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BEYOND TEE ATTIC

New miniseries seeks broader portrait of Anne Frank.

The inmate, however, continues to
hack off the young girl's locks with his
large scissors.
Recognizing the double entendre,
director Robert Dornhelm rushes over,
changing his instructions to "Stop!
Stop!"
Crew and observers watching the
filming of the heart-wrenching scene
cannot help but smile.
The elderly extra, a former hair-
dresser, is struggling to be as brutal
with 13-year-old actress Hannah
Taylor Gordon's hair as the scene
requires.
Getting it right the first time the
cameras roll is crucial, as stars and
crew agree that there will be no wigs
— and therefore no repeat takes —
for this scene in Anne Frank, a four-
hour miniseries airing Sunday and
Monday, May 20 21, on ABC.

-

A More Jewish' Anne

Hannah
Taylor Gordon
portrays Anne
Frank. "I think
In2 really like
her," says the
young British
actress.

5/18
2001

76

KATKA KROSNAR
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

A

nne Frank sits on a stool in
a dimly lit and dusty room,
whimpering as she clutches
her arms to her chest, shiv-
ering from fear and cold. Her large
brown eyes have an unforgettable,
haunted look.
As the Auschwitz inmate starts to
hack off Anne's beloved long brown
hair, a loud call echoes through the
barren room, breaking the silence:
"Cut!"

Welcome to Prague and the filming of
a $12-million production, starring
Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor Ben
Kingsley as Anne's father, Otto Frank;
Golden Globe-winner Brenda Blethyn
as family friend Auguste Van Pels; and
Lili Taylor as Miep Gies, the gentile
who helps the Franks hide from the
Nazis.
Writer Kirk Ellis, who based his
script on German writer Melissa
Muller's Anne Frank: The Biography
(Owl Books; $14 paperback), claims
that the new production is the first to
give a truer, broader picture of Anne's
life before, during and after her two-
year confinement in a secret annex of
an Amsterdam home, where she wrote
her famous diary.
The show covers Anne's life from
age 9 to her death at 15 from typhus
at the Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp weeks before its liberation.
"This shows Anne as a typical girl
.affected by remarkable events. Once
you understand the context of her life,
it puts the achievement of her diary
into a far greater context," Ellis says.
"My approach has been to render
this story in human terms," he says of
picking at — without plundering —
the pedestal on which Anne Frank has

been placed for so long.
Moreover, there is a sense of genuine
Jewish drama germane to the topic but
missing from previous treatments of
the story in a quest to make it univer-
sal.
"It was a conscious decision," says
Ellis, who is not Jewish, to focus the
film on the Franks' Jewish soul. While
the family was more secular than
devout, devoting time to their spiritual
side made sense. After all, says the
writer, "Anne Frank died because she
was Jewish."
Incorporating parts of her pre- and
post-annex experiences into the story,
from Amsterdam to Auschwitz, Anne
is shown as a youngster caught in the
yang-yin world of childish needs and
adult obligations.
"People were astonished to see that
she had a childhood," says Ellis of
reaction to his script at ABC.
One such scene, depicting a sleep-
over with her girlfriends, is a lovely
awakening to the girl who was Anne,
establishing the youngster as a genuine
Jewish kid with everyday concerns
before the crush of concentration
camps and killing fields corrupted her
world.
"It is very important," says Ellis of
such scenes in the film, "because you
can't understand the sacrifices of what it
was to live in that annex until you see
what came before, to see all their free-
doms stripped away, to see the cost of it."

Playing The Part

Filming of the miniseries involved re-
creating the three concentration camps
where Anne spent the last few months
of her young life: Westerbork,
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
It also involved the painstaking re-
creation of the secret annex where the
Franks and four family friends hid
from the Nazis, and building a facade
along Prague's waterfront to resemble
1940s Amsterdam.
British actress Hannah Taylor
Gordon won the role of Anne over
1,200 other girls worldwide, and is
taking the star turn in stride.
"I am just enjoying going on the set
and being as much like Anne as I can