Portrait of Der Führer as a Young Man —

Standing on a bare stage before a packed audience is a young man with shiny jet-black hair. He wears a leather jacket and the peach fuzz of a fresh mustache. He stands quivering for a moment, before he speaks. When he does, his energy suddenly bursts forth — like a bottle-rocket.

The speaker is Adolf Hitler. The speech is gleaned from the first passage of Mein Kampf. And one can find this apparition in Max, writer-director Menno Meyjes’s new film about the life of Hitler before his rise to power.

As the speech demonstrates, the film is an exploration of how Hitler became Hitler and of the relationships and choices that could and did change history. These are questions that have been asked for years in scholarly books, such as Ron Rosenbaum’s Explaining Hitler and Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography. But with Max scheduled to open in New York and Los Angeles on December 27, Meyjes is about to find out if audiences are prepared to see such questions discussed in a filmed drama… Forward