Male-only gatherings are mostly pretty dismal affairs, rapidly descending into trivia, boorishness, rivalry, ribaldry, or in general the lowest common denominator. But each of us men has probably experienced - maybe just once or twice in our lives - a memorable-for-life meeting made up solely of members of one's own sex in which the superficialities are for once forgotten, and we get down to talking and thinking seriously on what really matters. And there is something truly meaningful and memorable about that - so much so that it explains why veterans of World War One (some of whom I spoke to myself) said they "wouldn't have missed it" despite all the unending horror.
Why does it mostly take such extreme circumstances to bring out something so worthwhile?
That's just one of many conundra that "God on Trial" has to offer us from its corncuopia of amazing things...
The disgrace, evil, shame, hideousness that was Auschwitz was surely the most extreme circumstance ever engineered in which a down-to-earth discussion of the above kind could have taken place, yet it is potentially a true story that a mix of educated and less-educated, devout and less-devout, decent and less-decent men there really did decide to put God on trial.
They were the people supremely entitled and supremely qualified to do it...
And whether the above in real life was as mesmerisingly brilliant as in Frank Cottrell-Price's TV play is hard to know, and seems perhaps unlikely. For what we have here is erudite genius and nuance on a level rarely encountered on the screen. Of course, it features men surrounded by death and about to die, and those are the circumstances that should generate paranoia, mania and psychopathy, apathy or evil, rather than something of lasting beauty.
How fair is it that the original "trial" took place, and how fair is it to make a work of art out of that in 2008?
Hard to say, but here we are...
"God on Trial" is something magnificent and it is indeed a work of art. Actors (mostly still looking wellish-fed, it must be admitted) are shaved and (for much of the film) dressed uniformly in their Auschwitz stripes. They have nothing left to rely on but their skills, and boy are those ever on show here! Rarely, if ever will you have seen ACTING like this. It's a breathtaking treat, offered to us (on a one-time only basis in this configuration) by actors British and Irish, Swedish, French and Polish. If you want their (mostly very famous) names it's no problem to find them, but each and every one gives a performance of LIFETIME-BEST INTENSITY AND QUALITY.
Wow!
WOW!
Yet as they deliver their lines of erudition and exasperation, fear and faith, we somehow get a flickering (and presumably authentic) vision of mercy, gentleness, decency, openness, willingness to communicate, desire to understand that is transfixing in the middle of all the fear and awfulness. There is an intense beauty in it and it's utterly surprising.
Amazingly, Jewish-style wisecracks are not entirely absent, so you will get the odd laugh out of this, which is just right for such a group of men even in an 11th-hour circumstance. But the searching questions asked, the observations made, will bring out the tears in the toughest watcher - and again that is as much a matter of the gravitas of those eternal questions as it is of the harrowing stories people have to tell, and their dreadful current and upcoming experiences at the infamous Auschwitz.
The ending here is only one (this is an extermination camp), yet the film takes a remarkable last-scene turn, and there is so much subtlety to this that you would watch 5 times before picking it all up. Although I warn about spoilers, and usually have no scruples about emphasising key details, here I am less inclined. But the way our heroes and heroic anti-heroes react at the last is a remarkable encapsulation in film of how good the very best of human beings and HUMAN behaviour can really be.
Long ago I noticed the secret of Michelangelo's (Christian rather than Jewish) depiction of the Old Testament figures of God and Adam, in which God strains and stretches out to the hand of Adam, whose relative nonchalance is made plain by the slight limpness of his wrist. God is doing most of the work here, clearly needing something from his creation. In the same vein, "God on Trial" puts a line into one of its characters to the effect that maybe God needs the best of what humanity can offer to be complete. Later, "God on Trial" goes (pseudo-blasphemously) further in suggesting - through both words and actions - that the very best and most beautiful things human beings can do (seen so rarely and yet by no means never; and certainly on show in this final concentration-camp scene) might complete God, and actualy round off some of those rougher edges regularly visible in the Old Testament and quoted at length here.
The master shapes the pupil in the hope that the latter might one day and in some way exceed the former. Being good (or merciless) comes with equal ease to an omnipotent being, but to a human being goodness may require a more supreme effort - and all the more so when faced with unmitigated evil.
But that might leave it looking like a still-greater achievement!
