Anyone who has read a newspaper, looked at a news website, or is remotely interested in entertainment and film-making will have noticed this story at some point today. For some, this is the sort of silly Hollywood gossip that will quickly be forgotten about. However, I personally find elements of this story uncomfortable, and I also think it sets a rather dangerous precedent for the future.

Film-makers being denied permission to film in certain locations certainly isn't anything new. In 2005, Ron Howard was refused permission to film a number of scenes for The Da Vinci Code in Westminster Abbey. Concerns about the film's subject matter led to this decision being taken, although it has to be said that such concerns didn't prevent filming from taking place at Lincoln Cathedral, Rosslyn Chapel and Temple Church. However, the situation with Tom Cruise is very different, because it is the personal beliefs of the actor himself that are causing a problem for the German Defence Ministry and for the filming of Valkyrie. I hasten to add that there is a rather petty element to all this as well, since no requests for filming permission have actually been received. It's a pre-emptive strop if you like.

For the record, I have no time for Scientology whatsoever and consider it a source of amusement more than anything else. However, this issue has nothing to do with the validity and merits of Scientology as a religion, but rather the decision to discriminate against someone who believes in it, and entirely on the basis of those beliefs. I wouldn't have a problem if the German Defence Ministry had refused Cruise permission because they thought he made a bad films, but this isn't the situation. They have denied him permission because they think Scientology indulges in activities "directed against the free democratic order". They consider Scientology to be a manipulative cult created for the sole purpose of making money.

Christianity is a manipulative cult created for the sole purpose of making money. Do you see my point? Little good comes from poison or from Jews. It's all getting very close to the bone isn't it? The moment somebody is told that they cannot do something because of their faith, we start down a very slippery slope indeed. What would the outcry have been like if the filming of Valkyrie had been refused because director Bryan Singer is Jewish? Despite how daft Scientology appears to most of us, saying something (even a religion) is daft is completely different from discriminating on the basis of it. And in case you were wondering, the comment I made earlier about Jews was originally the caption for a cartoon in the Nazi magazine Der Stürmer.

So despite Valkyrie having nothing to do with Scientology at all, permission is apparently going to be refused. I do wonder if part of this is linked to the general dismay in Germany over an American actor playing a person, considered by many, to be a German war hero. I've been to the Memorial to the German Resistance in Berlin and have seen the tributes to Colonel von Stauffenberg. He's a man the Germans have enormous respect for, but there seems to have been an assumption made that Cruise is incapable of doing him justice. Perhaps what we're seeing is a blending of wounded national pride and a general distrust of Scientology. But I see no reason why Cruise, with a distinguished career spanning three decades, three Oscar nominations, and a solid physical resemblance to von Stauffenberg, would automatically fail to honour him.

I am also of the opinion that all of this rather goes against the point of film-making. There's no point in watching a film if you're unwilling to resign to the fact that it's a fantasy. Films allow us to see things we couldn't otherwise experience, and to listen to conversations we would never have been privy to. They stun us with wonderful visuals, heighten our emotions and stimulate our creativity. Unless they are a focal point of a film (such as in a documentary), the political, religious and societal beliefs of those involved mustn't matter if we are to experience the film as it is intended to be experienced.

Whatever country it ends up being filmed in, I'm actually looking forward to Valkyrie a great deal. It sounds like a different take on a war film, and it features a talented director and cast. But there really is an unsavoury aspect to the behaviour of the German officials, and the restriction of art on the basis of faith brings back memories of darker times in the country's history.

© David Mercier
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