Mother Night

Plot synopsis:
Confined in an Israeli jail, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. writes a memoir about his career in Nazi Germany. During the buildup to World War II, Campbell, an American playwright of German language stage productions, is approached by War Department operative Frank Wirtanen. Wirtanen asks Campbell to work as a spy for the U.S. in the approaching war, though he promises no reward or recognition. Campbell rejects the offer, but Wirtanen adds that he wants Campbell to take some time to consider, telling him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the war begins.
In the initial stages of the war, Campbell works his way up through Joseph Goebbels' propaganda organization, eventually becoming the "voice" of English language anti-Semitic pro-Nazi racist broadcasts aimed at U.S. citizens. Unknown to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of his speech – deliberate pauses, coughing, etc. – form a secret code that covertly transmits information to Allied forces. Late in the war, after his wife, Helga, is reported killed on the Eastern Front, Campbell visits her family in early 1945 outside Berlin, just before the Red Army arrives, and Helga's younger sister, Resi, confesses that she is in love with him.
Eventually, Campbell is captured when a U.S. infantryman recognizes his voice. Before he can be executed, Wirtanen arranges for Campbell's discreet release and helps his relocation to New York City. There, Campbell lives a lonely existence for 15 years, sustained only by memories of Helga and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. Mrs. Epstein, a Holocaust survivor living in Campbell's building, is the only person who suspects his true identity; he seems to avoid her suspicions by feigning ignorance of German. Campbell's only friend is George Kraft, an elderly painter who, through an extraordinary coincidence, happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent.
Over many games of chess, Campbell reveals his secret past to Kraft, who tries to use this information to improve his standing with his handlers by forcing Campbell into a position where he must flee to Moscow. He leaks information about Campbell's whereabouts, which gets the attention of a neo-Nazi organization. Representatives of this group meet Campbell and present him with who seems to be Helga. However, it is not long before Campbell discovers that Helga is actually Resi, who has taken Helga's identity to escape from then-Communist East Germany.
The neo-Nazis shelter Campbell, along with Kraft and Resi, in their Manhattan hideout. Wirtanen reappears, warning Campbell of Kraft's true identity and explaining that Kraft and Resi have put Campbell in an awkward position with the neo-Nazis to ensure his transfer to Moscow. Campbell returns to the hideout to confront the pair; in light of her exposure, Resi commits suicide. Moments later, the FBI raids the hideout but, again, Wirtanen uses his influence to ensure Campbell walks free. Campbell returns to his wrecked apartment and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial.
Campbell is taken to Haifa, where he is incarcerated in the cell below an unrepentant Adolf Eichmann. The film ends with the arrival of a letter from Wirtanen providing the corroborating evidence that Campbell was indeed a U.S. spy during World War II. Moments later, Campbell hangs himself — not, he says, for crimes against humanity, but rather for "crimes against myself."

Tags: romantic, satire, flashback

Review:
As a long-time student of Vonnegut's works, I have no hesitation in recommending the film to his readers, at least to those that love him as I do.
Alan Arkin delivers a totally lovable, but equally treacherous, Soviet spy.Do not feel you have to read Mother Night to appreciate the film; though, if you haven't read Mother Night, you will probably want to after viewing the film.Notice the shifts from color to black-and-white and back again, and don't miss the final symbolism of Campbell's noose.
Watch, also, for Kurt Vonnegut's cameo near the end of the film.Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" will never sound the same (I write in mid-December, when the song is getting heavy radio play, and it's driving me nuts)..
That's probably true of Breakfast of Champions also but they did such a bad job of that you're better off just reading the book and not seeing the movie!
I have seen Nick Nolte in other movies, but never have I been so impressed with his depth of characterization as he manifests in this film..
Instead I got a film that perfectly portrays the irony, humor, elequence, and above all else the crushing sadness of Vonnegut's novel.This is certainly Nolte's best preformance to date.
And he realizes that...well, watch the movie and you'll see.Mother Night is without a doubt in my mind one of the best films ever made.
I haven't read this book, but all through the movie I was awestruck with only one thought in my head:  This is so Vonnegut.
This movie had the same complexities found in Vonnegut's novels:  the jokes were often meaningful and symbolic, and the dramatic events and symbols were often also jokes.Campbell was also a very Vonnegut character, portrayed perfectly by Nick Nolte.
He had all of the earmarks of a Vonnegut "hero":  lack of concern for political boundaries, ironic dark humor giving way to dumb inactivity in response to stress, and an unwillingness to push his version of reality on those around him.Overall, I was constantly surprised and impressed as I watched this movie.
It was the same feeling I had reading "Cat's Cradle," my first Vonnegut novel, as if the most perfectly oddball thing that could happen, he thought of THAT, and he made it real and important.
I haven't yet read the Kurt Vonnegut book this was adapted from, but I am familiar with some of his other work and was interested to see how it would be translated to the screen.
