The
Monuments Men is a 2014 war film directed by George Clooney, and
written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov. The film stars an
ensemble cast including Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman,
Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.
The
film is loosely based on the 2007 non-fiction book The Monuments Men:
Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by
Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. It follows an Allied group from the
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program that is given the task of
finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items
before Nazis destroy or steal them, during World War II.
In
1943, the Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers
in Italy. Frank Stokes convinces President Roosevelt that victory will
have little meaning if the artistic treasures of Western civilization
are lost. Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the
"Monuments Men", comprising museum directors, curators, art historians,
and an architect, to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art
to return it to its rightful owners.
In
July 1944, Claire Simone, a curator in occupied France, is forced to
assist Nazi officer Viktor Stahl in overseeing the theft of art for
either Adolf Hitler's Führermuseum or as personal property of senior
commanders such as Hermann Göring. All seems lost when she discovers
that Stahl is taking all of her gallery's contents to Germany as the
Allies approach Paris. Simone runs to the railyard to confront him, but
can only watch as he departs aboard the train carrying the cargo.
Stokes'
unit finds its work frustrated by Allied officers in the field, who
refuse to endanger their own troops for the sake of his mission. The
unit splits up to cover more ground, with varying degrees of success.
James Granger meets Simone, but she suspects the Americans want to
confiscate the stolen art for their own country, and refuses to
cooperate. British officer Donald Jeffries sneaks into occupied Bruges
at night to save Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, but is killed in the
attempt.
Richard
Campbell and Preston Savitz learn that Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was
removed by the priests of Ghent Cathedral for safekeeping, but their
truck was stopped and the panels taken. Eventually, they find and arrest
Viktor Stahl, who is hiding as a farmer, when they identify the
paintings in his house as masterpieces, at least one stolen from the
Rothschild Collection.
In
December 1944, Walter Garfield and Jean Claude Clermont get lost in the
countryside and blunder into a firefight. Clermont is mortally wounded
and dies when Garfield is unable to find medical help. Meanwhile, Simone
reconsiders when Granger shows her the Nero Decree, which orders the
destruction of all German possessions if Hitler dies or Germany falls,
and she sees him return a painting looted from a Jewish family to its
rightful place in their empty home. She provides a comprehensive ledger
she has compiled that provides valuable information on the stolen art
and the rightful owners.
Even
as the team learns that the artwork is being stored in various mines
and castles, it also learns that it must now compete against the Soviet
Union, which is seizing artwork from its occupation zone as war
reparations. Meanwhile, Colonel Wegner is systematically destroying
whole art caches. Eventually, the team has some success, as it discovers
at least one mine hiding over 16,000 art pieces. In addition, the team
captures the entire gold reserves of the Nazi German national treasury.
Finally,
as the war ends in May 1945, the team finds a mine in Austria that
appears to have been demolished, and the Soviets will be there in hours.
Discovering that the entrances were actually blocked by the locals to
prevent the Nazis from destroying the contents, the team evacuates as
much artwork as possible, including sculptures, the Ghent Altarpiece,
and the Madonna and Child, before the Soviets arrive.
Afterwards,
Stokes reports back to President Truman that the team has recovered
vast quantities of artwork and various other culturally significant
items. As he requests to stay in Europe to oversee further searching and
restoration, Truman asks Stokes if his efforts were worth the lives of
the men he lost. Stokes says they were. Truman then asks if, thirty
years from then, anyone will remember that these men died for a piece of
art. In the final scene, set in 1977, the elderly Stokes replies
"Yeah", while he takes his grandson to see Michelangelo's Madonna.
Casting
- George Clooney as Lt. Frank Stokes, loosely based on George L. Stout
- Nick Clooney plays an aged Stokes
- Matt Damon as Lt. James Granger, loosely based on James Rorimer
- Bill Murray as Sgt. Richard Campbell, loosely based on Ralph Warner Hammett and Robert K. Posey
- John Goodman as Sgt. Walter Garfield, loosely based on Walker Hancock
- Jean Dujardin as 2nd Lt. Jean-Claude Clermont
- Bob Balaban as Pvt. Preston Savitz, loosely based on Lincoln Kirstein
- Hugh Bonneville as 2nd Lt. Donald Jeffries, loosely based on Ronald E. Balfour
- Cate Blanchett as Claire Simone, loosely based on Rose Valland
- Serge Hazanavicius as René Armand, loosely based on Jacques Jaujard
- Sam Hazeldine as Colonel Langton
- Dimitri Leonidas as Pvt. Sam Epstein, loosely based on Harry L. Ettlinger
- Grant Heslov as the Army Field Surgeon
- Miles Jupp as Major Fielding
- Justus von Dohnányi as Viktor Stahl
- Zahari Baharov as Commander Elya
A
co-production between Columbia Pictures (in association with 20th
Century Fox) and Germany's Studio Babelsberg, the film was funded by the
German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) with €8.5 million, Mitteldeutsche
Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg as well as Medien- und
Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg. Casting was held in February 2013
for thousands of extras for the military scenes.
Principal photography began in early March 2013, at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany, in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, and the Harz. The mines around Bad Grund, particularly the Wiemannsbucht and the Grube Hilfe Gottes, were used in the filming of outdoor scenes. Other outdoor locations were the towns of Lautenthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Goslar, Halberstadt, Merseburg, and Osterwieck. Some of the scenes, including flights and American war base footage, were filmed at Imperial War Museum Duxford, Cambridgeshire, UK. A farm in Ashford in Kent was also used. Filming was scheduled to last until the end of June 2013, wrapping up in Rye, East Sussex.
