MOVIES

Constantin Costa-Gavras has directed the new film, Music Box. In the film, Jessica Lange plays an attorney who defends her father after he has been
accused of war crimes against the Jews.

unblinking view could allow,
Masha to observe: "Some (of
the survivors) had become
rich in America, had opened
factories, hotels, super-
markets. The widowers had
taken new wives, the widows
new husbands . . . Men who
had been smugglers in Nazi
Germany and dealt in black
market goods, had married
German girls, sometimes the
daughters and sisters of
Nazis. No one had repented
his sins — neither the agres-
sor nor the victim."
Mazursky has retained
Singer's ironic humor in the
face of life's desperations.
There are gentle chuckles in
the faithful recreation of New
York's Jewish life in the late
'40s and full-blown laughter
in a side excursion to a Borsht
Belt resort in the Catskills.

A Dramatic
Conclusion

Compared to the long and
tortuous paths in creating
Triumph of the Spirit and
Enemies, the making of
Music Box was relatively
straightforward. Shortly after
completing the film Betrayed,
a study of right-wing racism
in America, the team of pro-
ducer Irwin Winkler, director
Costa-Gavras and screenwrit-
er Joe Eszterhas reunited in
1986 to embark on their new
project.
The result is a taut, highly

42

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1990

professional film, which, in
contrast to the other two
Holocaust-themed movies,
comes up with a neat, dra-
matic conclusion and prob-
ably stands the best chance
among the three of finding a
wide audience.
The axis around which
Music Box revolves is the
relationship between Mike
"Mishka") Laszlo, portrayed
by German actor Armin
Mueller-Stahl, and his daugh-
ter, Ann Talbot (Jessica
Lange). Laszlo left a dis-
placed persons camp in 1948
to immigrate to the United
States, listing his occupation
as farmer. He got a job in a
Chicago steel mill and, after
his wife's death a few years
later, raised Ann and her
brother as a model father and
loyal new American.
Forty years later, Laszlo is
notified by the U.S. Justice
Department that it will seek
to revoke his citizenship
because he lied on his immi-
gration application. If the
government proves its case,
Laszlo will be extradited to
Hungary, which wants to try
him for heinous wartime
atrocities, mainly against
Jews, as a leader of the fascist
militia.
Laszlo indignantly denies
the charges, claiming that
they are based either on
mistaken identity or a frame-
up by the Hungarian govern-
ment in retaliation for his
anti-Communist activities

since coming to America.
Ann, by now a skilled crimi-
nal attorney, is convinced of
her father's innocence and
agrees to serve as his defense
lawyer.
Anne's law firm partner
trys to warn her off the case.
The government's case will
rest strongly on the testi-
mony of Laszlo's alleged vic-
tims, cautions a black col-
league against cross-examin-
ing Holocaust survivors.
Also, can the judge, who
will hear the case without a
jury, be fair, seeing that he is
Jewish? On second thought,
counsels another friend, why
not get that lawyer from
Cleveland who defended
Demjanjuk, or however you
pronounce his name, at his
trial in Israel.
The last aside is the only
direct reference in the film to
the case of John Demjanjuk,
but there are some striking
similarities. (Demjanjuk, a
native Ukrainian and a nat-
uralized American, was
stripped of his U.S. citizen-
ship and extradited to Israel,
where a court convicted him
two years ago of committing
atrocities as a sadistic guard
at the Treblinka concentra-
tion camp. His appeal of the
court's death sentence is
pending.)
Both Demjanjuk, a retired
auto worker from Cleveland,
and the fictitious Laszlo were
blue collar workers in a Mid-
western city, who raised ap-

parently devoted American
families. Furthermore, the
film trial, as did the real one
in Israel, repeatedly tries to
impugn the reliability of pro-
secution witnesses whose rec-
ollections date back more
than 40 years, and questions
whether crucial documents
could have been forged by
Communist regimes.
In preparing the script for
Music Box, writer Eszterhas,
a son of non-Jewish Hungar-
ian refugees, did extensive
research on the Demjanjuk
case, while director Costa-
Gavras said that he reviewed
transcripts of the trial and
watched many hours of news
coverage and television inter-
views.
It would be grossly unfair
to future viewers to give away
the ending of Music Box, or
present a clue to the meaning
of the title. The conclusion is
startling and should be good
for some intense discussions
on the conflict between fam-
ily loyalty and the citizen's
responsibility to society.

Habits Are
Changing

Conventional Hollywood
wisdom has it that during the
December holiday season,
when people want to forget
their problems, any "serious"
picture would have a tough
time competing against the
plethora of comedy, adven-

ture, romance and cuddly
family pictures. How much
more so if the films' themes
are tied to the Holocaust?
Despite the odds, the dis-
tributors of Triumph of the
Spirit, Enemies and Music
Box profess to be undaunted
and consider the job a chal-
lenge to their marketing
savvy.
For one, they believe that
moviegoing habits are chang-
ing toward a more selective
and sophisticated choice of
films. lb attract such viewers,
distributors are counting on
the usual advertising and pro-
motion techniques, but at
least equally on good critical
reviews, word-of-mouth rec-
ommendations, and, prayer-
fully, a bountiful crop of
Academy Award nominations
when they are announced in
the middle of February.
Though none of the films
can boast a real superstar in
the cast, advertisements and
trailers will stress what they
got — Willem Dafoe in Tri-
umph, Anjelica Houston and
director Mazursky in Ene-
mies, and Jessica Lange in
Music Box.
All three films are being
released selectively and care-
fully, to allow for the hoped-
for momentum to build. Ene-
mies and Music Box opened
in December only in single
theatres in Los Angeles, New
York and Toronto, before go-
ing into wider release in mid-
January. 7}iumph, with only
New York and Los Angeles
openings, will peg its future
distribution to the Oscar
nominations.
The latter film, which may
have the toughest selling job
of all, has brought the real-life
hero of Triumph, Salamo
Arouch, from Israel to Los
Angeles and New York, for a
series of press interviews.
More than the other two
films, Riumph, is slanting its
promotion toward the Jewish
community, arranging pre-
mieres and benefits for the
B'nai B'rith and similar
organizations and advertising
heavily in Jewish newspapers.
As for the Oscar nomina-
tions, a spokesman for
Triumph said that the fact
that the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences has
a very large Jewish member-
ship is not an automatic
guarantee that they will turn
out for the special Academy
screenings and then vote for
the "right" pictures and act-
ors. On the other hand, he
added, "It can't hurt, can
it?" ❑