Product: Luther [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Germany ]
Rating: 4.0
Luther
"Luther" is the third major film on the reformer. This is the cleanest and flashiest presentation. I felt the film was lacking in a few areas. Fiennes seems a bit too soft spoken, especially in his Diet of Worms "Here I stand" speech.The history is truncated, I suppose, to make for better storytelling. The peasant's revolt is brought back several years and combined it with Karlstadt's radical reforms (K made changes in worship without educating first, smashed statues and images, and tried to introduce civil reforms while Luther was in the Wartburg Castle {1521}).Fiennes portays Luther with warmth and humanity in all parts of the movie. The Niall MacGinnis movie (1953) portrayed Luther in a bit more heroic light. Stacy Keach (1974) portayed Luther first as disturbed, then as bold, then as arrogant.Other drawbacks-- the scene about the young boy's suicide and Luther's comment about him being just as much a victim as a man killed by bandits in the woods and still may receive God's mercy-- is taken from Luther's Table Talk, where he went on to say that common people should not be told this or everyone will be killing themselves. It was a scene that should have been left out.It is a fair introduction to the history. More interesting than "Martin Luther" (1953), more accurate than "Luther" (1974), with enough educational value to be useful.