V is for...

TOM Cruise receives most important award in Germany despite controversies...

“Valkyrie,” Tom Cruise’s most controversial film to-date and one of world history’s most stunning story has finally opened in Philippine cinemas last February 11.

Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the suspense film “Valkyrie,” based on a true story that chronicles the daring and ingenious plot to eliminate one of the most evil tyrants the world has ever known.

The movie had been the focus of controversy even before the first frame was even shot. The film’s rough ride to the big screen started when the German government forbade the film’s production on Bendler Block, Berlin, the site of Stauffenberg’s execution stating that the ‘dignity of the place’ will be violated.

It was only when producer/writer Christopher McQuarrie McQuarrie met with German officials and assured them of the production’s intentions to tell the remarkable story of Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators with the dignity it deserved, they were allowed to film at locations all over Berlin, including the Bendlerblock. When filming had begun in 2007, Berthold Stauffenberg, Claus Stauffenberg’s son declared in a German newspaper interview that the film is ‘bound to be rubbish.’

More controversies arise as the film progressed wherein Cruise’s Scientology began to receive negative attention in Germany. For the Germans, Scientology is regarded as ‘an organization pursuing commercial interests’ rather than religion. “There was a small minority who made comments about my religion but for me it was like ‘well, okay...’ Of course people want to talk about that and there were a couple of people who felt that way about it but most of the things that were said just weren’t true,” Cruise explains.

The film also suffered accidents wherein ten extras are injured after falling off the back of a truck during filming in Berlin. As more photos and footages of the film are released, more criticism came up in Germany including that of the altered photos of the real Stauffenberg to look more like Tom Cruise and rumors have it that Cruise had to re-record some of his lines to correct the German accent.

But just who is Stauffenberg and why had there been so much resistance on the film? At the center of Valkyrie is Claus von Stauffenberg, the charismatic aristocrat who would ultimately risk everything to carry a bomb into Hitler’s private conference room.

Descended from 700 years of German nobility, Stauffenberg grew up in Bavaria as part of an elite family. Artistically inclined, he loved architecture, music, and poetry, but in the 1920s became a military officer. He was said to have been singled out by his superiors for possessing a genius for military organization and logistics, and he rapidly rose in the ranks. Stauffenberg became Chief of the General Staff of the Reserve Army – a job that would take him into direct personal meetings with Hitler. He suddenly found himself in the perfect position to make an assassination attempt on the Führer.

The historian Annedore Leber wrote of Stauffenberg: “[He was] the prototype of those young higher officers who, though their own future careers were never in doubt, nevertheless had the will to take action. They acted from the officer’s sense of responsibility to his troops, the citizen’s sense of responsibility to his people.”

In the end, with all the hard work that went into the film and the incredible experience of making it, Cruise is very pleased with the end result. “The film is a ticking clock,” he says. “This is a dynamic suspense thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way through. I’m proud that we got the film made, and I’m very proud of what everyone accomplished.”

In the midst of the controversies that surrounded the film, early reviews reveal that there are no comedy German accents and one of Tom Cruise’s digitally erased hand ‘looks pretty great.’ And in November 2007, just right after filming “Valkyrie,” Tom Cruise received a Bambi award, the most important media award in Germany for “Courage” – not only for displaying courage in making Valkyrie, but also his courageous choices of film roles.