or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 24, 2008
That's Some Good Nazi Production Design
In a little documentary about the making of The Pianist, Roman Polanski says this about the movie's production designers:
They went through a great amount of research...it was for our own satisfaction that the smallest detail will be exact. It gave us a great thrill sometimes to find tiny little things from the period and [use] it, so it was exact...
Based on this, it seems to me Polanski must be telling the truth:
This is from a scene in which a Nazi soldier uses his dagger to cut some twine. It's on screen for perhaps half a second. But as you can see, there's a small grey...something...at the end of the cord that ties the scabbard onto the soldier.
I don't even know what that small grey thing is called, or what its point was. But Nazi daggers had them, as you can see in this picture of the Nazi dagger (previously described here) that my grandfather brought back from World War II:
I'm not sure this actually adds anything to the The Pianist. But I certainly give them an A for effort.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at October 24, 2008 02:54 AMIs this grandfather Lewis Hanke or the other one?
Posted by: En Ming Hee at October 24, 2008 08:27 AMIt's called a dress knot or a portapee, by the way, and is a fixture in most European armies. It's used to prevent the weapon from being lost if it is dropped.
Posted by: En Ming Hee at October 24, 2008 08:36 AMThat object is a dress knot, by the way. It's used to prevent the dagger from being lost if it is dropped, though it also has a decorative purpose.
Posted by: En Ming Hee at October 24, 2008 08:37 AMIt's used to prevent the dagger from being lost if it is dropped
We have a variation of that function in the US Army -- it's called an idiot cord (lanyard) because it ties your weaponry to your body to prevent it from being lost.
Losing a weapon or NVGs (which are considered weapons) is a very big no-no during non combat situations.
Posted by: Labiche at October 24, 2008 09:13 AMbefore En Ming Hee wrote about the portapee, I was going to guess it was some kind of sharpening stone.
Posted by: Jo Bounderby at October 24, 2008 11:04 AMThe fascination with things Nazi will fade by:
a. 2050
b. Never
c. It shouldn't
d. Return of Fuehrer
Anyone interested in third-grade Austrian pencil box with initials A.H. carved inside? All reasonable offers or trades considered.
Posted by: donescobar at October 24, 2008 02:45 PMThe fascination with things Nazi will fade by
That's like wondering when the fascination with Elvis or the Beatles will fade.
That's a distasteful way to put it, but it's accurate. Nazi Germany was the culmination of a lot of historical trends all coming together at once, including trends like radio, movies and graphic design. Such things imprint themselves on world's consciousness in a way those before and after really can't, even if they have a similar level of, uh, accomplishment.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at October 24, 2008 03:22 PMJonathan, got to go academic (read: nitpicking) on you. Yes, the Nazi movement does represent a culmination of a lot of trends, but while the once you mention, radio etc) were pretty much worldwide, the others, deeper and darker, culminated in some cultures, cut a much narrower swath in others. You know that, but if you have forgotten, try Thomas Mann on this subject ("Reflections of a Non-Political Man" and "Magic Mountain.")
Americans know far too little about European Fascism. Maybe if they knew more, they would have been outraged (well, maybe just miffed) to learn that our military/CIA types adopted the Gestapo term, "verschaerfte Vernehmung," ("enhanced interrogation") to describe the work they did (do) in prisons. Then again, maybe they just don't care as long nobody bombs Wal-Mart or Sam's Club.
Not all "trends" culminate equally. That's why history ain't science and why we can have more fun with it than Organic Chemistry. But then,I'm an old liberal arts fart.
Its the uniform. Everybody else had the same technology and the same bad ideas. In the military fashion sense is everything, spit shine and razor blade creases.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at October 24, 2008 05:00 PMThat's why history ain't science and why we can have more fun with it than Organic Chemistry.
You can have one heck of a lot of fun with organic chemistry. ;)
Posted by: Dunc at October 26, 2008 08:56 AMPlus, the Nazis were evil, and that's always attractive to people who haven't actually experienced it. BTW, that's a bayonet, not a dagger.
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow at October 30, 2008 11:07 AMPlus, the Nazis were evil, and that's always attractive to people who haven't actually experienced it. BTW, that's a bayonet, not a dagger.
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow at October 30, 2008 11:08 AM