So "God on Trial" is not "The Ten Commandments", but something vastly more nuanced, real, full of doubts, assertions, rebellious accusations and real thought-through meaning and worth. It's ultimate conclusion - if I receive it as I believe I was intended to - is remarkable, revolutionary, humanist in the extreme, yet also PROFOUNDLY religious and "Godly".
Immense food for thought, and just SUPERB. If I could, I would give it 11 out of 10...
Why does it mostly take such extreme circumstances to bring out something so worthwhile?
That's just one of many conundra that "God on Trial" has to offer us from its corncuopia of amazing things...
The disgrace, evil, shame, hideousness that was Auschwitz was surely the most extreme circumstance ever engineered in which a down-to-earth discussion of the above kind could have taken place, yet it is potentially a true story that a mix of educated and less-educated, devout and less-devout, decent and less-decent men there really did decide to put God on trial.
They were the people supremely entitled and supremely qualified to do it...
And whether the above in real life was as mesmerisingly brilliant as in Frank Cottrell-Price's TV play is hard to know, and seems perhaps unlikely. For what we have here is erudite genius and nuance on a level rarely encountered on the screen. Of course, it features men surrounded by death and about to die, and those are the circumstances that should generate paranoia, mania and psychopathy, apathy or evil, rather than something of lasting beauty.
How fair is it that the original "trial" took place, and how fair is it to make a work of art out of that in 2008?
Hard to say, but here we are...
"God on Trial" is something magnificent and it is indeed a work of art. Actors (mostly still looking wellish-fed, it must be admitted) are shaved and (for much of the film) dressed uniformly in their Auschwitz stripes. They have nothing left to rely on but their skills, and boy are those ever on show here! Rarely, if ever will you have seen ACTING like this. It's a breathtaking treat, offered to us (on a one-time only basis in this configuration) by actors British and Irish, Swedish, French and Polish. If you want their (mostly very famous) names it's no problem to find them, but each and every one gives a performance of LIFETIME-BEST INTENSITY AND QUALITY.
Wow!
WOW!
Yet as they deliver their lines of erudition and exasperation, fear and faith, we somehow get a flickering (and presumably authentic) vision of mercy, gentleness, decency, openness, willingness to communicate, desire to understand that is transfixing in the middle of all the fear and awfulness. There is an intense beauty in it and it's utterly surprising.
Amazingly, Jewish-style wisecracks are not entirely absent, so you will get the odd laugh out of this, which is just right for such a group of men even in an 11th-hour circumstance. But the searching questions asked, the observations made, will bring out the tears in the toughest watcher - and again that is as much a matter of the gravitas of those eternal questions as it is of the harrowing stories people have to tell, and their dreadful current and upcoming experiences at the infamous Auschwitz.
The ending here is only one (this is an extermination camp), yet the film takes a remarkable last-scene turn, and there is so much subtlety to this that you would watch 5 times before picking it all up. Although I warn about spoilers, and usually have no scruples about emphasising key details, here I am less inclined. But the way our heroes and heroic anti-heroes react at the last is a remarkable encapsulation in film of how good the very best of human beings and HUMAN behaviour can really be.
Long ago I noticed the secret of Michelangelo's (Christian rather than Jewish) depiction of the Old Testament figures of God and Adam, in which God strains and stretches out to the hand of Adam, whose relative nonchalance is made plain by the slight limpness of his wrist. God is doing most of the work here, clearly needing something from his creation. In the same vein, "God on Trial" puts a line into one of its characters to the effect that maybe God needs the best of what humanity can offer to be complete. Later, "God on Trial" goes (pseudo-blasphemously) further in suggesting - through both words and actions - that the very best and most beautiful things human beings can do (seen so rarely and yet by no means never; and certainly on show in this final concentration-camp scene) might complete God, and actualy round off some of those rougher edges regularly visible in the Old Testament and quoted at length here.
The master shapes the pupil in the hope that the latter might one day and in some way exceed the former. Being good (or merciless) comes with equal ease to an omnipotent being, but to a human being goodness may require a more supreme effort - and all the more so when faced with unmitigated evil.
But that might leave it looking like a still-greater achievement!
So "God on Trial" is not "The Ten Commandments", but something vastly more nuanced, real, full of doubts, assertions, rebellious accusations and real thought-through meaning and worth. It's ultimate conclusion - if I receive it as I believe I was intended to - is remarkable, revolutionary, humanist in the extreme, yet also PROFOUNDLY religious and "Godly".
Immense food for thought, and just SUPERB. If I could, I would give it 11 out of 10...