The Reader

Here are my film notes for our next screening:

UK 2008
Duration 124 minutes
Director: Stephen Daldry
Starring: Kate Winslet, David Kross and Ralph Fiennes

Awards and Nominations
Won Oscar for Best Actress (Kate Winslet)
Won BAFTA for Best Actress (Kate Winslet)
Won Best Director (Stephen Daldry) in Evening Standard Film Awards
A further 10 wins and 25 nominations

In Germany in the late 1950s the teenage Michael Berg (David Kross) has an affair with an older woman Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) who then disappears. Years later Hanna reappears as a defendant in a war crimes trial based on her actions as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp. Michael, who is now studying law, realises that Hanna is keeping something secret which, if she chooses to reveal it, could save her from jail. During Hanna’s lengthy jail sentence Michael (now played by Ralph Fiennes) communicated with her by sending her recordings of great works of literature.

In the two decades since reunification Germany has examined its recent history in a series of internationally successful films like Downfall (2004), The Lives of Others (2006) and Goodbye Lenin (2003). The Reader is part of this same analysis of German history: it portrays Hanna’s trial for war crimes in the 1960s, but eschews any flashback to the events themselves that would allow the viewer to decide on her guilt or innocence. Thus the questions it raises are the extent to which ordinary Germans share responsibility for the Holocaust and other atrocities of the Nazi regime, and how this responsibility affects subsequent generations. As one of the survivors says to the adult Michael when he meets her in New York “What do you think these places were – universities? What are you looking for? Forgiveness for her or to feel better about yourself?”

The film is based on the 1995 novel by the German writer Bernard Schlink that became a best-seller in both Germany and the US. The screenplay is by David Hare who had previously worked with Stephen Daldry as screenwriter for The Hours (2002), but who has also shown a strong interest in this period in plays and films like Licking Hitler (1974) and Plenty (1985). Hare rejected the long internal monologues that Schlink had included in the novel and, more significantly, changed the ending so that Michael begins to tell the story of Hanna and him to his daughter, explaining this decision as follows:

“It’s about literature as a powerful means of communication, and at other times as a substitute for communication.”

It was Schlink himself who insisted that the film be shot in English rather than German as he felt that it posed questions about living in a post-genocidal society that went beyond the time and locations of wartime Germany, and he worked closely with Daldry and Hare to choose locations for the film.

The casting brings deliberate echoes of other films that have dealt with the Germany in the Second World War: Ralph Fiennes played Amon Goeth, the commandant of a labour camp in Schindler’s List (1993) while Bruno Ganz, in the role of Michael’s tutor, gave an unforgettable portrayal of Hitler in Downfall. However it was Kate Winslet who won most praise – and awards - for her performance: after a record number of nominations in 2009 she won the Oscar for Best Actress.