Thanks for posting this, Swathi.  I was reading a discussion here about other Oscar nominees (post), but nobody mentioned The Reader.

I liked the movie too.  I wonder if anybody can suggest a scene that might be helpful for thinking about moral responsibility and shame, or the particular questions mentioned in the previous post.  Especially as Swathi was impressed with Kate Winslet, I'm interested in whether the actors add anything that a novel couldn't supply.

By the way, did anyone watch Kate Winslet's speech at the Golden Globes?  (It starts around 2:00 in the video below.)  How is it that these accomplished actors can't keep their composure?  Or is this an act too?

Hi Swathi,

It seems like you're in good company when you take the movie's ethical questions seriously.  Roger Ebert -- who, despite occupational hazards, often enough makes pretty sharp observations -- suggested that the movie is more interested in a general moral psychology than in German guilt for the Jewish holocaust of WWII.  He reviewed the movie quite favorably in this light.  Your post suggests you understood the movie similarly.

Having said this, I want to try to account for my different response, and for the fact that I can't see how to use the movie to say anything more about the questions you list.  It's not that these questions lack inherent interest, but I didn't detect any real moral seriousness about them in the movie.  Maybe this is because the film, by nature, had to invest so much of its narrative energy in the love story, and this story can't really carry the questions about guilt and responsibility in a meaningful way.  And when the love story stops driving the movie, the screenwriters fall back on the symmetry of Michael (Ralph Fiennes) as reader at the film's beginning and end.  This might drum up a certain emotional response, but I can't see that it helps to advance the kinds of question you asked at the end of your post.  In short, I took this as a movie that wants to talk about serious matters -- because there's a certain market for movies that mention serious matters, and if they're released at the right time they stand a good chance of winning awards -- but doesn't go much further than mentioning these questions.

This kind of mock-seriousness reminded me of the director's earlier movie The Hours -- a well-received rape of Virginia Woolf, I thought, by way of Michael Cunningham's novel (which I haven't read).  Here, too, there's a literary source, and you might be interested in the novel The Reader (1995), in case you haven't already read it.  Whatever its faults, it intends to be very much about the holocaust, and about the attendant possibility and failures of cultural memory.  Perhaps the movie has given up too much specificity and gotten nothing much in exchange.  Maybe this is its way of completing the unintended project of the novel; maybe this is the novel drawn to its logical conclusion.

I guess this conclusion would be a kind of general investigation of an emptied-out "humanity" that, I want to suggest, is inadequate to the particulars of human lives, and certainly to the holocaust.  This singular event is easily used to manufacture some universal notion and emptied of content.  (See also: Life Is Beautiful.)  Perhaps this is part of the problem of memory itself.

I also thought it was funny to see a movie called "The Reader" that has such trouble making verbal art anything more than sonic decoration.  To find something that honors the written word, we might have to go further from the norms of the current "quality cinema."

P.S. What I just wrote resembles what I said elsewhere on THINQon about some other movies in this year's Oscar crop.  It's not that I don't like movies!  Far from it!  But this season in theatres brings out the worst in me.  It's easier to ignore the movies during the rest of the year that aren't _supposed_ to be any good.

Hi all,
Very interesting discussion. I liked a lot your description of the movie Swathi. I should start by saying that I haven't seen it. I don't usually read movie descriptions before seeing the film but as I hated the hours, as I see you did too Jeremy, I didn't think I'd go see the reader, but then after your description I feel like I have seen it, and have somewhat enjoyed seeing it, as I enjoyed reading your description. I also feel it's not such a bad film, and was somewhat moved by it. (I might though feel differently from actually seeing it). But I think all the points made are excellent and bring about a fundamental question about art - what is it for?

What is art for?
When art deals with a subject, it recreates it in a sense, it embodies it, but what does this body say? In our example the story is cast (with Kate Winslet and crew), with plot. Now does that body needs to say much more than being a body? 
The statue of christ, for instance, doesn't say much, it doesn't need to be done by a great artist, but still, being an embodiment, it has a very strong effect on people.
Many times it is simple to have some sort of embodiment to bring home the question for people, and good acting can go a very long way for that, even with a lousy script and director.  (not that I'm saying anything like that about this film - remember I haven't seen it.) The importance of taking form, even if not saying anything really, is such an important element of art. Whether art should even, or can, say anything in any other way is unclear.

To return to our case. I can see the Michael looking at Hannah in court, and seeing on his face his feeling of guilt for not saying anything, but also his feeling of betrayal by her. I can see everything in his face, and is there anything else the film needs to do besides giving me that? Does it need to actually say something? I don't know. 

To make myself clear - I am definitely not saying it doesn't need to say something! I can relate very well to what Jeremy is saying and I agree with him in some respect. Sometimes movies are completely empty. But I also agree with Swathi, from a general standpoint, as I suspect Jeremy might also. I think flushing out this question about art is very interesting.


One more thing Swathi. I wanted to recommend the film Dancer in the dark, by Lars Von Trier, which deals with somewhat related, somewhat different issues, but you might like it. A great film.

Oh, and Alan, your video is hilarious, and I liked your ironic "or is this an act too?" It's also quite amazing the slight on some of the other actresses nominated she throws oh so delicately in there.