Nazi Comedy?

It would be very difficult to find any political propaganda in The Broken Jug, so the best way to look at the movie in the context of Nazism is to look for evidence of Nazi cultural norms. Of course it would be best to do this with a comparison to the original Kleist play, but it is possible to notice some peculiarities without knowledge of it. In class we discussed the portrayal of the judge, his deviance from accepted standards of conduct, and the portrayal of his body. Although it is a stretch to claim that disdain for a criminal is a specifically Nazi phenomenon, it is at least not anti-Nazi. One other aspect we could look at is the character of the official from Utrecht. His character evolves from inspiring fear and mistrust to, as the audience slowly learns of Adam’s guilt, being a species of hero. Indeed, I believe we mentioned in class that the scene at the end, where the official ensures Ruprecht that he is not required to go to the West Indies, was not in the stage version. I may be wrong on this, but regardless the progression of the character could be interpreted as representing the benevolent function of central government power. Another interesting point is the role of women in the film. I hesitate to analyze this without a comparison to the stage version, however, or even without having a full understanding of the dialogue (since I saw it on Sunday night). If one were to do so, one could look at how women are portrayed in both. Do the mother’s protests seem legitimate or hysterical and exaggerated? How do the other characters view Eve, knowing that she had a male visitor (i.e., do they consider her to blame for a perceived offense?) How is the woman who saw the devil portrayed, is she made to seem foolish? These are just some of the questions one could ask.