[HANNAH ARENDT screens Saturday November 16th at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Pamela Zoslov
It's not easy to
make a movie about a writer. What do they do, except sit in front of
a typewriter and think, type and worry? So imagine
you're director Margarethe von Trotta, and your subject is Hannah
Arendt, the German-Jewish writer, philosopher and political theorist
best known for the term “the banality of evil.” Writing,
philosophizing and theorizing, three of the least visually dynamic
activities on earth. One solution: have your subject smoke. A lot. So
many cigarettes are consumed during HANNAH ARENDT, I
wouldn't be surprised if the film's crew got cancer.
