Line #3 Film/TheMonumentsMen


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the-monuments-men-poster_5957.jpg]]
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3	''The Monuments Men'' is a 2014 War Movie directed by Creator/GeorgeClooney and starring himself, Creator/MattDamon, Creator/BillMurray, Creator/JohnGoodman, Creator/JeanDujardin, Creator/BobBalaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Creator/CateBlanchett. It is based on the history book ''The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History'' by Robert M. Edsel. Music/AlexandreDesplat composed the score.
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5	The story involves the adventures of the US Army's UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, aka "The Monuments Men." They were a collection of various art experts who were tasked to minimize damage to works of art and fine architecture during combat and to find and recover as many as possible pieces of art stolen by the forces of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany in their conquest of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}.
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7	To that task, Frank Stokes assembles an elite team of experts to accomplish this mission. However, they find their work complicated by their own combat units who hardly see the point of risking their own lives being delicate around art and the Nazis who determined to keep their loot or destroy it if they are defeated. Furthermore, they have to deal with natives like French curator Claire Simone who suspect the US wants to steal the art for themselves and the Soviets who definitely want to do that as reparations for the horrors they have suffered in that war.
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9	This film is a clear HollywoodHistory dramatization of the story and anyone who wants to see a film for an accurate account should see the {{Documentary}}, ''The Rape of Europa''.
10	----
11	!!''The Monuments Men'' provides examples of:
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13	* ActorAllusion:
14	** Clooney's [[Film/OceansEleven putting together a team of]] [[AllStarCast impressive men]] for an... [[InvertedTrope anti-]][[TheCaper caper?]]
15	** Goodman plays a man named [[Film/TheBigLebowski Walter]] who served in a war.
16	** Murray is [[Film/{{Stripes}} once again in the army]], although with less hijinks. He also once again has to go through a painful visit to a [[Film/LittleShopOfHorrors dentist who uses rusty tools]].
17	** This isn't the first time Matt Damon has been part of [[Film/SavingPrivateRyan a special WWII mission that questions the value of human lives.]]
18	** This is also not the first time Clooney has [[Film/ThreeKings stumbled upon gold while serving in a war]].
19	** Apparently, [[Film/TheArtist Al Zimmer and George Valentin]] quit the movie business and turned to other arts.
20	** [[Series/DowntonAbbey Lord Grantham]] managed to serve in the Boer War AND Nazi Germany?
21	** This isn't the [[Film/Downfall2004 first time]] that Justus von Dohnányi was fighting for Germany.
22	* AmbiguouslyJewish: Epstein. Although he doesn't display any stereotypically "Jewish" traits, it's easy to read between the lines when he mentions that his family immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1938[[spoiler: and his grandfather being sent to Dachau]]. Also, during the ending montage, he's the one shown returning a Torah to a synagogue.
23	* AntiVillain: The Soviet commander of the Trophy Brigade, yes, he is taking the art back to the Soviet Union rather than return it to its original owners and that's basically stealing, but he is still shown ensuring his men show the art a great deal of care and respect [[spoiler: and doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that [[GracefulLoser the protagonists beat him to the last stockpile]]]].
24	* ArtisticLicenseArt: Stokes gives a lecture to Roosevelt and identifies a work by "Da Vinci", rather than Leonardo. This is a classic post-''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'' mistake that '''no''' art historian -- and certainly none living in the 1940s -- would have made. The ''name'' of the artist was Leonardo and he ''was born'' in the town of Vinci -- Leonardo Da Vinci means "Leonardo, of Vinci".
25	* TheAtoner: Jeffries regards his [=WW2=] service as making up for his alcoholism, which has ruined his reputation and [[WellDoneSonGuy disgraced his father]]. His father even writes to Stokes, thanking him for giving his son the [[RedemptionEqualsDeath chance to redeem himself]].
26	* AvengersAssemble: A montage of the Monuments Men being recruited from their civilian occupations, intercut with them being issued their military uniforms and equipment.
27	* BilingualBackfire: The Allies capture a group of Germans who were transporting stolen art to Germany. The German-American refugee soldier Epstein quietly listens on as the Germans' captain and his XO (who switched uniforms before being captured) talk about where they took it. Then Epstein walks up, and in fluent German promises the captain that he'll give Hitler his regards when they take Berlin.
