Movie: Der Untergang ("Downfall")

TItle: Der Untergang
iMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/
Type: Foreign; Historical Drama
Rating: 8.4/10 (iMDB) **** (4/4)

There are an endless series of war movies filling the shelves, but nothing focusing on the last days of Hitler's life, spent in a bunker in Berlin under attack. This movie is interesting for the insights it provides into the character and personalities of the people involved, from the slavish obedience of the generals who served him, to the revealing chats of Hitler himself over tea. For example, in one scene, Hitler says to someone, "I am proud to say that I have never shown one shred of mercy or compassion to anyone, in my entire life..." Where did he get this ideal? Was it some odd reflection of Nietzsche? Ah yes, the teutonic spartan...

The movie doesn't focus on the horrors of anti-semitism, death camps, or the bleak commonplace deaths of the battle field. In Hitler's bunker, people come and go on business. Some living in the bunker with Hitler plan their escape; others dream about their eventual victory. One secretary takes Hitler's final Statement.

It's an important story, I think. We have judged these people, but the movie portrays their own judgement of themselves. It's a study of madness from the viewpoint of the mad themselves. If you have any interest in the nature of evil and of the human psyche, then this film will appeal. It goes beyond mere entertainment: it is something truly worth watching, and I recommend it.

Introduction to Saloniers

Hello and welcome to Saloniers, the official blog for the irc undernet channel; #salon. I am freelance and I am the administrator for this blog. This is an introduction to the purpose of this blog, but first let me talk a little about #salon. Over the years, a group of chatters who have frequented the #philosophy and #philosophical channels on undernet have felt the need for a separate channel to call home. Some attempts have been made to start new philosophy channels or somewhere for us all to meet for a chat and exchange of thought. These attempts had mixed success. In the latter half of last year we had discussed the matter once more, suggesting that a channel solely for philosophy may not be the best route to take and partially due to stepterix's dissatisfaction with #philosophy, which he was a member and op for many years, #salon was finally born (the name, I believe, suggested by JohnGuru). The concept this time was a channel for the discussion of cultural matters, like that of the french salons of 17th and 18th centuries. The channel has endured quite well and looks set to continue as such.

Not long after the channel was established I came up with the idea of having a blog we could all contribute to. Most of the membership have their own blogs and they are relevant to the channels philosophy of cultural discourse. The purpose of this blog was to share our thoughts and contributions in one place, from our respective blogs or especially for this blog space alone. JohnGuru has already commented on what the channel and the idea of culture mean to him in the previous blog entry.

I would like to thank JohnGuru, Niniane and stepterix for their support of this idea and hope we will have a successful blogging future ahead of us here at Saloniers. I also hope that we will attract more like-minds to the channel and consequently to contribute to this blog itself.

Welcome

I don't see any blog posts yet -- maybe I just don't know how to work this thing -- but on the off chance that the worst of all possible scenarios is in fact the case, to wit that no one has contributed a post yet, I feel duty-bound to correct this oversight.

Let me just say that starting a new channel on the Undernet is at once very easy, and very difficult. Creating the thing is trivial, of course, but turning it into a place where people like to visit is a whole other thing. We all need to do a little bit to make the project successful. And need I say, it isn't something that has to be done all at once. Easy does it. The tortoise wins the prize because of his persistence, not his speed :)

I am not an overly culture-enabled creature as compared to some of you. My readings of classical literature are few and far between, Nin far surpasses my readings of contemporary material, step and freelance know much more about contemporary music --- but I think culture, by which I mean the AESTHETIC VALUES of our society, are as important as any other field of study, if not more so. Catnips and I were talking, today, in #philosophical, and agreed that by far the largest source of information young people have about our country's history and its ideals comes from movies, music, and stories. Schools and parents both do little today to acculturate our young people. So I think these media have some responsibility to shape our minds and point us in meaningful directions.

Maybe in the future I can use this blog to point to some movies, documentaries, and tv shows that have caught my attention. I don't know. We'll see how things develop.