And Now, a Nazi Art History Lesson from George Clooney

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And Now, a Nazi Art History Lesson from George Clooney

by Julie Miller

If this whole “movie star” thing suddenly backfires on George Clooney and the world no longer needs handsome humanitarians/tequila manufacturers, the actor seems qualified to transition from Hollywood to the art history program at your local community college. At least, that is how it seems in a new W Magazine feature, in which Clooney spends a third of his Q&A answering Lynn Hirschberg’s questions about Nazi art history. Clooney’s impressive knowledge of the topic, we assume, was gleaned while researching for The Monuments Men, the upcoming period film Clooney co-produced, co-wrote, directed, and stars in.

For the best possible visual of Clooney as an art history professor, imagine that the following exchange with W Magazine as enacted by Clooney in a lecture hall while wearing an ill-fitting turtleneck sweater, picking at his ungroomed beard, and trying his best not to be offended that a third of his students are dozing off or on their phones.

Hitler was amassing an enormous art collection. Was he planning to open his own museum?

Yes—he wanted to build a Führer Museum. He had a model of it in the bunker with him! He wanted to steal all the great art in the world, and he was well on his way—during the war, he collected 5 million pieces. He also destroyed works he termed “degenerate art.” The Nazis took amazing Picassos and Klees and Mirós and burned them in the garden outside the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris. They wanted to prove that they were illegitimate and had to be destroyed. Hitler pulled off the greatest art heist in the history of the world—luckily, some of that art has been recovered.

Wasn’t Hitler a painter before he became a politician?

Yes, he was a failed artist in Vienna. In the film, we show a couple of his ­watercolors. If he had only been a little bit better at painting, history might be different.

Did Hitler have particular artists he favored?

He loved da Vinci! Starting in the late 1930s, he sent professors to the greatest museums in the world to have “meetings,” but they were secretly making lists of all the paintings and their locations for Hitler. When the Nazis conquered a country, he would take the art.

The knowledgeable actor stars in the based-on-real-events film as the leader of a World War II platoon who attempt to rescue art stolen by Adolf Hitler. Co-starring Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, and Hugh Bonneville, George Clooney’s gift to under-prepared history lecturers bows in theaters February

Lakin460 wrote:I feel bad that my remarks were so disparaging on the other threads, so I'm going to say something nice here.
George is impressive in how much he knows.  It is obvious that he thoroughly prepared for this project and I like how he can hold an intelligent conversation, not only in information value, but also in entertainment value.  That's the one thing besides his looks that keeps me attracted to him and that is I think he'd be a fascinating companion mentally.  I never used to think he was particularly intelligent until I came here and began to follow him more closely.  He's articulate and he's informed and this interview is a clear marker of that.  
There, see, I can be nice......

Lakin460 wrote:I feel bad that my remarks were so disparaging on the other threads, so I'm going to say something nice here.
George is impressive in how much he knows.  It is obvious that he thoroughly prepared for this project and I like how he can hold an intelligent conversation, not only in information value, but also in entertainment value.  That's the one thing besides his looks that keeps me attracted to him and that is I think he'd be a fascinating companion mentally.  I never used to think he was particularly intelligent until I came here and began to follow him more closely.  He's articulate and he's informed and this interview is a clear marker of that.  
There, see, I can be nice......