But the pay cable studios have an advantage over their bigger budget competitors, who are forced by economics to target a young and general audience. HBO can make films for a fraction of the cost which do not need to be tailored to a specific audience. Who wants to watch a forty-something woman die of cancer? Who wants to see a bunch of middle aged white men discuss and argue for two hours?
Well, I for one do, if the film is well made. Because I will always prefer a quality film, regardless of its story or cast, over the usual brand of retreaded formula and mediocrity. It's good to know that HBO felt this way as well.
Conspiracy is a typical HBO film in that a respected and familiar actor plays the most important role. Kenneth Branagh has his best part since he made Henry V (1989), and he seems to know it. He relishes his role as the urbane but ruthless General Heydrich, the S.S. Chief of Reich Security.
Heydrich has gathered key German officers for an impromtu conference on 'the Jewish question', the answer to which is steered to how best to exterminate them. Heydrich already has his plan devised, and has seeded the majority of the meeting with his S.S. henchmen. The key attendees, then, are those important Germans who do not want to comply with The Final Solution, but must be compelled to in order for it to be effectively carried out.
It is January 1942, and the United States has recently entered World War II. The German Army has suffered its first significant setback, as the siege of Moscow was broken the month before. The hated Jews are to be quietly slaughtered before time runs out on the Nazis, and this requires an elaborate plan.
Heydrich's right hand man is Lt. Eichmann (Stanley Tucci), a careful but unimaginative administrator. The naysayers who must be turned are factory manager Neumann (Jonathan Coy), Reich chancellor Kritzinger (David Threlfall), and lawmaker Stuckart (Colin Firth).
While the audience of Conspiracy will never approach that of Pearl Harbor (2001), it has won or been nominated for numerous awards by prestigious organizations. Branagh won an Emmy Award as Best Actor, while Tucci won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The film won Best Single Drama at BAFTA.
One complaint commonly made against Conspiracy is that the Germans are portrayed by a predominantly British and American cast. Hardly an attempt is made at an German accent. This undeniably reduces the authenticity of the film.
While a German language version with subtitles and a German cast would theoretically be more authentic, it would not necessarily be better. For example, Alive (1993) was a much better film than Los Supervivientes de los Andes (1976), despite the Anglo cast of the former.
This is not to say that U-571 (2000) is an improvement over Das Boot (1981). And Conspiracy may not be better than Wannseekonferenz (1984), a West German film that I have not seen that also dramaticized the infamous Lake Wannsee conference.
But the heart of Conspiracy isn't its face value story, which has Germans coldly discussing the extermination of the millions of people solely due to their racial heritage. The moral of the film is that it is all too easy to build a ruthlessly efficient bureaucracy which has evil at its heart. The film demonstrates that even people with considerable political power are one by one forced to join this bureaucracy, whether they agree with its ends or not. Their jobs, freedom, and even their lives depend upon it.
While the setting is the heart of the Nazi empire, and the scheme is the brutal deaths of millions of people, there are much lesser versions of the Lake Wannsee meetings held every day, somewhere. In the United States, for example, corporations like Enron hold meetings that decide which categories of employees should be laid off, while bonuses and stock options are rewarded to the executives regardless of company performance. Should a naive Vice President clear her throat and state that the plan is unfair, she will be outcast and humiliated.
During World War II, many thousands of Japanese-Americans were stripped of their jobs and property and forced to relocate into internment camps. To be sure, meetings were held to discuss this, with the decision already predetermined by President Roosevelt, who probably had an ambitious subordinate represent him at the unrecorded conference.
The power of Conspiracy, then, is only intensified by miscasting the Nazis as Englishmen. Anyone can be a Nazi, if power once attained is then used for a malicious purpose.