It is a well-known fact that Hitler was a failed artist before he became a monster. How that failure fueled what came next is largely an unanswered question, but one thing is certain. It fueled a rampant desire to possess for himself and The Third Reich all of the world’s great art.
‘Rape of Europa,’ a compelling documentary (now on DVD), tells the lesser-known true story of how Hitler’s war and killing machine facilitated an art thievery machine that is beyond belief.
We see the micro level of Jewish art dealers sent off to death camps, in tandem stripped of their citizenship, leading to the cynical and evil capture of literally thousands of masterpieces that are suddenly ‘owner-less.’
We then see the curators and staff of France’s famed Louvre and Russia’s Hermitage scrambling to strip the walls bare of their museums to hide treasures like Mona Lisa before the Nazi onslaught arrives. Next, we see the Nazi machine in action, systematically pillaging antiquities, furniture, paintings, sculpture, etc.
What follows is the Allies’ wartime dilemma of whether to fight the Axis with a blind eye to protecting classic monuments and artifacts, or instead, to measure blows and bombs, putting human life (soldiers) at greater peril.
Finally, as the Allied victory takes hold, we see the saintly role America played in doggedly chasing down (over a multi-year period) the Nazi’s ill-gotten gains, and repatriating them to their rightful owners.
It is a beautiful bookend to Donald Rumsfeld’s lame “stuff happens” mea culpa after the complete looting of the Baghdad Museum (following the invasion of Iraq), and a reminder of why America was so globally revered after World War II, and what we need to return to.
Side note: To fully understand the brutal efficiency of Hitler’s Germany, you really have to see Ken Burn’s brilliant documentary, The War (links to my post); it's lengthy at 15 hours (6 DVDs) but a life changer, to be sure. Let us never forget.
Without financing, the same identical underlying asset is worth much less!
Leave it to Andy Kessler to find the perfect allegory that captures how when the financing engine seizes, assets are suddenly worth less. A lot less.
In ‘Chicago Cubs Economy,’ Kessler assesses Mark Cuban’s aborted attempt to buy the Cubs, and what it says about asset values, now and into the future:
Here’s an excerpt:
"So here we sit in early 2009. Banks aren't lending much, so assets are being quickly revalued back to some rational cash-flow multiple. A house is increasingly worth what your income cash flow can afford to carry mortgage payments, not what the next sucker will pay to take it off your hands. Same for stocks. Earnings were and are king. Low-debt or debt-free companies with earnings potential once the economy bottoms out will be the next wave of winners. Debt-ridden companies have a long workout ahead."
"The trick is to get as quickly as possible to rational pricing. What is something worth with normalized profits and cash flow? That's what forms market bottoms and gets bankers lending again."
Like Having Bad Speakers on a Great Stereo
Perhaps it’s a bit unromantic to look at the business of movie making as being as much about the packaging as the product.
On the other hand, those of us in tech have long appreciated the sad fact that good marketing of mediocre products often trumps poor marketing of great products (see: Microsoft v. Apple: Chapter 1).
In 'Inside a Movie Marketer’s Playbook' (in The New Yorker) we learn about the rules that studio marketers have cobbled together for making their films seem broadly 'relatable'; how audience segmentation shapes what gets 'green lighted' and how much of the science of marketing is determining which OLD movie your NEW movie is most like, so you can turn to that movie’s playbook as a rough guide.
Sounds like the classic VC query "So who do you look like?"
Here’s an excerpt:
"Most of a movie’s opening gross is about marketing,” Clint Culpepper, the president of Sony Screen Gems, says. "You can have the most terrific movie in the world, and if you can’t convey that fact in fifteen- and thirty-second TV ads it’s like having bad speakers on a great stereo." At Sony, executives ask, "Can we make this seem ‘babysitter-worthy’? Will it get them out of the house?"
"The big studios’ average marketing budget of thirty-six million dollars is one-third the total cost of making a film; Lionsgate’s average marketing budget is twenty-two million dollars, about two-thirds of the film’s total cost. In other words, Lionsgate is making much cheaper films that rely disproportionately on their marketing."
"If we weren’t making decisions based on marketability, John Malkovich would be in every movie,” a top studio marketer says. "Great actor, but not someone you want to see half-naked in the sheets next to Angelina Jolie."