Monuments Men
The folks at the National Gallery of Arts wrote to tell us of the new George Clooney movie due out soon, called “Monuments Men” based on Robert M. Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History about folks, many of whom were employees of the National Gallery of Arts, as they tracked down the historic pieces which were looted from Europe’s collections.
The MFAA’s officers bravely followed frontline troops into war zones. Among them were Lt. Charles P. Parkhurst, Jr., the Gallery’s former registrar and eventual assistant director, and Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Capt. Edith Standen, secretary to the Widener Collection, the great gift of donor Joseph P. Widener that had only recently been installed in the museum’s galleries.
“The finding [of looted art] was either easy or accidental, ” Parkhurst told a Gallery oral historian 45 years after his service in the MFAA. “Usually we had clues from shippers, from local residents who said, ‘well, there’s something funny about that castle.’ ”
Chasing one such rumor, Parkhurst happened upon a full-sized cast of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais (1884–95), which German soldiers en route to Baden had been forced to abandon on a mountainside. Parkhurst continued up the mountain to the castle at its peak and found room upon room of plundered art. “The owner of the castle gave me a cup of tea and a list of the objects. [He] said ‘I’ve been wondering how long it would take you guys to get here!'”
There’s more at the link that you should read about a little known historical event. I can’t stand Clooney, so I guess I’ll wait to rent the movie, but you do what you do..
Category: Historical
Easy or accidental you say? Let’s make a movie about it!
Hollywood I’m still waiting for a movie about phantom fury you twats.
Producer:
“Is there a script about wartime we can put Clooney in, because you know he’s THE big box office draw. It can even be about recruits learning to polish their boots as long as we can get George in LOTS of close-ups spitting on his shoes.”
Director:
“Yea we got some kinda’ thing about some stolen pictures or something like that, I’m not sure but I think we could work Clooney into it big time!”
Producer:
“Done! Never mind the budget or the story I just want lots of Clooney, Clooney, Clooney, up close…lots of him!!! Will he be painting any of the pictures? That would be great if we could make it happen”
Director:
“Will do. I’ll call his agent today.”
Might be a good history story from the war but I HATE Georgie Boy Clooney!
So-so actor. He’s a stiff. Never changes the way he speaks or moves.
Really, it was a fascinating bit of history. But a movie about it starring Clooney? No can do.
George Clooney is on my list of actors i will not pay to see. The Butler may have been a fine movie but i will not pay to see hanoi jane making fun of a fine first lady.
Clooney is, IMHO, what used to be called a ‘safe’ date on Saturday night. Just my opinion. I could be wrong.
“When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun!” Attributed to hienrich himmler and your average ignorant southern white trash redneck!
Clooney will always be Booker on Rosanne to me. Ugh. That said, it looks like a good movie.
#7 Do you hold your manhood cheap because, while those of us who raised our right hand and swore or attested to defend the US Constitution, you ran away and hid?
If so, please be quiet while the grown-ups talk.
VWP, could you please provide a reference ANYWHERE that proves your second statement true? If not, then STFU and DIAF.
@10 That is a poetic license, I am a poet too! Sample: They paint these walls to still my pen but the ……… poets strikes again!
Ah, nice to see that VWP has his/her/it’s internet privileges back. Guess mommy isn’t mad anymore about the milk spilled on the good furniture.
@7–you do realize that Clooney is from Kentucky, yes? Good.
The premise of this movie is typical of arts commune liberalism. Fighting and dying for your country is a crime. But, there are some precious oil paintings and sculpture that the Nazis plan to do harm against — now that’s what we need to fight and die for!
When U.S. forces went into Baghdad, there was no outrage against the murder and torture of Iraqis citizens by al Quaeda, but there was genuine outrage about the looting of museums and the U.S. failure to secure the museums from the Iraqi looters. It’s the Charles Kuralt Sunday Morning Show litmus test for war.
I won’t see this movie because even if I saw it, there is no one I know who would care to converse about a) George Clooney, or b) Risking my life for an oil painting of daisies.
@11 So mommy said you could be anything you want, because you’re a special, special boy/girl/tumor/thing/whatever. That’s why you got your own special seat on that short bus. And now you’re a “poet” because…you want to be a poet, and mommy said you could be anything you want. So now you’re right up there with Yeats, Whitman, etc. because mommy said so. Never mind that you possess only the most tenuous grasp of the written English language, or any language at all, which pretty much everybody can agree would be rather important to poetry.
Scrawling words that sort of rhyme with eachother in crayon doesn’t make you a poet. It makes you a kindergartener, asshole. And what you erroneously call “poetic license” is actually known as “making up stupid, ridiculous shit that everybody knows is false.”
I say this from the bottom of my heart, VWPansy: get fucked by a rabid honey badger.
The Military Channel had something like this last week on the “Nazi Hunter” series. It was about a German art historian that fled pre-war Germany and then worked with the US Army during and after the war to repatriate German art theft. The main thrustb of the show was about the “Spear of Destiny” and finding it (and a lot more) in bombed out Nuremberg.
vietnam war protestor: I fixed comment 11 for ya. I’m pretty sure this was what you actually meant to say:
@10 That is putzetic license, I am a putz too! Sample: They paint these walls to still my pen but the ……… putz strikes again!
No charge for the correction. De nada.
Hey guys – don’t worry about Clooney, but pick up the book that the movie is based on. It is AMAZING and a riveting read. These guys are heroes that worked on a shoestring budget and saved so much. They need to be lauded.
Ya know – I learned something here today. I had no idea that the recovery of these works of art was about the artsy community! All these years I thought it was about the recovery of private property and national treasures stolen by the Nazis.
Yeah, there might have been some sarcasm in there. 😉