28	* BookEnds: [[MrExposition Stokes]] briefs President Roosevelt on the need for the Monuments Men, and President Truman on what they achieved.
29	* BrokenBird: Claire is clearly traumatized by not only the occupation of her city and her museum by the Nazis but the recent death of her brother. Most of the job with her is just getting her to understand that the Monuments Men will ''return'' the stolen art and not merely take it for themselves like the Russians are.
30	* BurnBabyBurn: When the Nazis destroy an art depository with [[FireBreathingWeapon flamethrowers]], ''Portrait of a Young Man'' by Raphael is prominently displayed as it burns.
31	* ButForMeItWasTuesday: The CoolAndUnusualPunishment Stokes has for the Nazi Officer who was destroying art and running a Death Camp: that Stokes will have a smoke, and remember it when he is back in New York City on an perfectly ordinary day reading the tiny newspaper sidebar story about the Nazi being executed for war crimes, and never think of the officer again. He twists the knife in the Nazi by pointing out that he will do this over the coffee and bagel he has every morning at a ''Jewish'' deli.
32	* CaptainObvious: Everyone telling Granger not to move after he steps on a mine.
33	* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: [[DefiedTrope Defied]] by Claire Simone in the prison scene.
34	-->'''Granger:''' If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German right now.\
35	'''Simone:''' Wrong. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead right now, but I would still speak French.
36	* ChildSoldiers: The sniper firing at two of the Monuments Men in one scene is revealed to be a young child. As this was late in the war and Germany was getting desperate, this makes sense. A POW camp shown later has a number of child soldiers.
37	* CompositeCharacter: The film's main characters of the unit number only eight. In reality, the program consisted of 400 men.
38	* CountingToThree: Granger steps off the mine in two, because he's too scared to wait for three.
39	* CreatorCameo:
40	** Creator/AlexandreDesplat not only composed the score but also appears onscreen as a member of the Resistance in several scenes (he plays Emile, who helps Granger get to Paris).
41	** George Clooney's producing partner Grant Heslov plays a doctor in one scene.
42	* CulturedWarrior: The Monuments Men are recruited precisely because they are cultured, while the Nazis like to think they are this trope for real, although they are just a bunch of thieving military brutes.
43	* DirtyCommunists: The Monument Men soon find them their other adversaries considering they are looking for art to keep for themselves. However, the Men do admit that after all the horrors the Russians suffered in the war, they can't blame them for a bit of payback from the Germans in taking their art in revenge. In the scene where we see them seizing the art, they do at least treat it with care, the soldiers being warned to only handle the frames since the paintings are irreplaceable.
44	* DramaticIrony:
45	** Stokes asks for permission to continue searching for the Raphael painting, ''Portrait of a Young Man'', in the belief that it survived the war. The painting is shown being destroyed by the Nazis earlier in the movie.
46	** In his first lecture Stokes states that the war will be over in a few months once the Allies invade, when it actually lasts another year.
47	* {{Egopolis}}: References are made to Hitler's proposed "Führermuseum" near his birthplace in Austria.
48	* EverybodySmokes: Aside from Savitz and that horse.
49	* EvilCounterpart: the Trophy Brigade, the Monuments Men's Soviet counterparts, who don't give back the art they take.
50	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
51	** Claire reads about the arrest of Viktor Stahl as a small story buried within her newspaper, while drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette at a cafe. See the ButForMeItWasTuesday entry.
52	** Stokes looking at the BloodStainedLetter Jeffries is narrating in voiceover cues the audience to his death just before we see it happen.
53	** Averted with Preston Savitz who clearly says early in the film that he hopes to shoot someone, but never does.
54	* FourLinesAllWaiting: A major criticism is the team being split into pairs, resulting in none of the four storylines getting the time they need to be really engaging.
55	* FriendshipMoment
56	** Despite their earlier animosity, Savitz plays the record sent by Campbell's daughter and grandchildren over the camp PA system.
57	** The Monuments Men refuse to leave when Granger has to step off the mine.
58	* FunWithSubtitles: Granger's not-very-good French is translated exactly into English.
59	* GracefulLoser: [[spoiler:The Russian leader of the "trophy brigade", once he finds the American flag in front of the salt mine.]]
