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Luther 3 November 03
Section: article
Categories: Film / distraction
I knew very little about Martin Luther.
I wanted to see the film to get a summary of Luther’s life.
Though a European production, the movie was as conformist and in terror of any spark of some critical faculty among the public as the worst of Hollywood productions.
One segment dealing with the slaughter of upwards of 100,000 peasants in the context of the turmoil precipitated by Luther’s writings was presented so ambiguously that it made me wonder what really happened.
It was ambiguous because it was not made explicit who killed the peasants—but the film-makers were content to appeal to “our” society’s fear of the masses gone mad and subtly, as I see it, attribute the slaughter of the masses to the unruly masses themselves.
I started some research, not complete, on the Peasants Revolt of 1525 and came across a number of links and this quote from Luther, allegedly:
Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel.
Here are a couple of links on Luther:
www.geocities.com/paulntobin/luther
Martin Luther, Indulgences, and the Origins of the Protestant Revolt
And this quote:
Luther employed a coarseness and brutality of language unequalled in German history until the Nazi time
From:
Title: Luther
Directed by: Eric Till
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Peter Ustinov, Bruno Ganz, Uwe Ochsenknecht
Cinema: Turm Kino, Frankfurt
- Title: Luther
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