The Frank Discussion

It always amazes me when you sit and look at "ownership" of people or legends in Europe.  If a writer wakes up and decides to write a bio-piece on some legendary figure.....the foundation or family in control of the estate.....always wants to get into the business, and ensure their property is characterized the right way.  If the writer cooperates....fine.  If he deviates from the persona and starts lay out a more rough or upsetting character.....it usually turns into a bitter public fight.

This week....the Anne Frank story got dragged up here in Germany.  It'll be seventy years since the Dutch Jewish teenager died in a concentration camp.  Course, being the 'magic' seventy.....means that someone has to do a TV movie or regular movie over Anne Frank.

Currently.....three folks are moving toward a movie.

The issue at hand?  One of the three....ZDF (the state-run German network).....elected to do the piece without cooperating with the Frank family or the Anne Frank Fund (some Swiss guys who own the publishing rights to the book).  Naturally....both the fund and family are visibly upset because they didn't have veto power over the script or the telling of the story.  There's also the possibility that both expected some pay-off of sorts......as a member of the ZDF team telling this story.  I would rather believe that financial reasons weren't part of the discussion.....but these days.....you just can't tell.

The other two folks working on Frank productions?  They invited both the Anne Frank Fund and family to be part of the process.  No one says that they had veto power over the script or got anything special out of this.....just that they were cooperating.

The intention of ZDF's efforts?  They've recently (over the past five years) begun to do a number of stories over the war from a civilians prospective and that of a Jew.  From my own humble opinion.....I'd say that they are producing some quality movie pieces of the 1930s and the war.....even-handed for the most part, and doing fair coverage to the true stories that occurred.

Maybe this will simply all pass, with no real notice by the public.  The curious thing.....in one single year....three major movie productions of Anne Frank.  You'd sit and ponder over the possibility that various critics will sit and watch all three.....back-to-back......and provide some twenty-page critical reviews.  Yeah, stranger things have occurred in the past.