Valkyrie
Produced and distributed
by United Artists
Directed by Bryan Singer
Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie
Slumdog Millionaire
Produced by Celador Films
Directed by Danny Boyle
Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup’s novel
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures
In Valkyrie, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and director Bryan Singer tell the story of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German Catholic who led the conspiracy that almost assassinated Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. While considered a national hero in Germany, Stauffenberg is not nearly as well known in America. So strong is the propaganda coloring America’s understanding of what happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945 that many of our citizens tend to think of all Germans as Nazis. In the popular imagination, Germans are either the monocled, heel-clicking sadists on display in Casablanca or the buffoons of Hogan’s Heroes. It’s just this kind of historical caricaturing that Stauffenberg sacrificed his life to prevent. He agreed with his fellow conspirator, Henning von Tresckow, who said that they had to kill the Führer “to show the world that not all of us are like him; otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.” They failed,...