The Monuments Men Dvd

The Monuments Men is a 2014 war film directed by George Clooney, and written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov. The film stars an ensemble cast including Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.

The film is loosely based on the 2007 non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. It follows an Allied group from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program that is given the task of finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before Nazis destroy or steal them, during World War II.

The Monuments Men was co-produced by Columbia Pictures (in association with 20th Century Fox) and Babelsberg Studio. It received mixed critical reviews and grossed $155 million worldwide against a $91 million budget.

Plot

In 1943, the Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers in Italy. Frank Stokes convinces President Roosevelt that victory will have little meaning if the artistic treasures of Western civilization are lost. Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the “Monuments Men”, comprising museum directors, curators, art historians, and an architect, to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art to return it to its rightful owners.

In July 1944, Claire Simone, a curator in occupied France, is forced to assist Nazi officer Viktor Stahl in overseeing the theft of art for either Adolf Hitler’s Führermuseum or as personal property of senior commanders such as Hermann Göring. All seems lost when she discovers that Stahl is taking all of her gallery’s contents to Germany as the Allies approach Paris. Simone runs to the railyard to confront him, but can only watch as he departs aboard the train carrying the cargo.

Stokes’ unit finds its work frustrated by Allied officers in the field, who refuse to endanger their own troops for the sake of his mission. The unit splits up to cover more ground, with varying degrees of success. James Granger meets Simone, but she suspects the Americans want to confiscate the stolen art for their own country, and refuses to cooperate. British officer Donald Jeffries sneaks into occupied Bruges at night to save Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges, but is killed in the attempt.

Richard Campbell and Preston Savitz learn that Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece was removed by the priests of Ghent Cathedral for safekeeping, but their truck was stopped and the panels taken. Eventually, they find and arrest Viktor Stahl, who is hiding as a farmer, when they identify the paintings in his house as masterpieces, at least one stolen from the Rothschild Collection.

In December 1944, Walter Garfield and Jean Claude Clermont get lost in the countryside and blunder into a firefight. Clermont is mortally wounded and dies when Garfield is unable to find medical help. Meanwhile, Simone reconsiders when Granger shows her the Nero Decree, which orders the destruction of all German possessions if Hitler dies or Germany falls, and sees him return a painting looted from a Jewish family to its rightful place in their empty home. She provides a comprehensive ledger she has compiled that provides valuable information on the stolen art and the rightful owners.

Even as the team learns that the artwork is being stored in various mines and castles, it also learns that it must now compete against the Soviet Union, which is seizing artwork from its occupation zone as war reparations. Meanwhile, Colonel Wegner is systematically destroying whole art caches. Eventually, the team has some success, as it discovers at least one mine hiding over 16,000 art pieces. In addition, the team captures the entire gold reserves of the Nazi German national treasury.

Finally, as the war ends in May 1945, the team finds a mine in Austria that appears to have been demolished, and the Soviets will be there in hours. Discovering that the entrances were actually blocked by the locals to prevent the Nazis from destroying the contents, the team evacuates as much artwork as possible, including sculptures, the Ghent Altarpiece, and the Madonna and Child, before the Soviets arrive.

Afterwards, Stokes reports back to President Truman that the team has recovered vast quantities of artwork and various other culturally significant items. As he requests to stay in Europe to oversee further searching and restoration, Truman asks Stokes if his efforts were worth the lives of the men he lost. Stokes says they were. Truman then asks if, thirty years from then, anyone will remember that these men died for a piece of art. In the final scene, set in 1977, the elderly Stokes replies “Yeah”, while he takes his grandson to see Michelangelo’s Madonna.

Cast

George Clooney as Lt. Frank Stokes, loosely based on George L. Stout
Nick Clooney plays an aged Stokes
Matt Damon as Lt. James Granger, loosely based on James Rorimer
Bill Murray as Sgt. Richard Campbell, loosely based on Ralph Warner Hammett and Robert K. Posey
John Goodman as Sgt. Walter Garfield, loosely based on Walker Hancock
Jean Dujardin as 2nd Lt. Jean-Claude Clermont
Bob Balaban as Pvt. Preston Savitz, loosely based on Lincoln Kirstein
Hugh Bonneville as 2nd Lt. Donald Jeffries, loosely based on Ronald E. Balfour
Cate Blanchett as Claire Simone, loosely based on Rose Valland
Serge Hazanavicius as René Armand, loosely based on Jacques Jaujard
Sam Hazeldine as Colonel Langton
Dimitri Leonidas as Pvt. Sam Epstein, loosely based on Harry L. Ettlinger
Grant Heslov as the Army Field Surgeon
Miles Jupp as Major Fielding
Justus von Dohnányi as Viktor Stahl
Zahari Baharov as Commander Elya