The Great Pretender: An Evaluation of Mother Night

The movie Mother Night, produced and directed by Keith Gordon, tells an amazing story of a man, Howard W. Campbell, Jr., who was a playwright and a spy for the Americans in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. This film explores the many different aspects of Campbell’s life, both before and after he became a spy for the Americans. The movie takes the viewer through his ups and downs of his life, from his marriage to the beautiful Helga, a famous German actress, to her death and the trials he faces because people think of him as a Nazi. The plot, technical aspects, and themes make Mother Night a very powerful and interesting movie.

The movie is based on the novel Mother Night, written by Kurt Vonnegut. The novel incorporated some of Vonnegut’s experience with World War II, which is when the movie takes place. The personal experience makes the story more vivid and interesting. The movie begins with Howard W. Campbell, Jr., being led to a prison in Israel so he can face trial for his war crimes. He’s put in jail, and he’s required to type his memoirs before his trial, which will start in three weeks. The movie then proceeds to tell Campbell’s life story while combining scenes of the past and present. It begins with his childhood in New York, takes us through his family’s move to Germany because of his dad’s job, his recruitment by an American agent, and the double life he lives as an American spy posing as a Nazi propagandist. Campbell never tells his wife what he was doing. He had said, “Politics had no place in our nation of two.” The ‘nation of two,’ was the only nation that made sense to him and Helga. Campbell’s life is turned upside down when he finds out Helga was killed, and he almost commits suicide himself.

He lives an almost meaningless existence until 1960. After the war, he found out that his parents had died during the war, and he was already very depressed because Helga had been killed in the war. In 1960, Campbell moves to New York City, and here he meets George Craft, who tells Campbell that he needs a woman. Their argument over that subject was silly and childish, but it added some comical effect to the movie. Campbell later meets some other characters, which by their very nature add more comic relief to the movie. An example of this type of character is the Rev. Dr. Jones, D.D.S., D.D., the man who is head of a racist organization that finds out about Campbell because of George Craft, who really is a spy for the Russians. There’s also Augustus Craptower, a very large man who died after carrying up Helga’s (Resi’s) luggage. Resi is Helga’s younger sister who takes on Helga’s identity after World War II. She is united with Campbell because or Dr. Jones, and she is also a spy for the Russians, which Campbell later finds out about, which later becomes a small problem in comparison to what he’ll be dealing with, as he is found and is wanted for trial in Israel.

The technical effects of the movie were a big factor in the movie’s impact. Some of them were used to make some events look unrealistic, but that only ended up enhancing the movie. All of the scenes from the past were shot in color, and the prison scenes were done in black and white. Throughout most of the past, Campbell had something to live for. When he realizes he has nothing to live for now because he was betrayed and the woman he loved is dead, he just stands on a sidewalk in New York City and doesn’t move until an officer tells him to. There’s a scene in the movie in which Campbell and his wife are at a party with other high ranking Nazis, and they ask to meet Campbell’s wife. He walks up to her, kisses her, and the scene shifts to the couple in the bedroom. The scene where Resi kills herself is a dramatic scene, but the effect used makes it even more powerful. As she says, “I’ll show you a woman who dies for love,” a light, as if it were appearing from heaven, shines down on her as she takes the pill. The use of the light makes her suicide appear unrealistic. The reverse chronology used in the movie can allow the viewer to better understand Campbell’s life, past and present, by intertwining the events instead of just going from beginning to end. The viewer is able to really experience his highs and lows and relates on a small scale.

Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” played a fairly important role in the movie. It plays at the beginning, and the viewer may not know if it’s supposed to be a play on words pertaining to Hitler or what purpose it’ll actually serve in the movie. It’s played again when Campbell tells how he has twenty-six or twenty-seven copies of the record, taken from soldiers’ recreation packs. The song also plays at the end of the movie, after Campbell says, “They say a hanging man hears beautiful music. I wonder what it sounds like.” He then hangs himself, and the song plays.

The themes in the movie are ones the viewer should definitely pay attention to. One may say that life without love isn’t worth living. This can be true, but the underlying theme that every viewer should take away is stated right in the movie. Campbell says, “We must be careful who we pretend to be for in the end, we are what we pretend to be.” This is true because Campbell only pretended to be a Nazi, but in the eyes of the world, he was a Nazi who was partly responsible for the death of over six million Jews. This is an invaluable lesson to the viewer.

The movie did a good job of getting its message(s) to the viewers. All the aspects of movie making combine to make Mother Night a unique and powerful movie that anyone should be able to get something out of.