Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe' beautifully captures the mysterious life of the once- famed author. Intellectually involving and strikingly made, "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe" is a drama based on the last six years in the life of its protagonist, a celebrated writer whose personal essence remained unknowable despite his fame. Though interest in Zweig's work is said to be rising, the Austrian author is still relatively unknown in this country, compared to his heyday in the 1. European writer on the planet, someone whose death made the front page of the New York Times.

The British-born filmmaker is responsible for several of the 21st century's most critically and commercially successful films, but a best director Oscar nom has long. Loretta Young made her name in Classic Hollywood as a great beauty — and for the cover-up of one of the industry’s greatest scandals: concealing a child, born out. Get the latest Rolling Stone new music news, song and album reviews, free music downloads, artist videos & pictures, playlists and more.

Today, especially for film fans, Zweig is best known for the novella that was the basis of Max Ophuls' "Letter From an Unknown Woman" and for a sensibility and a body of work that inspired Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel."In addition to being a prolific writer, Zweig was also, in those last years of his life, a well- known exile from Hitler's Europe, someone who had a terrible time coping with the chaos, displacement and uncertainty of being a nomad estranged from the homeland whose language had always nourished him. Co- writing (with Jan Schomburg) and directing is top German actress Maria Schrader, still remembered for starring in 1. World War II drama "Aimee & Jaguar.""Stefan Zweig" is only Schrader's second film as a director, but, armed with clear ideas of what she wanted to convey and how she wanted to convey it, she's made a movie that allows its actors to fully inhabit their characters in a potent but low- key way.

This is especially true for star Josef Hader, well known in Austria as, of all things, a comedian, who is brilliant as Zweig. With a face that's muted, evocative and all but unreadable in repose, he puts us in touch with how deep the writer's rarely expressed sadness and melancholy ran.

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Also unusual for an actor turned director, Schrader has made a visually striking film of strong formal qualities. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler, whose credits include the Oscar- nominated "Theeb," "Stefan Zweig" is carefully divided into six sections: a prologue, four chapters and an unsettling epilogue."I wanted the film to have an immediacy, as if we opened a window six times — for 2.

Stefan Zweig's life in real time," the director has said, and that is what happens."Stefan Zweig's" visual qualities are especially apparent in the first of those windows, a prologue revealing a gorgeous formal banquet in the writer's honor that took place in Rio de Janiero in 1. The camera does not move during the entire scene, while plentiful movement within the frame by actors and extras provides a fine sense of drama.

That master shot also makes the point, without having to say anything, that so much of Zweig's life in exile was playing a role, being onstage on a very public platform. As Zweig works the crowd with the most exquisite politeness, you also get the sense of him as a thoughtful, elegant citizen of the world, someone who believed in a borderless Europe and had a special love for Brazil, whose diverse races he saw as "a vision of the future."Set only a few days later, the next sequence picks up in Buenos Aires for the intensely political PEN Congress, an international gathering of 8. The pressure on Zweig to condemn Hitler and the rise of Nazism was intense, but, shunning actions he felt were without risk or consequences, he confound his partisans by refusing to do so. Three of the final four sequences take place in Brazil and involve his much younger second wife, Lotte (Aenne Schwarz).

These vary in tone from the serious to the absurd, including a comic opera reception with a small- town mayor. The scenes also showcase Zweig's continual involvement with helping fellow writers escape from Europe, and his alternating determination, frustration and despair at the process and what it took out of him. Zweig is especially overwhelmed in a sequence in Manhattan in which he reunites with his first wife, Friderike, played by the veteran Barbara Sukowa. As the director notes, "Zweig's greatest gift as a writer, his imagination and empathy, transformed from being a blessing into a curse."Finally, the reasons for Zweig's most perplexing actions, including those revealed in the film's beautifully filmed epilogue, have to be remain unknowable mysteries. But it’s the triumph of "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe" to make this insolubility not frustrating but a source of satisfaction.###‘Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe’No rating. Running time: 1 hour, 4. Playing: Laemmle's Royal, West Los Angeles, Town Center, Encino.

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Seven Questions to Ask Before You Watch ‘Deadpool’I’m a huge fan of superhero movies and shows. So it should come as no surprise that someone like me would be excited about the new Deadpool (2. Deadpool is produced by 2. Century Fox, based on the Marvel comic, part of the X- Men film series. Unfortunately, unlike others in the series, Deadpool is rated R due to “strong violence and language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity.” One website reports that it grossed $1.

R film. On social media, Christians are debating whether or not it’s appropriate to see the film. Is it permissible? Is it wise? Is it legalistic to say no? What follows is a lightly edited transcript from John Piper on why he is committed to abstaining from movies and shows he knows contain nudity. We’ve cast them in terms of seven questions to consider. When Will I Tear Out My Eye, If Not Now? Jesus said everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away (Matthew 5: 2. Seeing naked women on the screen — or naked men — causes a man, or woman, to sin with their minds and their desires, and often with their bodies.

If Jesus told us to guard our hearts by gouging out our eyes to prevent lust, how much more would he say, “Don’t watch it!” 2. Am I Longing to See God? I want to see and know God as fully as possible in this life and the next. Watching nudity is a huge hindrance to that pursuit.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5: 8). The defilement of the mind and heart by watching nudity dulls the heart’s ability to see and enjoy God. I dare anyone to watch nudity and turn straight to God and give him thanks and enjoy him more because of what you just experienced. Do I Care About the Souls of the Nudes?

God calls women to adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self- control (1 Timothy 2: 9). When we pursue or receive or embrace nudity in our entertainment, we are implicitly endorsing the sin of the women who sell themselves to this way and are, therefore, uncaring about their souls. They disobey 1 Timothy 2: 9, and if we watch, we say that’s okay.

Would I Be Glad If My Daughter Played This Role? Most Christians are hypocrites in watching nudity because, on the one hand, they say by their watching that this is okay, and on the other hand, they know deep down they would not want their daughter or their wife or their girlfriend to be playing this role. That is hypocrisy. Am I Assuming Nudity Can Be Faked? Nudity is not like murder and violence on the screen. Violence on a screen is make- believe; nobody really gets killed.

But nudity is not make- believe. These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, doing exactly what the director says to do with their legs and their hands and their breasts.

And they are naked in front of millions of people to see. Am I Assuming Nudity Is Necessary for Good Art? There is no great film or television series that needs nudity to add to its greatness. No. There isn’t. There are creative ways to be true to reality without turning sex into a spectator’s sport and without putting actors and actresses in morally compromised situations on the set. It is not artistic integrity that is driving nudity on the screen. Underneath all of this is male sexual appetite driving this business, and following from that is peer pressure in the industry and the desire for ratings that sell. It is not art that puts nudity in film; it’s the appeal of prurience.

It sells. 7. Am I Free from Doubt? There is one biblical guideline that makes life very simple: “Whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 1. My paraphrase: If you doubt, don’t. That would alter the viewing habits of millions, and oh how sweetly they would sleep with their conscience. So I say it again: Join me in the pursuit of the kind of purity that sees God, and knows the fullness of joy in his presence, and the everlasting pleasure at his right hand.

Listen here to the full 1. Should Christians Watch ‘Game of Thrones’?