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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I haven't yet read Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (though I've read other books of his, all outstanding pieces of satire and game-changing novel pieces). After seeing Keith Gordon's film adaptation of his book, it will be an immediate must-read in the near future. It's the kind of material that I'm sure if it wasn't made in 1995/96 as a film, it would be picked up right away today in the time period when many period post/present-Holocaust/WW2 movies are quite popular. Except that this is much darker, though even more resonant, about the nature of playing roles and the real underlying horror of living with life after war than say The Reader. It's about the very real danger of pretending in wartime, which is what being a spy in WW2 is really all about.It would be one thing if Mother Night had a script with a lot of emotional depth and complexity about the moral choice and constant role- even after the war ends- for Howard W. Cambpell (Nick Nolte), which is does. But it's also just a really strong feat of cinematic technique. Keith Gordon is not someone I usually think of as a director of really strong material (more-so I think back to him as an actor, oddly enough featured briefly with Vonnegut himself in Back to School), but this is a revelation. He takes the story of Campbell as a story of a fractured life: a German propaganda master (the "only American left in Berlin"), who is actually a spy for the Americans but can never have his identity revealed, and was before a playwright who really belonged to "a nation of two", himself and his wife (Sheryl Lee). It follows him from his prison cell, awaiting trial in Israel in 1961, as he writes his memoir and tells of his disillusionment about being a 'pretend' Nazi, and then in 1960 in semi-hiding in a New York apartment, which is where the bulk of the film takes place.Mother Night can be quite heavy, like on a level one might associate with the Pianist, but on another more emotional-cerebral level than the stark poetry of that film. Gordon, by way of Vonnegut, is trying to give us a strong look at a man who has nothing, except the memory (and then later a weird transposition) of his long lost love in a "sister" who has come back to him in NYC, so he's left to his own devices when he befriends a painter (Alan Arkin, very very good here), and then is found out as a Nazi-in-hiding by a white supremacist newsletter, leading wackos to his apartment. On the surface this should be just a straightforward spy story, but not a thing is straightforward. The 'something' of this man's life is staggering, but it's ultimately of his own choosing. Campbell is one of those characters that could be analyzed for hours on end, but the same conclusions might be reached (and, in a way, mirrors the line Goebbels said): the bigger the lie, the more people believe it. That is except for the select few who started the lie and know its secret and power.But oh, it would be one thing if it were just a wonderful and tragic-comic tale, or another if it were featuring some really fantastic performances (which is does: Nolte is at his very best here, and Sheryl Lee, who we might remember from Twin Peaks as Laura Palmer, stuns in multiple roles, especially in the scene when she reveals she's not 'really' Helga). It's also a gorgeously shot film, with brilliant lighting and shots that reflect the state of mind of the character, or just the starkness or sickening colors of the time (watch the scene where an old Campbell watches a film of his younger self spouting out a rant, the juxtaposition of faces is great). And the music selections rise the level of tragedy. It could be argued some of the music is too much, but at other times it elevates the material past its own usual dramatic dimensions and makes it operatic, solemn about human nature.It's not always an easy film to take emotionally, and some of the twists do have that tinge of "whoa" as in any spy story. But it's the subversion from Vonnegut that sticks through, the way of taking appearance and performance, of life imitating art imitating life imitating death, and making it into something worth remembering. I have no idea just yet if the book is better than the film (or the other way around), but at the moment it's hard for me not to recommend this to anyone looking for a masterpiece of post WW2/holocaust storytelling.

I have not read the novel, or anything other by Kurt Vonnegut, but I am now intending to start. This grips you from the very first frame, and does not let go until the end credits start rolling. Taking you places you don't expect, the plot is interesting throughout. The pacing is spot-on, nothing lasts too long, and this does a perfect job of balancing between unexpected twists and allowing the viewer to process what we've seen. It is well-told and well-thought out. I've never watched a film that I feel I could particularly compare this to. It is intense and exciting, as well as funny and sad. The acting is excellent, Nolte absolutely shines, Goodman again proves that he doesn't have to go for laughs, and Lee and Arkin are spellbinding. I could go on, really... no role is treated to a less than stellar performance. The editing and cinematography are marvelous, and all of the visuals are great, with a couple of unforgettable and astonishing ones. I am going to go for other movies directed by Keith Gordon, as well as the other two apparently related to this, through the author of the books. There is one scene of sexuality, and a lot disturbing and unsettling content in this. I recommend this to anyone who can appreciate it; it is not pleasant. 8/10

