Luther
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DVD Review
Ratings And Purchasing Information
Review
Plot
Luther tells the story of priest Martin Luther played my Joseph Fiennes, who sparked of the Reformation of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century. It starts from the alleged epiphany Martin Luther had after surviving a thunderstorm, during which he makes a promise to God to become a monk. During his time at a monastery Luther is sent to Rome where he witnesses people putting money in boxes believing that it will save them from purgatory, known as indulgences, all this appals Luther. He continues to witness further exploitation of followers when he is sent to Wittenberg where worshippers are asked to donate money towards the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The followers are told that their donations will absolve them of all sins. The film then charts Luther’s continual conflict with the Roman Catholic authorities and his reaction to the charge of heresy against him as he tries to reform the church.
Review
The set design of this film was excellent you could tell that every detail of 16th century Germany had been carefully researched right down to the costumes. However, I feel the DVD probably did not do it any justice; it was clear that seeing it on the big screen would have made more of an impression. The film could only tell a limited amount of the life story of Martin Luther in two hours, his effect on the reformation has been so profound that it would be impossible to put it all into one film. Joseph Fiennes plays the role well; he is able to make Luther human in the sense that he does not show Luther as a man who is totally at peace with God and who always has the answers. The scenes of Luther making rambling confessions to God shows him as a man who did not have any plans to reform the church, it was something that he walked into unknowingly as his life went on.
The film is based on a good story in that you have a seemingly simple plot of one man battling against the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and you want to see who wins out in the end. It is basically a story of a man trying to root out or at least expose the “corruption” of an organisation; David and Goliath.
Alfred Molina who played Johann Tetzel the priest whose responsibility was to collect the money for the Basilica was very good unfortunately he was not in the film for very long, he was very convincing as a man who understood the followers and was able to exploit their ignorance and fear of purgatory. Joseph Firth who plays the character of Girolamo Aleander who is sent as the messenger from Rome to put Luther in his place is credible as the bad guy but it is not a performance that blew me away, but Peter Ustinov who plays Frederik the Wise, adds a nice touch of humour to the film.
I felt this film told a good story and got across well the major importance of Martin Luther. The film, as I suppose it should, takes up most of its time with the main character but I think any good film is not just about the main character but also about those who weave in and out of their lives, and because of Fiennes’ intense portrayal of Luther, the rest of the cast seem to fade into the background. I think Luther is good enough if you are of the religious persuasion and you want to see a film about an important contributor to Christianity, the film taught me something about Martin Luther but there was no spark in the film and I would have rather have watched a two part BBC documentary on the man.
Extras:
The bonus material includes interviews with the cast, crew and production team, you see edited snippets of interviews with the cast where they discuss their roles. Each segment of interview lasts about a minute; it is the same format for the rest of the interviews with the crew and production team. The interviews are bland and you get the feeling they were done as a last minute thing to tack on to the DVD. There is behind the scenes footage which is uninteresting because there is no commentary for the first minute or so, you are just watching a camera go around the set, it looks like an amateur home video. It has a couple of short segments where the production designer talks about the sets, and then we watch Peter Ustinov in the recording studio doing some looping which left me wondering why they thought that would be of any interest.
There is a trailer for the film and a picture gallery which shows you various scenes from the film. I thought the section called Luther the man and his legacy would have been the saving grace of the bonus material as I was expecting an interesting documentary on Luther, instead you are given fourteen screens of small text telling you about his life and the Protestant reformation. The last part of the bonus material shows you the trailers of other films and it has English subtitles for the hard of hearing. So, as with the actual film the bonus material does not leave much of an impression.
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