MOTHER NIGHT
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bernard Behrens, Kirstin Dunst. Screenplay: Robert B. Weide, based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Producers: Keith Gordon, Robert B. Weide. Director: Keith Gordon. MPAA Rating: R (nudity, profanity, sexual situations, adult themes) Running Time: 113 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Having read most of Kurt Vonnegut's novels before viewing MOTHER NIGHT, I predicted to myself that it was the most likely of Vonnegut's works to make a successful transition to the screen. Much of the Vonnegut canon has struck me as singularly unfilmable -- including one which _was_ filmed, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE -- but MOTHER NIGHT's narrative was a relatively straightforward one, and its themes equally direct. In a sense, director Keith Gordon's MOTHER NIGHT has proved me correct; in another sense, it has proved me dreadfully wrong. Thought well-crafted and moderately compelling in its own right, MOTHER NIGHT loses a lot with the absence of Vonnegut's ironic voice. Where the novel was a sly social comedy, the film strives almost for Greek tragedy.
Nick Nolte stars as Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American-born playwright living in Berlin in the 1930s with his actress-wife Helga Noth (Sheryl Lee). Campbell's way with words brings him to the attention of Third Reich officials, who recruit him to create a weekly radio program of Nazi propaganda. He is also recruited by Frank Wirtanen (John Goodman), an American agent who asks Campbell to act as a double-agent and broadcast coded Nazi secrets during his program. Campbell agrees, even though the Americans insist they will never acknowledge him, a circumstance which places him in an uncomfortable situation when the Nazis lose the war. Campbell begins an anonymous life in New York City, but even his friendship with neighbor George Kraft (Alan Arkin) makes it difficult for him to live without Helga and with the growing realization that he may have been more villain than hero.
The title of MOTHER NIGHT comes from a line in Goethe's "Faust" about the interdependence of Good and Evil, and it is that gray area which the film explores in the character of Howard W. Campbell Jr. Gordon frames the film, like the novel, as a flashback, with black-and-white segments of Campbell awaiting trial in Israel and preparing his memoirs, so there is a built-in sense of impending justice. Nick Nolte contributes to that feeling with one of his best performances in years as a man whose history begins to weigh him down, and who learns the hard way that it is impossible to remain apolitical when politics turns to war. It is a finely constructed narrative which holds the focus on one of Vonnegut's key lines: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
There is a difference, however, between retaining lines and retaining the tone of those lines, and that is where Robert B. Weide's script becomes a disappointment. Though MOTHER NIGHT deals with heavy subject matter -- conscience, personal identity, the Holocaust -- Vonnegut never resorted to heaviness to tell the story. The kind of detached irony which is Vonnegut's stock in trade is tough to convey cinematically, and Gordon steers instead into the twin extremes of overly straight drama (as in the scene where Campbell watches an old newsreel of himself with growing horror) or broad comedy (the portrayal of a collection of hate-mongers who idolize Campbell). There are certainly moments where Gordon hits just the right note, like the opening shot of an Israeli flag underscored by Bing Crosby's rendition of "White Christmas," or the off-handed comment by fellow prisoner Adolph Eichmann (the disembodied voice of Henry Gibson) when Campbell accuses him of the murder of of six million Jews -- "I can spare a few of them for you." Too often, however, the earnestness becomes burdensome.
It is an example of Gordon and Weide's traditional filmic story-telling that they try to turn certain twists of identity or plot developments into grand surprises, when Vonnegut reveals them casually through Campbell's narration long before the events occur chronologically. MOTHER NIGHT may be one of his most traditionally plotted novels, but it still isn't about the plot...it's about a perspective and an idea. Gordon has not made a bad film; it is well-acted and keeps you interested from moment to moment. He simply wants Campbell's moment of truth to come like a thunderbolt, rather than the way Vonnegut prefers to deliver it: as a single finger tapping you ever so lightly on the shoulder.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 veteran Aryans: 6.
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