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the good german

With the exception of a daring few, we’ve kissed black and white cinema goodbye. Only a handful of these throwbacks to a simpler era are made anymore and even fewer make a legitimate impact (i.e. rake in the box office dough). Instead of using black and white because it was cheaper, like Kevin Smith did when he made his first film Clerks, Steven Soderbergh chose to make his latest flick, The Good German, in the ever fading gray-scale to make his neo-noir picture look the part. The film is now available on DVD.

It’s post-World War II Berlin and American war correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) has returned to the war-torn country to cover the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied forces. While attempting to mind his own business, Jake gets caught up in a dangerous mystery when the body of an American soldier named Tully (Tobey McGuire) washes up on the Potsdam shore. In search for answers on why the young solider was killed, Jake stumbles upon Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a German widow who had an affair with both Tully and Geismar at different points before and after the war. It’s discovered that both the US and Russia are incredibly interested in finding Lena’s husband, a man believed to be alive despite a death certificate that says otherwise. With very few clues to go on thanks to both Lena and the military’s reluctance to tell everything they know, Jake delves deeper into the mystery which leads him to uncovering horrors beyond his own imagination.

Adapted from Joseph Kanon’s book by the same name, The Good German received two Academy Award nominations despite mixed reviews from critics, who claimed the picture had plenty of style but little substance. The Good German was actually filmed in color against a green screen. It was then reduced in post-production and given a grainy black and white appearance to match the archival footage that was used throughout. The result is a film that looks straight out of the pre-Technicolor era.

With a film that was shot so uniquely and earned three Oscar nods, it’s hard to believe the DVD release would be completely devoid of supplements. And, yet, here we are, stuck with a disc with nothing but a handful of trailers. Clearly, a special edition double (or triple) dip is in the works, leaving the most impatient of movie fans with this bare bones release. If you can, hold off on buying the film until around Christmastime, when, no doubt, a more worthy edition will happen upon store shelves.

Despite the sorely lacking bonus features department, I was quite pleased with what I saw when I popped in The Good German. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of old classics like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep and this film seemed to echo the style almost to a “T”. The characters are not entirely likable, each doing and saying things that raise an eyebrow in the morality department. We’ve got a terrific femme fatal in Cate Blanchett, who is almost unrecognizable as the wife-turned-adulteress-turned-prostitute, Lena. With dark hair, darker lipstick and a heavy German accent, Blanchett piles on the intrigue and sex appeal, making up for admittedly lackluster performances from her male counterparts. I’m not saying Clooney and McGuire are bad per se, but Blanchett seemed to fit the era more than they did. Much of what critics saw as flaws are what make the film fit in so well with its decades old counterparts. A few scenes featured some unintentionally funny dialogue, which was most likely an intentional choice on the part of Soderbergh to make it feel like it was shot in the 40s (I defy anyone to watch some of these old flicks and not get a kick out of some of the lines and how they’re delivered. It can’t be done.).

Known for his constant experimenting, Soderbergh successfully made a movie that that looks and feels like classic film noir. Many may not get the concept and fewer will be able to appreciate it, but those that do will find the good in The Good German.