I don’t know when I have ever wanted to watch a movie again so soon after seeing it the first time around. But recently I found myself doing just that. I was so emotional about the subject matter in Monuments Men that just weeks later when my mother was visiting, I wanted to see it again, with her at home, not the theatre this time. My mother is in her early eighties, and was married to a professional artist so I knew she, like I, would be engrossed by the poignant story about works of art stolen, hidden and recovered.
I think what I found most compelling were the words of the narrator that summarized how what we truly leave behind; the measure of our society, is found in our art. Whether it is paintings, sculpture, architecture, music, drama or literature, when a civilization is no more, its art may indeed be its only proof that they existed at all. Just thinking of the ancient Incas, the Babylonians or the Aztec makes this so true. I was truly moved by the story’s depiction of the recovering of the priceless treasures that were stolen and hoarded away by the Nazi regime, and very choked up about the immense loss of what was destroyed … or never recovered at all.
I think what I found most compelling were the words of the narrator that summarized how what we truly leave behind; the measure of our society, is found in our art. Whether it is paintings, sculpture, architecture, music, drama or literature, when a civilization is no more, its art may indeed be its only proof that they existed at all. Just thinking of the ancient Incas, the Babylonians or the Aztec makes this so true. I was truly moved by the story’s depiction of the recovering of the priceless treasures that were stolen and hoarded away by the Nazi regime, and very choked up about the immense loss of what was destroyed … or never recovered at all.