60	* HiddenInPlainSight: The Men tear the last mine apart trying to find the last panel of Art/{{the Ghent Altarpiece}}, only to find it [[spoiler:wrapped in a blanket and being used as a table]].
61	* HollywoodHistory: The movie is a fairly BroadStrokes presentation of the war and the Monuments Men project, which in real life was composed of far more than just eight men (it was actually around ''400'', as befit such a truly massive project).
62	** Stout (Stokes in the film) was not directly involved with the creation of the Monuments Men, although his efforts to preserve the art of occupied Europe had been an important inspiration as he had proposed something similar ''prior'' to 1943, before invasion was even an issue.
63	** The Germans did not destroy the art held in the mines. The Nero Decree did not mention archives or art at all. In fact Hitler specifically ordered that all the art be left to German museums upon his death. While the Germans did destroy some art, it was all art they considered "degenerate", which does not cover most of the art depicted in the film (though Picasso's were indeed on the list), and the mines were reserved for art they intended to keep. Hitler actually considered Art/{{the Ghent Altarpiece}} an example of "Aryan genius". In addition, there is little evidence that the Monuments Men knew of the Decree.
64	*** The film seems to leave the impression that the top generals were boorish, greedy fools for focusing on the captured German gold in the mine and not the art. In point of fact, even with the incalculable cultural value the art possessed, the seizure of the gold was vastly more important in winning the war. By capturing the gold of the Reichsbank, the Allies had essentially seized Germany's bank account and had starved the Nazi regime of the hard currency reserves it desperately needed to prop up the German economy and continue what little fighting it could.
65	** Several names and personalities were changed and at least one character -- the Frenchman Jean-Claude Clermont -- outright made up for the movie. [[spoiler: Which slightly undermines the impact of his death]].
66	** Claire Simone is based on Rose Valland, and while she and Rorimer did indeed work closely together, she was a lesbian, and the romantic subplot was made up for the movie. Donald Jeffries was based on Ronald Balfour, who was indeed killed, but in different circumstances unconnected to the Madonna of Bruges.
67	** Much of the time the Monuments Men had to march on ''foot'' or were forced to hitch rides. In many cases they got little help from the military. However, this is clearly referenced in the film.
68	** The Monuments Men had several days to clear out the Altausee mine before the territory was handed over to the Russians.
69	** The movie completely ignores a crucial debate concerning the rescued art: Soon after the war, US authorities ordered over 200 priceless works of art be shipped to the United States. The Monuments Men, en masse, signed a declaration, called the ''Weisbaden Manifesto'' (after the city and Allied military base of Wiesbaden where the artworks were first centrally depoted for final disposition), protesting the decision. They claimed that whatever the true intentions of the US military, it could not help but be seen as trophy taking on the level of the Soviets or even Hitler. The decision would not be rescinded until 1948.
70	* HopeSpot: Jeffries sneaks into German-occupied Bruges to ensure the safety of Michelangelo's ''Madonna and Child'', and is relieved to discover the statue untouched by bombing or looting. Then a Nazi colonel enters the church to steal it at gunpoint.
71	* HypocriticalHumor: Stokes gripes over the flippancy of the Soviets naming their art unit the "Trophy Commission". Granger points out that "Monuments Men" is no different.
72	* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Justified -- Stahl shoots at Claire at the railway station and misses even though she doesn't try to take cover, but he's a non-combatant soldier using a Luger pistol at long range, and he's shooting from a moving train. Colonel Wegner kills Jeffries with his Luger after being shot in the shoulder, but he's an experienced soldier firing at a much closer range.
73	* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Granger says this to his fellow soldiers just before stepping off a mine, but survives.
74	* LandMineGoesClick: Granger steps on a mine (while inside a mine) so his fellow soldiers stack bricks on it in the hope of making up his weight. When he steps off [[CatScare the detonator goes off but not the explosive]], the mine having been damaged by an earlier fire.
75	* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Garfield and Clermont agree not to tell anyone they were scared and nearly killed by a [[ChildSoldier small boy]].
76	* AMillionIsAStatistic: Subverted, it is noted that the Russians are seizing the art they recover as reparations for the 20 million men they have lost in the war, and this loss is treated with decent gravity. They are still treated as rivals at best and the lesser evil at worst, since most of the art they are stealing was already stolen from the ''other'' millions of people the Nazis conquered and killed (as well as repatriating Soviet art).
