FRITZ HIPLER: I am convinced that Hitler was a very great man, and I am convinced that in about perhaps a century, this will be the meaning of the majority of mankind. His only fault was to get engaged into the war and to lose the war.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms. Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in the crusade to restore America to its own people!
BILL MOYERS: The summer of 1932. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is nominated to run for president. In the midst of the Great Depression, he has something special, the confident smile and ringing tones of a winner. In November, he will sweep to victory, the first of four, and set out to lift the nation back to its feet.
ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN] This is where I differed: I realized that the consequences of this crime could only be attacked by learning from the mistakes of the past, and by learning, establish countermeasures.
BILL MOYERS: The crime against which Hitler railed was the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of World War I. November, 1918, brought joy to the winners. But for the vanquished, it was a different story. Defeat in the field was one thing, but the Treaty of Versailles, one of the harshest in modern history, humiliated and impoverished the fatherland.
FRITZ HIPPLER: The Treaty of Versailles was the cause of all which followed. That was the great inflation. That was the fact that more and more men got without job. Millions were unemployed. The general misery in the people. And thus, the sympathies of the German people were directed to one man, to a sort of savior.
He lost, but by now was winning a personal following engaged by his charm and ideals. The sweaty realities of American pluralism were sweet to Roosevelt. He was learning to move crowds, woo votes, scratch backs, make compromises. Few men have so zestfully taken to the rituals of campaigning.
By his 18th yeah, Adolf Hitler was already turned in on himself, brooding and daydreaming. He had been born in a small Austrian village in 1889. His mother was apparently affectionate, but his father, a minor bureaucrat, was a strict disciplinarian, not loath to beat his young son. That may explain why Hitler was remembered as a moody schoolboy. He had few friends and spent much of his time alone, reading. Teachers found him lazy and undisciplined. But a talent for drawing and painting let him dwell in that inner world of the self which he alone could master and where he could live unmolested by any but his own fantasies.
FRITZ HIPPLER: He spoke to the masses not by too much intellectual means. He spoke to the heart, to the soul of the masses, and he moved the unconsciousness of the masses more than the intellect.
BILL MOYERS: To Hitler, the individual was only a cell in the body politic. He would seduce the youth of the land away from their mothers and fathers so that their true and only family might become the German race.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: I am happy to speak to you from my home on a Sabbath day that has been observed in so many of your home communities as brotherhood day, a day on which we can dedicated ourselves not to the things that divide, but to the things which unite us. You people must have faith. You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem, my friends, no less than it is mine. Together, we cannot fail.
BILL MOYERS: Hitler was after total mobilization. It could be achieved only by destroying the will of any person or the loyalty of any organization that might mediate between the central power of the state and the individual. The Reich alone would make men of these boys.
BILL MOYERS: We can see yet another difference between the dictator and the democrat in their treatment of the arts. I said earlier that while Hitler was a failed artist, he fancied himself an artist nonetheless. This is one of his original paintings, done while he lived in Vienna. I have to stop and think that the same A. Hitler who signed his name to this peaceful scene was the Adolf Hitler who inspired the madness, the malice, and the murder of Nazi Germany. This would be artist purged the museums of Germany of some 17,000 paintings, including the masterpieces by Gauguin and van Gogh. Many were sold, many were burned. To replace them, he opened in Munich a Nazi gallery and commissioned a new German art. Heroic, massive, yoked by blood and power to the service of the master race.
BILL MOYERS: Roosevelt commissioned artists, too, but with no strings attached. The Federal Arts Project kept artists from starving during The Depression and kept alive the carols of a Whitmanesque America.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: First is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which translated into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world.
ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN] The moment lives, founded firmly as a rock. And as long as only one of us still lives, he will strengthen this movement and stand by it. And the command did not come from an earthly power but from the God who created our people. We shall think only of Germany, the people, the Reich, our German nation. To our German people: Hail Victory!
ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN] If the international Jews-of-finance in and outside Europe manage to plunge the world once again into war, the result will not be a Bolshevization of the earth and a victory for Jewry, but the annihilation of Jewish race in Europe.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: Frankly and definitely, there is danger ahead, danger against which we must prepare. We cannot escape danger or the fear of it by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.
ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN] The German peace army is in place. A mighty German Air Force protects our homeland, a new power at sea our shores. Amidst a gigantic increase of our general production unequalled rearmament became possible. Every institution of this Reich is under command of the highest political leadership, bound by oath and united in will and determination to represent National Socialist Germany, and if needed, to defend it to the last breath.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: The Nazi danger to our Western world has long ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is here now, not only from a military enemy, but from an enemy of all law, all liberty, all morality, all religion.
ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN] It is our wish and will that this State and Reich shall exist for millennia to come. We can rejoice in the knowledge that the future is entirely ours. Heil!! Heil!! Heil, Heil!
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. All our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept, there can be no end, save victory.
Believe it or not, there is a bit of a life lesson amid The Dictator's crude content, rampant stereotyping, and all-around wackiness -- basically, that you shouldn't write anyone off entirely, because in rare cases, there may be hope for even the people who seem the most extreme.
Zoey is kind and passionate about human rights and the environment. She's a curious love interest for a dictator, that's for sure, but she certainly has that proverbial heart of gold. Aladeen himself, on the other hand, is offensive, sexist, selfish, violent, and arrogant -- though he's also clearly intended to be a larger-than-life parody. And there's a ton of stereotyping/humor designed to mock specific groups; it's all intended for laughs, but it's guaranteed to offend some viewers.
Cartoonish violence with lots of talk (and gestures) about killing people, but no gore. Some scenes involve assassinations and include references to genocide. Aladeen brandishes weapons, and there's a scene in which instruments of torture are discussed at length for their effectiveness. Aladeen is ruthless and quick to order the death of those who have failed him, but not all of his orders are carried out.
Aladeen is randy, and so is The Dictator. One scene shows brief full-frontal male nudity; women are also shown topless, and scenes depict masturbation. Lots of references to/suggestions of one-night stands and various sex acts. An early scene shows Aladeen having sex with a famous actress in a prostitution-like exchange; she's very skimpily dressed.
Parents need to know that Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy The Dictator is extremely crass, politically incorrect, ridiculous, silly -- and quite funny. If you have a thick skin, you can't help but laugh at Cohen, who this time doesn't mine the humor found in punking unsuspecting people but instead gets guffaws by playing an extremely over-the-top dictator with campy relish. Expect tons of swearing (including "f--k" and derivations thereof, as well as many derogatory/racist terms) and sexual jokes/references, as well as topless women and a brief flash of full-frontal male nudity. As always, Baron Cohen doesn't shy away from stereotype-based humor that's likely to offend; instead, he embraces it. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
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