But when the war ends he is denounced as a war criminal but escapes to New York, where various odd plot twists await.If Mother Night has a problem it's that it tends to get a little too sentimental at times.
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.
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.
There was relatively little political intrigue, and much more focus on the moral question: by reading his anti-Semitic radio commentaries with hidden secret messages to Americans, he in fact contributed to the general attitude of Germans (and, as it later turns out, Americans) towards Jews or Hitler.
There are other points to it, such as the humor or the ironical use of romantic clichés (like the song White Christmas), that make it real different from average American movies.
I haven't yet read Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (though I've read other books of his, all outstanding pieces of satire and game-changing novel pieces).
It's about the very real danger of pretending in wartime, which is what being a spy in WW2 is really all about.It would be one thing if Mother Night had a script with a lot of emotional depth and complexity about the moral choice and constant role- even after the war ends- for Howard W.
He takes the story of Campbell as a story of a fractured life: a German propaganda master (the "only American left in Berlin"), who is actually a spy for the Americans but can never have his identity revealed, and was before a playwright who really belonged to "a nation of two", himself and his wife (Sheryl Lee).
It follows him from his prison cell, awaiting trial in Israel in 1961, as he writes his memoir and tells of his disillusionment about being a 'pretend' Nazi, and then in 1960 in semi-hiding in a New York apartment, which is where the bulk of the film takes place.Mother Night can be quite heavy, like on a level one might associate with the Pianist, but on another more emotional-cerebral level than the stark poetry of that film.
Gordon, by way of Vonnegut, is trying to give us a strong look at a man who has nothing, except the memory (and then later a weird transposition) of his long lost love in a "sister" who has come back to him in NYC, so he's left to his own devices when he befriends a painter (Alan Arkin, very very good here), and then is found out as a Nazi-in-hiding by a white supremacist newsletter, leading wackos to his apartment.
That is except for the select few who started the lie and know its secret and power.But oh, it would be one thing if it were just a wonderful and tragic-comic tale, or another if it were featuring some really fantastic performances (which is does: Nolte is at his very best here, and Sheryl Lee, who we might remember from Twin Peaks as Laura Palmer, stuns in multiple roles, especially in the scene when she reveals she's not 'really' Helga).
It could be argued some of the music is too much, but at other times it elevates the material past its own usual dramatic dimensions and makes it operatic, solemn about human nature.It's not always an easy film to take emotionally, and some of the twists do have that tinge of "whoa" as in any spy story.
I have no idea just yet if the book is better than the film (or the other way around), but at the moment it's hard for me not to recommend this to anyone looking for a masterpiece of post WW2/holocaust storytelling..
What seems to be overlooked in the assessments of this movie is the human need for redemption and the slight hope to find redemption, no matter the price found within reaching for it.I had read the book long ago and when I committed my own act of betrayal, and followed the Mother Night plot of going into similar hiding.
His subtle performance (especially when he's playing the burned-out hulk of a man), combined with the Kurt Vonnegut story (with more swerves than you might expect) and some great supporting performers (Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman and a young Kirsten Dunst)and even its quirky use of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas", make this a film that deserves more attention than it has gotten.
The contact "with the secret" John Goodman's role as the blue fairy godmother does appear and save him from himself a couple of times, but ultimately cannot in the end save him.This is an excellent cast and Vonnegut's novel is entirely intact and he does have a walk on non-speaking appearance toward the end.
Nick Nolte gives an excellent performance in Kurt Vonnegut's dark tale.
Few movies I own and have seen have made me think and question as much as Mother Night has, I am amazed at the brilliance not only of Vonnegut, but of the translation of his text to screen.Do not rent or watch this movie on VHS, it must be done on dvd, and it must be accompanied by the director's commentary on the film.
To see how they took a fairly simple story, yet complex in its substance and dialogue, and made it work so well, I think any viewer will be amazed.The omissions in the movie are few from the text, and do not detract from it much, the movie might as well be the book, and is the best adaptation I have ever seen.
Given the track-record for adaptations of Vonnegut novels, I was pleasantly surprised at how faithful this film is to the original source material (with one glaring and near-fatal exception near the end).
If you've read Mother Night and enjoyed it so much (as I did) that you just have to see the movie, understand that you have to understand a fundamental element of Vonngut's writing - that beyond his story lies Vonnegut himself, and that you can't put a human mind on the screen.
I believe that this movie exceeds in asking the key questions that Vonnegut poses in his book, but those frequent cynical moments of satire found on the page are not found on the screen.
By taking Vonnegut's "voice" out of the movie's narration or trying to insert it however it can, Mother Night tells his story brilliantly, and preserves the story's fundamental lessons without confusion, distraction, or disappointment..
(played with a musty obsolescence by Nick Nolte) lives happily in Germany with his actress wife, Helga Noth (Sheryl Lee) before the beginning of World War II.
