Spielberg shows us a glimpse of the coordinated system by which the Nazis robbed the Jews, in a train station scene where officials instruct the doomed men and women to label their luggage as a way of obscuring their impending liquidation with faux-rationality. The train leaves, but the suitcases and bags stay behind. In a small back room, the suitcases are opened up and its contents are sorted out, itemized, and appraised. In bringing the story of material dispossession to the foreground, "The Rape of Europa" goes on record as being the only film about the holocaust with a happy ending. After the war ended, the art was recovered, and cultural heritages were kept intact.
Is a work of art equal to a human life? Of course, not. That's why an exhibit like "Bodies"(the cadavers of Chinese dissidents as representational art) gets under people's skins. The corpses, fascinating as they may be, goes against human nature, because it sides with art; it treats the unclaimed bodies like a rumor.
Adolph Hitler was a real piece of work, wasn't he? But are we ourselves, entirely innocent? If Gustav Klimt's "Gold Portrait of Frau Bloch-Bauer can sell at auction for $135 million dollars, doesn't such an exorbitant price make us accidental Nazi sympathizers in the sense that we too place such a high value on art over the welfare of people? Think about how many mouths $135 million dollars could feed. A human life must be cheap; that's why people kill each other all the time without a second thought. Conversely, no sane person alive would willfully stick a knife or squeeze a bullet into a Vermeer.
In "Schindler's List", Spielberg shows us a glimpse of the coordinated system by which the Nazis robbed the Jews, in a train station scene where officials instruct the doomed men and women to label their luggage as a way of obscuring their impending liquidation with faux-rationality. The train leaves, but the suitcases and bags stay behind. In a small back room, the suitcases are opened up and its contents are sorted out, itemized, and appraised. In bringing the story of material dispossession to the foreground, "The Rape of Europa" goes on record as being the only film about the holocaust with a happy ending. After the war ended, the art was recovered, and cultural heritages were kept intact.
Is a work of art equal to a human life? Of course, not. That's why an exhibit like "Bodies"(the cadavers of Chinese dissidents as representational art) gets under people's skins. The corpses, fascinating as they may be, goes against human nature, because it sides with art; it treats the unclaimed bodies like a rumor.