its & sote

nment

At The Movies

Tale Of A Jewish Nazi

Controversial writer/director comes to town to discuss his most provocative film.

Among the actors in The
Believer is Elizabeth Reaser,
the daughter of John Reaser
and Karen Davidson, wife of
creenwriter and director
Pistons/Palace owner and
Henry Bean, writer-in-resi-
industrialist Bill Davidson.
dence at the University of
Reaser plays Miriam, a for-
Michigan for-a week in 1984,
mer girlfriend of Danny, the
is returning to the state to show and dis-
Jewish
neo-Nazi.
cuss his controversial film The Believer.
"Elizabeth
had a wonderful
Based on fact, Bean's movie about a
combination of gravity, poise
neo-Nazi raised in an Orthodox
and seriousness of someone
Jewish honie was broadcast earlier this
who was both a religious per-
year on Showtime and now is making
a limited run in theaters. In a program son and attorney on her way
up," Bean said. "She also had
sponsored by Temple Beth El, The
a warmth, beauty and sensu-
will
be
screened
and
discussed
Believer
Sunday morning, June 2, at the Maple ality that could hint at what I
wanted, which was a romance
Art Theatre in Bloomfield Township.
In "The Believer," Ryan Gosling stars as Danny, a
with Danny in their past."
Bean, who also wrote the screenplays
neo-Nazi raised in an Orthodox Jewish home.
The
screenwriter's
current
for Internal Affairs and Desperate
is
The
Rectifier,
cinema
project,
Measures, provides his script, personal
Angeles and New York at two theaters in
about another fanatic, some-
commentary and others' critiques in the
book The Believer: ConfrontingJewish Self- one who can't stand all the noise in New each city. It will open in the next month
or so in 10 other cities. Showtime has
Heitred (Thunder's Mouth Press; $14.95), York City and tries to make changes.
the right to show it again, and people
Bean,
who
belongs
to
a
Conservative
released at the same time as the movie.
can get it on VHS or DVD. I can't
synagogue
and
keeps
a
kosher
home,
"I was always drawn to the thriller
imagine that this film will ever be shown
explains
his
evolution
of
religious
atti-
because I felt there was an emotional
on [regular network] television.
intensity there," says Bean, husband of tudes in the book. He discussed reac-
tions to the film with the Jewish News:
screenwriter Leora Barish (Desperately
JN: What do you usually discuss at
Seeking Susan) and the father of a son
screenings?
JN:
What's
the
status
of
the
film's
dis-
and a daughter. "The Believer is the
HB: I try to let the audience guide the
tribution
now?
first film I've directed, and I got to do
conversation. I 'want to hear what peo-
The
film
has
opened
in
Los
HB:
it exactly my way."

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

S

.

Liev It To Schreiber

"The Sum of All Fears" actor revs up to direct Jewish best-seller.

MICHAEL FOX
Special to the Jewish News

A

nyone who saw A Walk on
the Moon or Jakob the Liar
might deduce with some
confidence that actor Liev
Schreiber is a serious thinker. But you
wouldn't know that he also has
comedic talent.
In a supporting role in the Tom
Clancy thriller The Sum of All Fears,
opening today in area theaters,
Schreiber portrays ace CIA operative
John Clark as a multilingual trickster.
Playing most of his scenes opposite
the numbingly bland Ben Affleck,
Schreiber supplies the film's comic

4/31

2002

78

relief along with its only signs of intel-
ligence.
When asked if his tongue-in-cheek
portrayal was inspired by Borscht Belt
comics or perhaps Yiddish vaudeville,
Schreiber gives out a laugh. -
"I can see how you're tying this into
being Jewish, but I've got to tell you
it's a leap of something. Some of my
experiences, certainly, have been dis-
tinctly Jewish. What have they given
me as tools? A lot.
"It's elusive, but a sense of Jewish
culture has something to do with see-
ing things in the context of other
things. The idea that the sixth sense is
memory, that everything is contextual-
ized by history and family and memo-

ry, that's a very Jewish concept to me "
Schreiber was born in San Francisco
but only. lived there a year before his
oved to-Manhattan's Lower
moved
East Side. He was introduced to the
arts by his grandfather, a butcher who
played cello and collected wood cuts.
The actor graduated from the Yale
School of Drama in 1992, and in the
ensuing decade built a stellar body of
work onstage and in independent films.
His next project, however, puts him
squarely behind the camera.
Knocked out by Jonathan Safran
Foer's acclaimed debut, Everything is
Illuminated. A Novel (see a review in an
upcoming issue of the Jewish News),
Schreiber acquired the film rights before

ple have to say and respond to that.
With an audience of gentiles and
assimilated Jews, people who don't know
the religion, I feel that there's a transla-
tion process. There are lots of things that
they don't understand about the film
and references that they don't get.
With an all-Jewish audience, I'm often
nervous about their feelings that I've
either made an anti-Semitic film, which I
don't think I have, or that I've aired our
dirty linen in public and put us at risk.

JN: What have been your impressions
of the film since watching it on TV
and seeing it in theaters?
HB: I think it conveys the essence of
what I set out to do when I made the
film. I feel it is fairly successful as a
depiction of the contradictions that
not only the main character feels but
that all people feel. I'm pleased with
some of the things I wanted to do
with Hollywood films but never was
allowed to do, such as using. political
commentary.

JN: How do you feel about the criti-
cisms of the film? .
HB: One of the criticisms is one of the
things I like best. The most common
objection is that Danny never tells us
why he is the way he is, and I deliber-
ately didn't answer that question
because I thought there is no answer. If
I try to explain the mystery of the
character, it's not going to be adequate.
I really think of Danny as an
Everyman, a universal character. The

it became a best-seller and attracted
interest from Hollywood players.
"It's essentially the story of a mid-
dle-class, vegetarian Jewish boy who
goes to Ukraine to find a woman who
he thinks helped his grandfather dur-
ing the Holocaust," Schreiber summa-
rizes. "He gets led on this incredibly
funny, wonderful wild goose chase by
these two Ukrainian tour guides."
Schreiber is in the process of adapt-
ing the screenplay, and hopes to shoot
in Ukraine next year. It would mark
not only his feature-directing debut
but also a return to Eastern Europe,
where he filmed the Holocaust-set
Jakob the Liar.
Although he lost distant relatives to the
Nazis, Schreiber declined to visit a con-
centration camp while making that film.
"I've never been less interested in
anything," he says forthrightly. "I find
it incredibly depressing. I'm just one
of those people who doesn't like to
immerse myself in those things. All of