#while still being *the* biggest german movie star just as hitler had risen to power

[aikainkauna]

A scene from Jew Süss (1934). Süss (Conrad Veidt) discovers his daughter (Pamela Mason) has just committed suicide because his despicable boss, the Duke (Frank Vosper) tried to rape her, and she had no way out except to plunge off a tower. Cedric Hardwicke co-stars as Süss’s rabbi.

Connie’s acting is not only harrowing but terrifying.

Bear in mind this had serious reality subtext for him as well: his own daughter, Viola, the person he loved more than anyone in the world, was still stuck in Nazi Germany at the time (he himself had just fled to Britain with his Jewish wife, barely escaping with their lives). In another eerie parallel to this, unbeknownst to Connie (Viola never told him this because she knew he would fall apart), the Nazis tried to get Viola to become a part of one of their Aryan breeding programs. They took her in for “interrogations” and even arranged a blond “husband” candidate for her “to clear the Jewish stain off the Veidt family name”. But even if Connie didn’t know, this scene nevertheless represented his very real fear of the worst thing that could happen to him at that point in time.

#conrad veidt #jew suss #video #pamela mason #frank vosper #cedric hardwicke #and the way suss just bends to his fate with the duke makes suss even more unsympathetic #i'm still baffled as to how and why he thought starring in this movie would be pro-jewish #but then again even the fact that he *repeatedly* chose to play jewish characters #while still being *the* biggest german movie star just as hitler had risen to power #was a political choice on his part #so i guess that it was partially because he wanted to play jews as humans but bc he also thought this was a great part #and he gets to play a lot of emotions here--just like in the wandering jew #the phlegmatic sobbing and the terrifying cries and shrieks he makes jfc #his accent's so thick you can't even make out what some of the lines are but that somehow adds to the terrifyingness #you can see why people didn't dare mess with this guy because he was just THIS CRAZY #and you just know this was all proper real veidt crazy and not just him putting it on for a role #because he would always play a very connie version of whatever role he was given #instead of the opposite of typical method acting where the actor disappears inside the character #also the duke needs to be fucking gang raped and set on fire himself jfc die die die #it's really uncomfortable to watch this thanks to all this crapey crap but connie's acting is worth it #it's just not the sort of movie one enjoys rewatching... everyone in this is just such a jerk