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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Conspiracy (UK showing)

22:32 / 26.01.02

Surprised to see no comments on this - shown on Friday night on BBC2, and I gather that it was shown on US Tv last year.

Kenneth Branagh. Stanley Tucci. Colin Firth. Nazis meeting at Wannsee to plan the details of the Final Solution.

Anyone else watch it ? Please tell me someone did... I thought it was a good solid piece of TV. Should be more stuff like this, I feel.

DBC

05:16 / 27.01.02

bloody hell. what with this and the annie sprinkle prog, am going to have to start making friends on the basis of them having a tv i can watch.....

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:49 / 27.01.02

I'll be your friend if you bring the chocolate...

I quite liked it though was a bit dubious about what historical basis there was for everything that happened around the meeting, did they know what the general who went off to be sick in the toilet really said, did they know what Branagh's character really said to Firth's character on the terrace? The whole thing at the end with the story about the man who's parents died, great as an audience pleasing analogy for the Nazi's, but was it true? I always get a bit antsy when they mix up fact and fiction like this.

Firth, who I've never really cared for until now, was wonderful, I'd quite like to know more about this scientific/religious basis for anti-Semitism that his character showed, as opposed to the 'mumbo-jumbo' view which he derided and is most commonly exhibited as the Nazi-view.

And considering that a large bulk of the drama was based around quibbling what the difference between a German and a Jew was I found it amazing that any TV company, let alone the BBC or HBO would be willing to fund such a production. Very good stuff indeed.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:39 / 30.01.02

Originally posted by Loz

"I quite liked it though was a bit dubious about what historical basis there was for everything that happened around the meeting, did they know what the general who went off to be sick in the toilet really said, did they know what Branagh's character really said to Firth's character on the terrace?"

To be fair to the writer and director their job is to make a film, they're not historians. Unfortunatly to often with historically based films this isn't made clear during the promotion.

I did see this, I thought it was a very well made piece and utterly chilling. I thought Brannagh's clipped, rapid delivery of his lines utterly chilling because of their content.

One thing I found myself feeling very uncomfortable with was the character being played by Colin Firth and the other one the tall older doctor, also wearing a suit, the one who told the story. I found myself thinking of them in terms of "good guys" in the context of the situation. Thinking that surely they would bring some sanity to the situation and it seems that they were written and acted sympatheticly, it's only when it sinks in with what they were actually saying and what their jobs were that I had to stop and say, what the fuck am I thinking.

The juxtaposition of the meeting with the snowball fight was a very clever touch. I also really like the story.

Depressing that so few of the conspirators there received justice and lends credence to the suggestion that there was fuck all justice at Nuremburg.

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:00 / 30.01.02

I missed the damn thing, despite thinking "ooh, I must watch that" whenever I saw the ads for it.

Did anyone tape it?

08:47 / 30.01.02

Infact, havy emphasis was made on the fact that it was based on the minutes of the meeting, implying more historical creadence then it deserved.

And I'm part-way ashamed to say that I watched it largely so I could say "fel asleep there" every time theyshowed the corner of the room where... Well, I feel asleep.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:24 / 30.01.02

quote:Originally posted by The resistable rise of Reidcourchie:
To be fair to the writer and director their job is to make a film, they're not historians. Unfortunatly to often with historically based films this isn't made clear during the promotion.

But as the film makes clear it is based on the minutes, then you have to assume that everything you see on screen actually happened, even if Captain America fell through a time-warp and start kicking arse. Still, it was more historically accurate than U-5710898333201 or 'The Patriot' so we must be thankful.

And I wonder what Ian MacNeice's showreel is like? "Do you need someone to play a fat, decadent bastard? Then call me. Hi, I'm Ian MacNeice, you might have seen me in Dune: The Miniseries, or Conspiracy, where I played fat, decadent bastards!"

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

15:33 / 30.01.02

Loz this probably deserves a topic of it's own and U-571 and the Patriot never claimed to be anything other than total fiction set during real events.

What I find interesting about this stuff is that historical texts are basically best guesses and theory and at the end of the day mediated through the writers ideology and preconceptions. So why is it people tend to put so much stock in entertainment which despite the very worthy subject matter and the treating of it at the end of the day Conspiracy was.