Monuments Men

What do you get when you mix Oceans Eleven with The Dirty Dozen and Hogan’s Heroes? When this present movie began (and partially because I read enough negative reviews) I would have said Monuments Men; a World War II context with an exciting mission and a bit of levity thrown in.

But it turns out this film has more going for it than that. The story goes like this: George Clooney as Danny Ocean (sorry that was too easy) actually as Frank Stokes, an art historian, who gathers a team of art professionals. Their mission is to go to the war theatre of Northern Europe shortly after the D-Day invasion. They will be risking their lives in an attempt to rescue some of the great masterpieces of Europe from Hitler and his henchmen who are stealing the artwork with the aim of filling the soon to be built Fuhrer Art Museum. If Hitler loses the war, the plan is to destroy all of the stolen art.

One doesn’t quite know initially how to take this film. It does not carry the gravitas of a Schindler’s List, though there is one scene where the team discovers a large basin of gold fillings, all taken from Nazi victims’ teeth. Sober indeed. It isn’t quite as light as an Oceans’ movie, though the playful repartee between Clooney and Matt Damon is present. And then there’s Bill Murray dryly being, well, Bill Murray. In the end Monuments Men is an entertaining look at the true story of this “art rescue mission” and at the passion for art that these middle-aged non-soldier “soldiers” possessed. Their peculiar assignment and less-than military credentials make for some awkward and even humorous moments.

And still in the end this movie is asking the question: how important is art? The military brass doesn’t seem to care about this mission. But when a tremendous amount of Nazi gold reserves is found these leaders celebrate. To which one of the team members wryly comments, “they may not care about art but they sure care about gold.”

Is saving art, especially priceless masterpieces worth losing one’s life over? Almost as an afterthought this sticky ethical question is raised. And never quite dogmatically answered.

An easy ethical question, it is not. That at times other heroic efforts were made to preserve the masterpieces is briefly depicted in the movie. Having spent much time in Milan, I appreciated the scene of Italians placing sandbags on one wall of the church Santa Maria delle Grazie so that da Vinci’s The Last Supper would survive an Allied bombing. But organized efforts like this were few and weak in comparison to Hitler’s grand theft scheme. And no lives were lost, until the Monuments Men carried out their mission. And so the question remains, just how vital to culture and human civilization is art? Is great, irreplaceable art worth losing human life over?

From a cultural and political perspective, President Eisenhower commented on art’s value and the importance of such rescue efforts and preservation:

"The freedom enjoyed by this country from the desolation that has swept over
so many others during the past years gives to America greater opportunity than
ever before to become the greatest of the world’s repositories of art. The whole
world will then have a right to look to us with grateful eyes; but we will fail
unless we consciously appreciate the value of art in our lives and take practical
steps to encourage the artist and preserve his works.”

Though not a perfect movie, Monuments Men is a human one, telling the story of an heroic cultural rescue while raising a valid ethical question.

Being somewhat unfulfilled with my own thoughts about this movie and even more so the ethical dilemma it presents, I pondered and dug a bit deeper. Is it ethically appropriate to risk one’s life for anything other than another human life or for one’s God? It’s not done infrequently: for country, for an ideology, for liberty, for “truth.” Let’s face it, for things right and noble. So what about art? It has been the premise of this blog to examine films (and periodically other art forms) because art can be a worthwhile and “spiritual” expression of life and beauty.

On the value and potentially divine grace which art can be, Pope John Paul II wrote in a letter addressed to the artists of the world:

"Created “in the image of God,” man also expresses the truth of his relationship
with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a
distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of
life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance
of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and
from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge
and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or
hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a
certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created."

The making of art, the creation of masterpieces may be a means of glorifying God and reflecting a bit of his nature and character to a spiritually blinded world. Not as icons, but as extensions of human beings who have been created in the image of God and gifted thereby “imaging” or reflecting God to the world by the works of their hands.

And so, one more time I ask Monuments Men and the reader, is it justifiable to risk one’s life to rescue works of art?