I am a huge fan of Vonnegut's work and I'm very fond of this movie, but I wouldn't say that this is a film of the "Mother Night" that I read. When people say that Vonnegut is unfilmable, two things come to my mind. One is that many of his themes are very near the knuckle or even taboo, despite the accusation sometimes used against him that he chooses relatively "easy" targets for his satire. This means less every day that passes as far as filmability is concerned. Directors these days appear to revel in breaking taboos and I have high hopes for the version of "Bluebeard" now in production. Amazing to think that an innocent piece like Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" would probably have been the equivalent of "R" rated if filmed when it was published back in the 50s, for its violence, language and sexual and thematic content, though it's a tragedy that nobody's come up yet with a filmable script for it. And in the present economic climate, I also hope some director out there is looking closely at "Jailbird", "Galapagos" and "Hocus Pocus".The other thing is his narrative style, heaping irony upon irony upon irony but still making it hilariously funny. It seems impossible to objectify, and that appears to be the biggest obstacle to making great films of his great novels, because the little authorial comments that colour our response as readers are just not possible in movies without resorting to too often clumsy techniques like "talkovers". Vonnegut suggested that there was a character missing from filmed versions of his work, himself as author/narrator. To its credit, "Breakfast of Champions" (the movie) tried to keep the comedy and came a bit of a cropper for its pains. As did another turkey made from a Vonnegut novel, "Slapstick" in an even more spectacular way.Still, there's nothing wrong with a director giving us his subjective interpretation of Vonnegut, and "Mother Night" is an excellent example of how, as another reviewer put it, a good director can add a visual poetry to a source like this. But so much of the humour is lost that though it's the same plot, it's not really from the same novel I read. If it had been, I'd probably have been rolling in the aisles laughing a few times watching it. For a reader of the novel, I think a chuckle even at the end is forgivable. The end of the film, however, is truly poignant, and I think one of the film's successes is that it can genuinely leave you feeling that you've watched someone walk a razor's edge between good and evil, and the jury is still out.Standing alone and of itself it's well worth a look. Technically there are some minor but glaring errors, notably in continuity, and it too often looks drab and theatrical, but most of the time it hits an acceptable note and occasionally shows considerable imagination and resourcefulness. The acting in general is of a high order, even if maybe the dialogue is by today's standards a little stilted.It survives quite well watching back to back with "Slaughterhouse-5", and there is actually quite a bit more "good" filmed Vonnegut out there, mostly versions of his short stories - "Harrison Bergeron", "Who Am I This Time?" and some other things like, of course, the misfiring filmed version of his very funny but disposable play, "Happy Birthday Wanda June". Also there was an interesting piece , if it still exists, done in the 70s called "Between Time And Timbuktu" which Vonnegut apparently didn't like much, although he was involved in its production, because he felt it misinterpreted him in its generality. He said it reminded him of the bizarre surgical experiments performed in the HG Wells tale "The Island of Dr. Moreau", but it did for many people serve as an excellent introduction to his work.But if the films don't make you want to go to the superior source material, they're not doing their job.As the man said, more or less, the big show is inside your head.

Screenwriter Howard Campbell is recruited to serve in counter-espionage during World War 11. He moves to Nazi Germany and marries an actress whose family is faithful to their Fatherland. Campbell, portrayed well, by Nick Nolte broadcasts vitriolic propaganda for the Nazi Regime. Truth is that few people really know what Campbell is up to.The war ends and Campbell, with his wife presumed dead, heads to N.Y. for a new unassumed life. Here is where the picture falls apart. After several years, without anyone knowing him, Campbell assumes his real name.At this point, as stated, the film deteriorates into a series of unlikely events. A neighbor turns out to be a Communist spy. who notifies an Aryan supremacy group of Campbell's existence. The latter's dead wife suddenly shows up only to reveal later on that she is the sister of his dead wife. Still later, she is revealed to be a Communist as well. Too much is going on.Campbell eventually gives himself up and in flashbacks, sits in a cell and talks to Adolph Eichmann.We even have a suicide at the very end. I think this might have been to take the audience out of its agony from viewing all this.The picture really had a lot of emotionally sick people in it. At times, Campbell was so viciously good at reciting his anti-Jewish denunciations, you'd really begin to wonder if he meant it.