The Rape of Europa.
-- Library Journal, 1/5/2009 7:29:00 AM
color & b/w. 117 min. Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham, & Bonni Cohen, Menemsha Films, 310-452-1775, neilf@menemshafilms.com or heidio@menemshafilms.com. 2008. DVD UPC 7-18122-35541-9. $29.95. art HISTORY
Framed by the story and controversies surrounding Gustav Klimt’s famed 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, stolen from the Viennese Jewish family in 1938 and sold in 2006 as the most expensive painting ever to come onto the market ($135 million), this riveting documentary reveals the Nazis’ systematic looting of Europe’s art treasures during World War II. The decision to plunder and destroy Europe’s cultural masterpieces, it is implied, has its source at the very top—Adolf Hitler’s failures as a painter. Narrated by Joan Allen, the film is based on author Lynn Nicholas’s fascinating and scholarly account of the exhaustive and sometimes Herculean efforts of experts and laypeople to find and recover lost art objects. Shortlisted for the 2007 Academy Award® for Best Documentary, this film is very highly recommended, especially for art historians and students of European cultural history.—Herbert E. Shapiro, Empire State Coll., SUNY at Rochester
