Product: Luther [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Germany ]
Rating: 3.0
Misses the Point
Luther did have his flawed anti-semitic views and some of his rebukes of the papacy were biting indeed, but his anti-semitic views were a minor part of who Martin Luther was and he was appalled that the people turned to violence against the Catholic Church and he publicly tried to turn the people away from the violence they had begun.I think the second half of the film was pretty good, but the first part of the film was seriously flawed in that it was somewhat disjointed and skipped completely over the pivotal event which changed Luther from a traditional Catholic Priest to a great Reformer. Luther's distaste for the papacy and all its ritualistic and militaristic trappings grew stronger over several years, but did not trigger the reformation. While at Whittenberg Luther was appointed to lecture on the Letter of Paul to the Romans in the New Testament. In his preparation for those lectures he studied Romans and learned that "faith alone" in what Christ had done was the means to salvation. It is this event which Luther says was like "the Heavens opening." Whereas other events prepared Luther for the reformation, this discovery in the Letter to the Romans was the event to trigger the change in Luther which led to the Reformation. The movie completely skips this pivotal event.