The central question (indeed, a question that has frustrated many critics) of the movie and Kurt Vonnegut's source novel is, "is Campbell a hero or a traitor?" Director Keith Gordon and screenwriter Robert B.
At the beginning of the film, Nolte portrays Campbell as intelligent and confident; by the end, he's either scared and uncertain, or scared and COMPLETELY certain of his contribution/debt to humanity for the role he played in the war.
The moral (even spiritual) paradox "Mother Night" presents doesn't lend itself to simple resolution, and to a degree, should be left ambiguousthe black-and-white scenes of Campbell staring wearily into space as he is imprisoned in Israel suggest an unspoken contemplation we are not made privy toas Campbell is a character whose inner workings we wind up knowing very little about; the war changes him, coming back to America changes him, and meeting up with the Nazis in New York compels him to prolong the facade of his "act" even further, to the point where he can only stare wearily at an image of himself projected on a wall, spewing anti-Semitic bile.
Mother Night is a very good Vonnegut novel, and most certainly one of his easiest novels to adapt into a feature length film.
Anyway this film is totally enjoyable and you don't have to read the book to understand the movie.
His words have been treated well once before, in the remarkable Slaughterhouse-5.Mother night is probably one of the three novels Vonnegut has written I could take to a desert island, along with Slaughterhouse-5 and Bluebeard.The film version deserves a 10, but the books are so permanently part of my interior landscape that I just can't do it...some of the scenes left out of the film are part of my memory....
"Mother Night" tells the story of a man who is recruited by America to serve as a spy during WWII by communicating cryptic messages while working as a German broadcast radio propagandist.
A budget conscious and theatrical flick, "Mother Night" should be a good watch for Nolte fans and film buffs who don't mind having to work a little to get their head into a flick.
I am a huge fan of Vonnegut's work and I'm very fond of this movie, but I wouldn't say that this is a film of the "Mother Night" that I read.
Amazing to think that an innocent piece like Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" would probably have been the equivalent of "R" rated if filmed when it was published back in the 50s, for its violence, language and sexual and thematic content, though it's a tragedy that nobody's come up yet with a filmable script for it.
It seems impossible to objectify, and that appears to be the biggest obstacle to making great films of his great novels, because the little authorial comments that colour our response as readers are just not possible in movies without resorting to too often clumsy techniques like "talkovers".
The acting in general is of a high order, even if maybe the dialogue is by today's standards a little stilted.It survives quite well watching back to back with "Slaughterhouse-5", and there is actually quite a bit more "good" filmed Vonnegut out there, mostly versions of his short stories - "Harrison Bergeron", "Who Am I This Time?" and some other things like, of course, the misfiring filmed version of his very funny but disposable play, "Happy Birthday Wanda June".
I am a great fan of Kurt Vonnegut and have read all of his books and I was surprised at how true to the book this movie is.
In fact, the only truly fascinating aspect of Vonnegut's Mother Night is the exploration of Campbell's internal evolution from apathetic artist to American spy to devout Nazi to depressed prisoner.
Vonnegut's Campbell rarely displayed emotion, but Nolte was showing off his amateurish acting abilities like this was the final scene in Hamlet.The only value that Mother Night (the movie) can offer is a few well-thought out, richly symbolic scenes.
Movie just like Vonnegut's novels..
There is little to no evidence proving his love for his wife in the movie, it much more seems a Republic of One.On the request of an American agent Campbell, Jr., agrees to broadcast anti Semitic Nazi hate propaganda to American listeners as a device for transmitting encrypted messages to American authorities who read between the lines.
Anyway, the Nazis lose, the wife dies (touring in the Crimean for German troops - I never heard such tours really happened on German front lines in WW II), Campbell, Jr., says he goes to the Russian front but does not go, is captured by an American soldier who recognizes his mug (how come?), is dragged to a sight-seeing tour in Auschwitz, is then released and resettled with the help of the Crucial Agent somewhere in the City of New York.AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY REALLY STARTS BANG.
Had Chaplin lived in our times....who knows, he just might as well have become an aficionado of CGI tools.I have not read the Vonnegut novel from which this film comes to the screen.
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.
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.
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.
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..
Once you get past the bar, it turns into a fascinating story of a man who loses everything while trying to do good.Nolte, an American, moves to Germany, marries a famous actress, and is a satisfied success in every respect until war is about to break out.
The Best Film Adaptation of a Vonnegut Novel.
Mother Night is the best film adaptation of a Vonnegut novel and a truly great film written by a great American treasure.
I have never read the Kurt Vonnegut book, but I think Mother Night is excellent and very underrated.
Nick Nolte plays an American playwright that lives in Germany and writes plays for his gorgeous wife Helga(Sheryl Lee).
Keith Gordon(who was a great actor himself and was in some of my favorite movies like Back To School and Christine) did a tremendous job directing this and got an exceptional performance from Nick Nolte and the rest of the cast.
Amazingly, the most amazing thing about the film is Vonnegut's cameo, that is, if you know what he looks like before hand.