December 18, 2013
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Courageou sD iscourse
Barbara Sukowa stars as Hannah Arendt, a visionary thinker who had the courage to rigorously examine and express her perspectives on the e^ls of Nazism
Arendt had a dramatic life - she was a Jew
bom and educated in Germany who fled to
Paris in 1933 as the National Socialist Party
was gaining prominence, then was briefly
interned in the infamous Gurs detention camp
before escaping to the U.S. - but the filmmak­
ers did not want to make a typical biopic that
attempts to capture all her life's major events.
They ultimately chose to focus on a four-
courage to rigorously examine hard ques­ year period, a decade after Arendt had
tions and to express and then hold to her achieved prominence as a writer, thinker, and
perspective on those questions, even in the teacher in the U.S., when she produced some
face of withering criticism?
of her most enduring and controversial work.
It took a group of strong women — includ­
In 1961, Arendt traveled to Israel to cover
ing G erm an fe m in ist w rite r-d ire c to r the trial of Adolf Eichmann for the New
Margerethe Von Trotta, co-writer Pamela Yorker. She had sought the assignment oul
Katz, and producer Bettina Brokemper - to of a keen interest in understanding what had
recognize the dramatic potential in Arendt's driven Eichmann to become such an impor­
story and bring it to life. They studied tant architect of the Nazis' deportation of
Arendt's body of work and biographical European Jews to the death camps. The film
works about her, as well as reading her letters uses actual footage of Eichmann’s testimony
and interviewing those who knew her, anx­ to show what inspired Arendt to write a
ious to capture the sense of her significance series of articles and, eventually, a book
as a thinker but also her character as a woman, explaining her now-famous theory o f the
lover, and friend.
"banality of evil."
Hannah Arendt’s riveting search for the truth
by
D arleen O rtega
I'll confess, I went to see "Hannah Arendt"
during its brief Portland theatrical run last
summer with only the vaguest notion about
its subject and with no real expectation of
being moved or entertained. I knew that
Arendt was a philosopher and political theo­
rist of some note and that her writing was of
historical importance, so J saw an opportu­
nity to further my education. A film about a
philosopher was not destined to be riveting.
But riveted I was, and quite inspired. How
often does one get the chance to see a film
whose subject is a middle-aged woman in a
supportive and connected long-term mar­
riage, who is a visionary thinker with the
In Arendt's view, acts of terrific evil ma;
and often do arise not from malevolent de
sign but from an abdication of the humai
responsibility to think critically. Eichmann':
testimony and demeanor demonstrated «
piteous quality of small-mindedness, char
acterized by persistent invocation of hierar
chies and the claim that in all of his actions
leading to the death of millions, he was
merely following orders. Arendt's work ir
response to the trial addressed the pivota]
importance of critical thinking, the courage
and intention that critical thinking requires,
and the devastating potential o f a failure tc
do so.
For many people grappling to understand
and, indeed, to distance themselves from the
enormity of the evils perpetrated by the
Nazis, Arendt's theories were not only chal­
lenging but deeply offensive. Arendt par­
ticularly angered the Jewish community by
including in her analysis observations about
the role that Jewish leaders had played in
continued
on page 16