By Gary Kidney
On September 8, 1940, a new German movie, Jud Suss, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It opened to rave reviews and received the Golden Lion award. The movie was a great box office success with receipts of 6.5 million Reichsmarks and an audience of more than 20 million over the next year. A reviewer wrote, “It surpasses all expectations. No film has yet succeeded in having such an impact on wide segments of the public. Even people who rarely attend the cinema don’t want to miss this film.”
Despite this initial success, Jud Suss has become the most banned and reviled film in history. In 1945, the Allied Military Occupation banned exhibition of the film. West German courts ordered the original negative and all copies destroyed in 1954. In 1949, Veit Harlan, the director of Jud Suss, was charged with crimes against humanity solely for his production of the movie. Nearly 70 years after the events of the 1940s, the F.W. Murnau Foundation, chartered by the government to preserve and curate German films, has strict requirements for screenings of Jud Suss.
Good & Hated: An Analysis of the Film
Understanding how a movie can be both good and hated requires a study of its historical context, its purpose, its content, and its effect on the audience. In all four categories, Jud Suss is notorious and nefarious. Yet, it is still a remarkably good movie for its time and cinematic technique. And, in that conundrum lie both the power and the sorrow of Jud Suss.
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Birth of a Nation also received essentially the same treatment and the result was that the cause of a lot of unpleasant history was suppressed. Santayana was proven right.