Tom Cruise: A Man of Courage and Hero to the German People
December 23rd, 2007
By WILLIAM KERN
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Does Tom Cruise deserve to be referred to as ‘courageous’ for portraying Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg - a high-ranking Nazi who tried to assassinate Adolph Hitler? According to this tribute by the publisher of one of Germany’s leading newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ‘With his decision to lend Graf von Stauffenberg a face, Tom Cruise will change the image that the world has of us Germans.’
“It has always aggrieved me that it’s nearly impossible to make people in foreign countries aware of the fact that in Germany there were also people who risked their lives to oppose the Nazi order. … With his decision to lend Graf von Stauffenberg a face, Tom Cruise will change the image that the world has of us Germans.”
By Frank Schirrmacher*
Translated By Susanne Angelow
November 30, 2007
Germany - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Home Page (German)
A little over a year ago when he took over United Artists, that legendary studio founded by Charlie Chaplin, people wondered what title he should receive: CEO? Chairman? President? But no title was as big as the two words that for over 20 years have been so closely associated with American cinema. No title seems as big as his name, and it’s under that name alone that he leads this studio: Tom Cruise.
Every other star must learn to cope with the ups and downs of the movie industry. For him, though, there have been only ups since his breakthrough with Top Gun in 1986. If during these 20 years one of Cruise’s films wasn’t a blockbuster, it was due entirely to his own deliberate decisions. Such was the case recently, with Lions for Lambs, a film with which he intended to wake up his compatriots to the events in Iraq.
Just by chance over the past few months, I had the opportunity to experience how Tom Cruise fights, how hard he works, and how much he must almost force matters to obtain these achievements. Now Tom Cruise has taken on a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, not least because my predecessor as publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Joachim Fest, spent many years working very intensively on the subject: I speak of the German resistance to Hitler. It has always aggrieved me that it’s nearly impossible to make people in foreign countries aware of the fact that in Germany there were also people who risked their lives to oppose the Nazi order.
It took an unconventional thinker to break through this prejudice. It required a world-class superstar to get that message to audiences abroad. With his decision to lend Graf von Stauffenberg a face, Tom Cruise will change the image that the world has of us Germans. To rescue the image of his country - especially abroad - was one of the key motives Stauffenberg had for his deeds [attempting to assassinate Hitler]. Because of Cruise’s courageous decision to play this role, he has indirectly fulfilled Stauffenberg’s intentions. Based on his story, a huge audience will come to understand that one can oppose inhumanity, and that a hero’s courage and nobility are even more important than the success of his deeds.
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 am and is filed under World War II, Nazis, Popular Culture, Totalitarianism, Tyranny, Media, Movies, History, War, Entertainment. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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