A look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for 'The New Yorker' on the trial of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.A look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for 'The New Yorker' on the trial of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.A look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for 'The New Yorker' on the trial of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
- Awards
- 7 wins & 18 nominations
Leila Lallali
- Student Laureen
- (as Leila Schaus)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFor a deeper understanding of this story, one might care to watch Operation Finale (2018), which depicts the undercover mission to find and extract Adolf Eichmann from Argentina and bring him to trial in Israel. Showing the background of an operation sanctioned by PM David Ben-Gurion, the film gives a glimpse of the complexity of Eichman's character, his futile attempts to justify his actions and tell his side of the story.
- GoofsWhen Arendt stands on the terrace of her hotel in Jerusalem at looks across the Valley of Hinnom at the Old City, there are Israel flags flying from the Tower of David complex. However, the Old City of Jerusalem was still under Jordanian control in 1961.
- Quotes
Hannah Arendt: You describe a book I never wrote.
Siegfried Moses: A book that will never be allowed in Israel. And won't appear anywhere else either if you have any decency left.
Hannah Arendt: You ban books, and lecture me about decency!
- ConnectionsFeatured in Kino Kino: Hannah Arendt (2013)
Featured review
The film "Hannah Arendt" depicts an intriguing and contradictory intellectual but avoids examining the political core of the famous controversy it recounts. Arendt stirred a furor with her 1963 writings on the Israeli government's trial in Jerusalem of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann. She characterized Eichmann, who had organized the transport of European Jews to the death camps, as a banal bureaucrat rather than a singular monster. She wrote that European Jewish leaders, too, were responsible, by administering submission to the Nazis when even futile resistance and chaos might have allowed more Jews to survive. The public attacks on Arendt are shown. She was pilloried, particularly by Jewish intellectuals, as an unfeeling Nazi sympathizer and self-hating Jew. The New School's move to fire her is also enacted.
But the film, which shows Arendt as shocked to learn that she has hurt the feelings of many Jews, including long-time friends, does not reveal that she had broken with the Zionist leaders in 1942 when they called for a Jewish state rather than the bi-national Palestine she supported. The Zionists opposed measures to rescue Jews from the Nazis other than those that herded them to Palestine. They claimed, however, that their takeover of Palestine was all about saving Jews from a unique evil -- a claim unchallenged by most liberals as well as the Stalinist left. Arendt's analysis hit the Zionists' guilty conscience and undermined the rationale for their nationalist project. The film ignores these crucial political elements, and presents Arendt's strong defender and friend only as novelist "Mary" without disclosing that Mary McCarthy was an anti-Stalinist and anti-Zionist who called Zionism the "Jewish final solution."
Director Margarethe von Trotta's failure to explore this relevant history leaves her film interesting but superficial when it could have been brave and timely. Arendt's famous topic, thoughtless compliance with evildoers in power, needs our attention today more than ever. Fifty years after the "Banality of Evil" controversy, U.S. liberals and progressives are blindly uncritical of a leader who spies on millions and remotely executes foreigners and citizens in the name of national security. A militarily mighty Zionist state is still free to massacre innocents, shielded by this unquestioned U.S. power and the old sacred cow that Israel is the only safe haven for Jews. Arendt might have had some juicy comments about the "banality of filmmaking."
Rita Freed
But the film, which shows Arendt as shocked to learn that she has hurt the feelings of many Jews, including long-time friends, does not reveal that she had broken with the Zionist leaders in 1942 when they called for a Jewish state rather than the bi-national Palestine she supported. The Zionists opposed measures to rescue Jews from the Nazis other than those that herded them to Palestine. They claimed, however, that their takeover of Palestine was all about saving Jews from a unique evil -- a claim unchallenged by most liberals as well as the Stalinist left. Arendt's analysis hit the Zionists' guilty conscience and undermined the rationale for their nationalist project. The film ignores these crucial political elements, and presents Arendt's strong defender and friend only as novelist "Mary" without disclosing that Mary McCarthy was an anti-Stalinist and anti-Zionist who called Zionism the "Jewish final solution."
Director Margarethe von Trotta's failure to explore this relevant history leaves her film interesting but superficial when it could have been brave and timely. Arendt's famous topic, thoughtless compliance with evildoers in power, needs our attention today more than ever. Fifty years after the "Banality of Evil" controversy, U.S. liberals and progressives are blindly uncritical of a leader who spies on millions and remotely executes foreigners and citizens in the name of national security. A militarily mighty Zionist state is still free to massacre innocents, shielded by this unquestioned U.S. power and the old sacred cow that Israel is the only safe haven for Jews. Arendt might have had some juicy comments about the "banality of filmmaking."
Rita Freed
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- 漢娜鄂蘭:真理無懼
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $717,205
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $31,270
- Jun 2, 2013
- Gross worldwide
- $8,880,936
- Runtime1 hour 53 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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