1)ebatiug The Merits

ir envy Bean is a believer. He believes in himself,
family — and a motion picture that has
`.generated an unbelievable reaction.
The Believer captured the Grand Jury Prize at last
year's Sundance Film Fesdval. But it also captured
the enmity of apparent allies — the West
Coast branch of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, whose members, invited to a private
screening last season, blasted The Believer as
anti-Semitic, according to Bean. The center's
reaction, he alleges, made finding a distributor
more difficult.
The film, originally scheduled for Showtime
l ast September, was pulled from the schedule
as a victim of post-Sept. I 1 sensitivities. A
potential distributor pulled out after the
alleged Wiesenthal bad-mouthing.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the
Wiesenthal Center, readily disputes Bean's
claims. "Henry brought us a videotape and we
watched the film," says Cohen of the screen-
ing, which he says was presented before an
audience of eight members of the center.
Cooper had nothing against the movie's
premise. Indeed, "the topic of a member of an
oppressed class identifying with the oppressor
is a worthy topic which should be revisited
over and over."
But he doesn't believe The Believer does it
justice. "It's not that the topic is verboten; its
just that we didn't feel the film worked, that
by the end of the film, you still don't know
what made this kid [Dar my]
One scene, says the rabbi, es
in as "over th.. ;ntit;i4X441:
•
gogue
nated on. "The depiction was in
Cooper.
The rnorrun
Wiesen
woman from on
e stu 01194
Believer for diSid b :atO
about the filrn Sf
over the films w(;
MeanWhile,
wor&-of-rtiou

Except
from Jews air
lent, says Bean
very well in Israe
"Franidy, I suspect that the.Ohjetht1006
Wiesen-41a' Center was less to' the
to a depiction of.JuclaiSniithat went bey6 -
bound a ries and that they couldn't. COnti61,
Bean.
It had nothing to do wi
counters Rabbi Cooper. . The ho
there is nothing wrong with the topic ^ but so
times you don't succeed" at what you're trying to
do. "From a pedagogical point of view, we decided
it was not a film we were going to show"
But Showtime will. And more power to them,
the rabbi says. Ultimately, claims Cooper, it is the
public who will decide."
In this post-9/11 era, "I expect it will be of con-
siderable interest to the Jewish community in the
United States," says Bean. "If anything, I would
think it has a bit more interest after the attacks
since it is a sympathetic and fairly serious depiction,
of a fanatical mind."

"

wo-T,
.4;14

3/15
2002

72

— Michael Elkin
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent

CONTROVERSY

from page 69

7

Ryan Gosling as Danny
Balint and Billy Zane as
Curtis Zampf in Henry
Bean's The Believer"

site directions is something I've
always felt," says Bean, 56, who has
degrees from Yale and Stanford.
"That urge is in everyone. It's uni-
versal."
Parents both love and resent their
children, he notes. Spouses adore
and reject each other. "I love my
wife," he says, "but these feelings
make me vulnerable to her, and I
have to push her away so I can
recover myself and remember my
identity. As a result, I'm in torment

and I want to merge with her again."
Then there was the dual relation-
ship Bean had with his Judaism.
Raised in a "very, very Reform"
Philadelphia home, he attended a
Quaker day school and a Jewish
Sunday school that did not teach
Hebrew. "My bar mitzvah was so
rinky-dink, I not only read the
Haftorah portion in English, I didn't
even realize that people did it any
other way until I was an adult," he
says.

The Michigan Connection

former Michiganian with ties to the Jewish
community portrays a young Jewish
woman in The Believer.
Elizabeth Reaser, who has the part of Miriam, is
the daughter of John Reaser and Karen Davidson,
wife of Pistons/Palace owner and industrialist Bill
Davidson.
"This movie is a brilliant piece of storytelling,"
says the 20-something actress, who explains the
film as a docudrama. "It questions a lot of things
and delves into places that people usually don't
want to go — religious hatred and conflicted
identities."
Reaser, who attended the Academy of the
Sacred Heart as well as Seaholm and Avondale
high schools, aspired to acting when she was very
-young but gave it up as a practical matter during

high school. Her interest felt valid after she was
accepted into Juilliard's drama program.
"In The Believer, I play a young woman who is
in law school and interning in a district attorney's
office," Reaser says. "The main character, a neo-

Nazi who had a Jewish upbringing, had been
Miriam's friend and boyfriend. There are other
characters who are Jewish and his old friends."
Although Reaser knew many Jewish people
while growing up in Michigan, she felt this film
demanded more research into the religion. She
read some books and had discussions with her
mother, who was converting to Judaism at the
time her daughter was preparing for the film.
Reaser, who has finished three still-to-be-
released movies, recently appeared in an episode
of Law 6- Order: Criminal Intent, a full produc-