'Talking to critics, Stone, a three-times Oscar winner, explained that Hitler had been “an easy scapegoat throughout history” and that his new series would put things into their proper context. “We can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good'. [Hitler] is the product of a series of actions,” he noted. “It's cause and effect.”
Stalin, that other product of events, would also be subject of a “more factual representation”, Stone added.
Now, joking aside, there are two things that are grim about this. The first is the obvious gripe about gross moral relativism. It seems to me to be fairly clear that moral absolutes do exist, and herding off millions of people to gas chambers or gulags puts you beyond them.
Secondly, it is shocking that Stone feels it necessary to explain that history needs context – as though this fact has escaped his less beady-eyed peers. Ian Kershaw, whose superlative biography of Hitler is divided into two volumes, the first entitled “Hubris: 1889-1936” may feel he has spotted the link, as Stone so eloquently puts it, between “cause and effect”.
If America really does need enlightening on this fact then we are all in trouble. But in the meantime, Stone’s real achievement is to have said something so banal and yet so offensive.'
Article here
1 comment:
Couple of points on this. The commentary is far less balanced than the original telegraph article that it cross-refers, here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/6962475/Oliver-Stone-suggests-Hitler-is-easy-scapegoat.html
That goes on to say,
The director claimed many people in America did not understand the connection between the First World War and the Second World War and said his intention was to broaden minds, delving into the funding of the Nazi party and how American corporations were involved in it.
Stone said he did not want to make an "easy" history programme and talked about trying to understand people he despises. His series will aim to uncover little reported facts that shaped the modern United States.
Professor Peter Kuznick, the lead writer on the series, said the programme would not portray Hitler in a more positive light, but would describe him as a historical phenomenon rather than "somebody who appeared out of nowhere".
This is a much more defensible position, and is one I've heard before.
It reminds me of an historian (can't remember who, A levels were a long time ago) who argued Hitler's suicide was his one great act on behalf of the German people, in that he allowed for the exhonoration of that nation from its actions.
True, 'I was only following orders' was not an acceptable defence for leading purpetrators at the Nurnburg trials, but at a lower level there was/is some defence to say that, in a totalitarian regime led by a psycopath, the whims and wills of that leader are unavoidable, and complicity of some degree is an inevitable act of self-preservation. That's certainly a justifiable position re, say, holocaust survivors who's musical skill was enough to keep them alive at the whims of the Camp Kommandant.
Besides, given that a significant percentage of Americans believe that the Second World War was fought by America (and maybe Britain) against Russia (and maybe Germany), anything which prompts some kind of discussion is to be welcomed.
Even is Stone's documentary is seen as low-level revisionism (which I suspect is unfair anyway), then at least it's going to be broadly in approximation with some vestiges of history. Having seen Hollywood claim the cracking of Enigma and the bombing raids of the Memphis Belle, it's a nudge in the right direction....
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