77	* MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: Granger's French is so grammatically awful that every bilingual Frenchman he meets insists that he stop.
78	* NaziGold: The Men find quite a lot of it in one of the art storage facilities. While they don't consider it all that important compared to the paintings and sculptures they found with it, Allied Command finds securing the gold - and with it the public declaration that Hitler is now bankrupt - far more interesting than the artwork.
79	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The Monuments Men accidentally stumble upon [[NaziGold Germany's gold reserves]] while searching for stolen art, but in the film it's treated as just something that happened that seemed irrelevant to their primary mission. In RealLife, though, this accidental discovery played some importance in hastening the end of the war.
80	* OhCrap:
81	** Sgt Garfield stands up in the obstacle course to talk to his friends despite the soldiers firing over his head. They inform him that, contrary to what he believes, they weren't firing blanks.
82	** Garfield and Clermont realize they're out in the open between an American and a German patrol.
83	** Stahl has one when his kids give the Nazi salute in response to a casual "Heil Hitler" by Savitz.
84	* {{Plunder}}: What the Nazi do with all the artwork, while at least the Soviets have some pretext with German artwork as some payback for all the horrors Nazi Germany inflicted on them.
85	* PullTheThread: Two of the Monuments Men are led to a farmer who was an "arts student", who is in reality Viktor Stahl, one of the Nazis in charge of the looting in Paris. The fugitive tries to pass off the paintings in his house as mere copies, but the experts are able to tell in seconds that they are the real ones with clear evidence they are stolen and make him squirm with their questions until they arrest him.
86	* PunnyName: The SS officer in charge of stealing art in Paris is Viktor Stahl, which is German for "steel"
87	* RaceAgainstTheClock: The final seizure has the Russians coming in since the territory has been ceded to them, despite the Monuments Men only just finding a piece of art one of their men earlier died for. They only just get it out, thanks to a burning wreck on the road delaying the Russians.
88	* ARareSentence: When the Monuments Men learn that the Germans are going to destroy the looted artwork in the event of Hitler's death, they realize the urgency of their mission while Jean-Claude remarks that Hitler better doesn't die. He acknowledges that he didn't think he'd ever hear himself utter that sentence.
89	* RunningGag: French people constantly asking Granger to please "not speak French." He states that he learned it in Quebec, but apart from some slang, he's beyond terrible in that dialect as well (pronunciation, grammar, syntax are all wrong and he is barely understandable).
90	* SayingTooMuch: Teaching your kids to Heil Hitler is not a good idea.
91	* SeriousBusiness: Initially averted since Stokes stresses that no art is worth more than their lives, but when two fellows ''are'' killed in the line of their duties, it becomes this.
92	* SmugSnake: Stahl, making his later fall all the more glorious.
93	* SoMuchForStealth: Jeffries cocks his pistol (to allow a more accurate first shot) letting Colonel Wegner know an armed man is in the church.
94	* SpitefulSpit: Viktor Stahl tells Claire Simone to [[YouGetMeCoffee fetch him another champagne glass]] so he can share a toast with Hermann Goering. She selects a glass from the kitchen and spits in it. A member of the staff is looking on in surprise, but [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating when Claire informs her it's for Stahl she spits in the glass as well]].
95	* TakingYouWithMe: The Men learn of the Nero Decree to destroy everything if Hitler dies or Nazi Germany falls and they must find the art before that happens.
96	* TastesLikeFriendship: Confronted at gunpoint by a lone German soldier who can't speak English, Campbell breaks the ice by offering him cigarettes so they can sit down and have a smoke. Contrasted in a later scene when Stokes and Wegner ''don't'' share a friendly cigarette.
97	* VitriolicBestBuds: Campbell and Savitz. They constantly taunt and grate one another, but by the end of the film, they've shared so much they can't help but like one another.
98	* WasItReallyWorthIt: President Truman asks Stokes whether the two Monuments Men who died would have considered their deaths worthwhile. Despite having said to the men earlier in the movie that their deaths weren't worth a piece of art, Stokes concludes that they would have.

Context Film / TheMonumentsMen