No urgency or tension
Director Brian Percival
“The Book Thief's insultingly simplistic and obvious treatment of tragic circumstances is perhaps its greatest sin.”
Death skirts explicitly addressing the fate of that generation's Jews.
PG-13 for some violence and intense depiction of thematic material
2 hrs 11 minutes
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Memory is the scribe of the soul
If your eyes could speak, what would they say?
Words are life, Lisele. All those blank pages are for you to fill.
Why did they have to build the snowman?
Intro -
Did they know? --
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Communist
Kristalnacht –
Allowance
Tell them who the narrator is
Bombing in WW II –
Who are we (meaning the U.S. and its allies, our fathers and grandfathers) what were we doing in this movie – the most important characters.
Scene where they are taking the Jewish Taylor away – they had all known him all their lives and they should have stopped --
Exercises – Nazi death camp;
What would death say as he was called so many times to the Nazi death camps?
Major Differences between book and movie
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Death is the absence of color – and is so interested in color because he is the absence of color
Death comments that every once in a while he gets interested in a living human being and that this is bad for him. Why is it? -- because death is impersonal and draining of all emotion –
What is Leisel’s biggest failure? To tell Rudy she loved him.
Do you think Rudy knew that Leisel loved him?
Motif – books –
Never made sense –
Mayor’s wife and books
Is it true that most of the German’s disagreed with Hitler
Why Death loves Leisel – she’s a teenager? Why is Leisel spared? She’s a teenager. The story could have been written from Rudy’s point of view – why not? He haated Hitler, he was courageous, he was a thief –
Why death is gentle – we all want to think of the afterlife as gentle
Loss – Leisel loses everyone – but she perseveres
After leaving them, "the relief struggled inside him like an obscenity. It was something he didn't want to feel, but nonetheless, he felt it with such gusto it made him want to throw up. How could he? How could he? But he did."
Indeed, everything is upside down in Zusak's Nazi Germany. Sounds are tasted, visions are heard, death has a heart, the strong do not survive, and your best chance of living may be a concentration camp. The entropy of this world is near complete.
Randomness and how do we respond to it =-
Some will argue that a book so difficult and sad may not be appropriate for teenage readers. "The Book Thief" was published for adults in Zusak's native Australia, and I strongly suspect it was written for adults. Adults will probably like it (this one did), but it's a great young-adult novel. Many teenagers will find the story too slow to get going, which is a fair criticism. But it's the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, "The Book Thief" offers us a believable, hard-won hope. That hope is embodied in Liesel, who grows into a good and generous person despite the suffering all around her, and finally becomes a human even Death can love. The hope we see in Liesel is unassailable, the kind you can hang on to in the midst of poverty and war and violence. Young readers need such alternatives to ideological rigidity, and such explorations of how stories matter. And so, come to think of it, do adults.
When all else is gone, the words remain; haunting even a tough customer like Death, but healing all the same.
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What did the Gravedigger’s handbook do for Leisel;
allegorical story "The Word Shaker." The story describes Hitler's use of oratory to brainwash Germany and compel German citizens to turn against the Jews; a young girl who understands the power of words is capable of defying the Fuhrer through words of compassion and love.
What saves Liesel – writing her own life story
These were the people who allowed people come to power –
Told from the standpoint of the enemy
What are the equivalent scenes?
If I’m a teacher and I want to use the movie as a treat after the
Liesel is a survivor “an expert at being left behind".
the literal whitewashing of a "bad" book (Mein Kampf) into a good one (painting over the pages to write a new story for Liesel). But it could be much tighter
Is Himmel Street (“Heaven Street”) ironically named or is it heaven for Liesel?
gravedigger's handbook dropped in the snow. Although she cannot read, the book represents Liesel's last connection with the sibling and mother she will never see again.
What is left out of the movie?
Mr. Steiner refusing to allow Rudy to be recruited to the special boys school and being drafted as punishment
Jews being given bread
Leisel insulting the Mayor’s wife –
Use of language in The Book Thief
Liesel is taunted by the school children for being illiterate.
Hans builds his relationship with Liesel by teacher her to read.
Liesel describes the weather to Max thereby increasing their bond.
Max points out that Hitler was able to gain power using words and his gift to her is the “The Work Shaker”
The Nazis burn books destroying words.
The Mayor’s wife has a library full of books, a treasure that she makes available to Liesel, just as she takes care of Liesel after the bombing.
Liesel is able to calm the people in the bomb shelter using words.
Max tells Liesel of the proverb that **
Frau Holtzapfel takes comfort from Leisel reading to her.
Liesel’s memoirs entrance Death who reads them many times.
The incident of the dying Allied pilot and Rudy giving him a teddy bear is not in the movie.
“Books and writing figure prominently in the novel, and several characters’ lives are changed or affected in some way by one or the other. In fact, three lives are saved through books or writing. Max ironically receives the fake identity card that helps him survive in a copy of MKPF, and then he reads the book for cover as he travels to Molching. Hans’s life is saved when he is recruited to write letters rather than go into a deadly battle with his platoon. Lastly, at the end of the novel, Liesel escapes death in the bombing of Himmel Street because she is writing her life story. On the other side of this equation, Liesel realizes her mother is most likely dead when she fails to write back to Liesel. Writing also builds some of the relationships in the story. Max’s friendship with Liesel blossoms when he writes her a book on the pages of “Mein Kampf.” Liesel begins stealing books from Frau Hermann’s library after Frau Hermann gives her a letter apologizing for firing Rosa, and their friendship resumes after Liesel writes an apology for destroying one of the books. Finally, writing is the way Michael Holtzapfel explains his decision to commit suicide.”