Anti-Semitism in Munchhausen

I find it really interesting that Rentschler brings to light the issue of the contrast made in the film between Count Cagliostro and Munchhausen. First of all, as Rentschler mentions, Count Cagliostro is played in the film by Ferdinand Marian, who audiences who have already recognized not just from Jud Suss, but also as an actor who consistently plays deceptively attractive characters. When I saw Cagliostro at the beginning of the film, I already made the connection between the character and Suss Oppenheimer, not just because of Marian’s presence, but because of his outerwear and the foreboding music and camera angles, which Rentschler reminds us the audience is supposed to recognize. Although I initially thought that Munchhausen was a particularly neutral film, particularly for the Third Reich, after reading Rentschler I realize that the anti-Semitic undertones of the film are definitely present. As Rentschler points out, by making the audience associate Cagliostro with a Jew without ever explicitly stating it allows the audience to inherently make connections between this “Semitic otherness” and the world takeover (Cagliostro tries to convince Munchhausen to help him take over Courland): exactly the kind of propaganda that Goebbels found effective. Furthermore, when Munchhausen refuses this request, it furthers the idea of the blonde and blue Aryan heroically resisting the “schemes” of the Jew: the use of color in the film helps to illuminate the physical differences in the Aryan Munchhausen and the “Semitic” Cagliostro, as Rentschler also points out. This form of anti-Semitic propaganda would have seemingly been as, if not more, effective than an explicit film such as Jud Suss, because it comes back to the idea of allowing the audience to reinforce stereotypes that they already hold true on their own accord.