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I venture to say that if you ask most people today, "What do you know of the Hindenburg", most will mimic (poorly) the old Jim Carrey hyperbolic schtick "OH THE HUMANITY" .
A massive, ultra-dramatic catastrophe, occurring within the United States, much of which recorded on disc and film. Reduced to a smarmy punch line.
Welcome to some of the worst of pop culture.
No wonder this movie, which at the time was a huge box office success, is now virtually extinct, only to be stamped further into oblivion by self-appointed pseudo-historians.
I ask those who focus their criticism at the supposed "impossibilty" of the sabotage theory: Why do you dismiss sabotage so quickly? Why do you think it is impossible? Perhaps you should ask the victims of the recent London, Baghdad, and Madrid bombings what they think...
In any case, at the end of this picture, the four "most likely causes of the Hindenburg disaster" are outlined, one of which was sabotage. Yes, this story focused on that cause, but I shudder to watch any drama built around St. Elmo's Fire, structural failure, or flammable coatings.
While I am neither old enough to have experienced the time of this event, nor a scholar of the disaster, I think this depiction generates a believable, understandable re-creation of the people, politics, and technology of that time. There were many anti-Nazis in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, though their stories somehow have gone unheard. Is it so difficult to comprehend that a man, who lost a son to an malignant social subculture, quickly finds sympathy with another young man who is willing to die in order to boldly resist evil (the very evil which consumed his son)? You mean to tell me, in light of all the recent events, such a premise seems unrealistic? Wise's "The Hindenburg" is such an enriching if somewhat melodramatic telling of this tale. I would prefer to watch this movie -flaws and all - to the pathetic teeny romance "Titanic" or the moronic and soulless "Pearl Harbor".
Cast off your faux cinematic preconceptions. Forget CSI, The Matrix, MTV... in fact, jettison maybe 99% of current pop culture. Try to understand an event in the context of its time. If you do so , maybe films like "The Hindenburg" might be appreciated.
score 8/10
avallyee 17 September 2005
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1174238/ |
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1-12-2019 07:59:31