The Monuments Men

What’s interesting about The Monuments Men is that despite having an impressive cast, fine production values, and a story that seems made for the movies, it is in fact not terribly good. It’s not unwatchable but it’s not really worth watching either.

If you haven't been here before, please take a look at the Introduction to Generations, the Generational Attributes and the Four Stories in order to get up to speed on how all this works, and the terms being used.

It even follows the outline of this story model, where we have a story set in the Fourth Turning, a heroic story, with teamwork and  sacrifice -  and still it doesn't quite work in this way.  It’s unexpectedly like Manos, the Hands of Fate - which similarly doesn’t work despite having a story that is  well-suited to its era. The issues are perhaps more obvious in The Monuments Men because they are not obscured behind poor sound and awful acting. 

In The Monuments Men, George Clooney and an all star cast tells the story of Americans attempting to save works of art that had been pillaged by the Nazis during World War II. Because there is intelligence that the Nazis will destroy the art if Germany falls, and also that the Soviets are grabbing what they find as recompense for their substantial losses in the war, the Men are practically on the front lines as the war in Europe is coming to a close. The setting, then, is a Fourth Turning - World War II. The characters - played by Gen X and Boomer actors such as George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and Bob Balaban - are based loosely on G.I., Lost generation members of this real-life team. We can expect an Heroic story, and that is ultimately the film’s story: Working together on the edge of the World War II battles, a group of volunteer art experts risk their lives in an attempt to preserve and recover artwork stolen by the Nazis.

What does go wrong then seems like the easy place to start. Broadly the tone seems off:  as if it can’t decide if it’s a heist film or a war film, a tragedy or a comedy. There is sacrifice to be sure but. (notwithstanding comments later) they don’t help the story get to where it’s going. One sacrifice is made by a man who sneaks in to confirm Michealangelo’s Madonna of Bruges, surprise the Nazis sneaking off with it, and gets shot. The other death is similarly a surprise as our heroes find themselves caught between American and Nazi forces. 

This stumbling into mortal danger is a common trope in the film, and it may be the tonal problem. We find out as we go what has happened to these works and it’s not arranged in a way that heroics are clear. We see some artworks packed up - sometimes by the Nazis, others by the owner - and then we don’t see them again until found. There s no sense of danger - and so when these artworks ARE put in danger late in the film, it’s shocking but not involving. 

The film focuses quite reasonably, on a few primary artworks: The Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna. This would give us a way to connect with the mission, but it’s difficult to see that they are at risk.  Perhaps we see the altarpiece being n transported and always a moment or two from destruction. Perhaps early on we see a Picasso burned, rather than being told that’s what happened. An early scene refers to the Battle of Monte Cassino, a medieval abbey that was destroyed -by the Allies - during battles in Italy. It was really a tragedy, one that was based on the fog of war as much as anything, and it a few minutes focus on it could have been used to get the audience involved in the stakes and how they mattered.

Because here’s the deal: Monte Cassino was on a mountaintop abbey, and as such was a perfect place to defend this area of Italy. Because it was so important architecturally and historically, both sides were avoiding anything that could impinge on its status as a neutral and important work of art. But the allies, after an extended attempt to move past it, concluded that the Axis soldiers were using it as a defendable position. After a month of fruitless attacks, the allies bombed it, destroying it completely. But the truth was, they weren’t using it in that way - until it was destroyed, which allowed them to continue to hold off the allies for another three months.

So we have here the inevitabiilities of war leading to he complete destruction of artwork that was historically important, and for nothing. By making the allies the source of the destruction, the broad-based problems with the goals of the Monuments men could be made clearer. 

But can we use the model to help with this?  To start, it should be more explicitly heroic. This shouldn’t be difficult: It’s a World War II movie, the opponents are Nazis, the dangers are real. There should be an expectation of success and the realization of it. This is muddled perhaps because the artworks, while recognizable, are not necessarily well known, like say the Mona Lisa or even Michelangelo’s other sculptures. The description of the Madonna of Bruges overcomes this nicely, but it is relatively late. Setting that up earlier might be helpful. Perhaps a similar one for the Ghent Altarpiece, and a third for some piece of art known or believed to have been destroyed. (Monte Cassino might work for that purpose, too.)

Continuing to the notion of sacrifice, and specifically that it is helpful for the sacrifice to drive the story. The platoon in Saving Private Ryan loses a man at a time in different ways but always as a way to save others and to save Ryan. Frodo is “wounded, wounded” early in The Lord of the Rings, as he and his friends try to escape the Nazgûl, escalating the stakes. But here, the losses make practically no difference in the story and their final resolution. Alternatively,   it could be instead about “if you have a war, people die and art is destroyed, and choices must be made.”  To the extent that they are about the inevitable losses in war - the natural result of being in a place where men get killed and treasures get destroyed - the film could instead be  focused on that. it’s mostly a tale about the reclamation of these works of art, rather than the sacrifices needed. 

Finally, there is precious little teamwork here. There is a leader, but the individuals keep going off on their own adventures which hardly tie together. Not only would it make the film hang together more if everyone was after the same things, it would enable more interesting conflict. Bob Balaban’s character, for example, is notable because he’s given a private’s rank and seems generally annoyed with that situation. If the team was working as a team more, it would not only make sacrifices more tangible and goals more heroic, it would highlight interpersonal conflicts - personality, goals, relative importance - in a way to make the story more involving overall.