The Monuments Men is a 2014
American-German war film directed by George Clooney, written and produced by
Clooney and Grant Heslov, and starring Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John
Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. Based
on the non-fiction book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the
Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, by Robert M. Edsel, the film follows an
allied group, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, tasked with
finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before
their destruction by Hitler during World War II.[4][5]
The film, co-produced by Columbia
Pictures (in association with 20th Century Fox) and Babelsberg Studio, was
released on February 7, 2014
In 1943 during World War II, the
Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers in Italy. However,
Frank Stokes (George Clooney) persuades the US President that victory will have
little meaning if the art treasures of Western civilization are lost in the
fighting, either as collateral damage in combat or looted. To minimize that
threat, Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the
"Monuments Men" comprising seven museum directors, curators, and art
historians to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art to return it to
the rightful owners.
In occupied France, Claire Simone
(Cate Blanchett), a curator in Paris, is forced to allow Nazi officers like
Viktor Stahl to oversee the theft of art for either Adolf Hitler's proposed
Führermuseum in Linz, or as the personal property of senior commanders like
Herman Goering. While she is nearly arrested for helping her Maquis brother
unsuccessfully recapture such items, all seems lost when she discovers that
Stahl is taking all of her gallery's contents to Germany as the Allies approach
Paris. When she runs to the railyard to confront Stahl, he fires on her with
his pistol; although she does not seek cover, she is not hit, but can only
watch helplessly as Stahl escapes with the stolen artwork.
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As for Stokes' unit, they find their
work is frustrated by their own side's combat units who refuse to restrict
their tactical options for the sake of preserving architecture, while James
Granger (Matt Damon) finds that Simone will not cooperate with those whom she
suspects are art looters themselves. The unit splits up for various objectives
with varying degrees of success. Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) of the
British Army attempts to arrange the safety of a Belgian church with valuable
artwork and is killed attempting to prevent the Nazi Colonel Wegner from
stealing a statue of the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo.
Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) and
Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban) attempt to track down a stolen Belgian panel set
of religious artwork (the Van Eyck altarpiece looted from Ghent cathedral), and
in doing so, find and arrest Viktor Stahl, hiding as a farmer, when they
identify the paintings in his house as originals stolen from the Rothschild
Collection. Walter Garfield (John Goodman) and Jean Claude Clermont (Jean
Dujardin) are caught in a crossfire of a battle and Clermont is mortally
wounded. Meanwhile, Simone reconsiders when Granger shows her the Nero Decree
to destroy all German possessions if Hitler dies or Germany falls, and when she
sees Granger return a painting looted from a Jewish family murdered in the
death camps to its rightful place as a symbolic gesture. Realizing the
Americans are serious in their intentions, she eventually provides a
comprehensive ledger that provides valuable information to identify stolen art.
Even as the team learn that the
artwork is being stored in various mines and castles, they also learn that they
must now compete against the Soviet Union who have units of their own seizing
artwork as war reparations. Meanwhile, Colonel Wegner is systematically
removing and destroying whole art collections as per orders. Eventually, the
team have some success as they discover at least one mine with over 16,000 art
pieces as well as grotesque caches as barrels of gold teeth from victims of the
death camps. In addition, they also discover gold assets of the Nazi German
national treasury, whose capture effectively bankrupts the regime.
Finally, they find a mine in Austria
that seems destroyed and is in what should become part of the Soviet occupation
zone. However, the team discover that only the entrances were damaged by the
locals in order to fool the Nazis and they manage to gain entry even as their
fellows delay the oncoming Soviets. As a result, the team evacuate as much
artwork as possible, including the sculpture Jeffries died defending, before
the Soviets arrive.
Finally, Stokes reports to President
Truman that they have 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 if his efforts were worth it.
Stokes firmly replies it was.
Decades later, the elderly Stokes
(Nick Clooney) takes his grandson to see Michelangelo's Madonna sculpture, amid
large crowds of youth appreciating the pieces of humanity's creativity that his
men sacrificed so much to preserve in war.
• George
Clooney as Lt. Frank Stokes, loosely based on George L. Stout
• Nick
Clooney plays the aged Stokes in the film's final scene.
• Matt
Damon as Lt. James Granger, loosely based on James Rorimer
• Bill
Murray as Sgt. Richard Campbell, loosely based on Robert K. Posey
• John
Goodman as Sgt. Walter Garfield, loosely based on Walker Hancock
• Jean
Dujardin as Lt. Jean Claude Clermont
• Bob
Balaban as Pvt. Preston Savitz, loosely based on Lincoln Kirstein
• Hugh
Bonneville as Lt. Donald Jeffries, loosely based on Ronald E. Balfour
• Cate
Blanchett as Claire Simone, loosely based on Rose Valland
• Sam
Hazeldine as Colonel Langton
• Dimitri
Leonidas as Sam Epstein, loosely based on Harry L. Ettlinger