#202: Hitler Heil-arity, Pt. 2: Jojo Rabbit

The Next Picture Show

Filmspotting

Tv & Film, Film History, Film Reviews

4.6 • 858 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2019

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our brief, incomplete history of cinema’s attempts to make comedy out of Adolf Hitler brings us to the present day and writer-director Taika Waititi’s discussion-generating “anti-hate satire” JOJO RABBIT, which doesn’t share much in the way of thematic material with our last film, Mel Brooks’ THE PRODUCERS, but does exhibit a similar eagerness to paint the führer as an object of ridicule. We discuss whether JOJO succeeds in walking the tricky tonal tightrope it sets itself on, and try to locate the precise nature of the controversy the film has invited, on our way to discussing what it shares with THE PRODUCERS not just in its depiction of Hitler, but also how both films present insecure and anxious figures under the sway of terrible mentors, and how both engage, to different extremes, with the idea of women as playthings. Plus, Your Next Picture Show, where we share recent filmgoing experiences in hopes of putting something new on your cinematic radar. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE PRODUCERS, JOJO RABBIT, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Your Next Picture Show: • Genevieve: Taika Waititi’s BOY • Scott: Disney’s PERRI (1957) • Genevieve: Jérémy Clapin’s I LOST MY BODY Outro Music: The Beatles, “Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand” **Thanks Skillshare. Get 2 months of unlimited access at Skillshare.com/nextpicture.** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.
0:05.1	You believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?
0:11.9	We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.
0:19.7	Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film in the way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.
0:26.0	I'm Scott Tobias here again with...
0:27.5	Taj Robinson and Genevieve Kosky.
0:29.2	On our last episode, we talked about Mel Brooks's The Producers, which broached the sticky question of how to make a comedy around Adolf Hitler.
0:36.4	On this episode, we're bringing in
0:37.7	Jojo Rabbit, Tycho Wattiti's controversial new coming of age film about a 10-year-old German
0:42.8	boy named Jojo Bessler in the waning days of World War II. Jojo lives alone with his caring
0:48.6	mother, Rosie, played by Scarlett Johansson, and he's firmly in the nationalist grasp of
0:53.3	Nazi Germany, thanks in part
0:54.9	to his relationship to his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler, played by Watiti.
0:59.8	While in a Hitler youth training camp, Jojo develops a relationship with a cynical Captain
1:03.9	Klzendorf, played by Sam Rockwell, but back home, his loyalties are complicated by the discovery
1:09.0	of a Jewish girl hiding in the upstairs crawl space.
1:12.0	Her name is Elsa Kor, played by Thomas and McKenzie, and while Jojo's instinct is to turn
1:17.4	her in, he's persuaded that doing so would get his mother killed. Over time, of course, his
1:22.4	feelings start to change, as he listens less to his imaginary friend and more to the girl in the
1:27.3	crawl space and to his own developing and more to the girl in the crawl space
1:27.9	and to his own developing conscience.
1:30.6	At the same time, the war is starting to turn against the Nazis in dramatic fashion,
	...

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