Arts & Life
LOS ANGELES TIMES, Kenneth Turan
"FASCINATING! The film has the spirit to investigate
the consequences of giving an enemy a human facer
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Dana Stevens
"A SUBSTANTIAL MEDITATION ON CONTEMPORARY
POLITICS, SEXUAL AND OTHERWISE
The movie's quiet intelligence sneaks up on you.
Director Eytan Fox is a talent to watch!'
Hollywood's
Holocaust
LA WEEKLY, Ella Taylor
"THRILLING! This gripping film is an endless tussle
between vengeance and forgiveness:'
AMC documentary explores history
of Shoah-themed productions.
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FILM 0
FESTIVAL
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Special to the Jewish News
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SAMUEL GOLDWYN
EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT
STARTS FRIDAY, APRIL 1sT! ,M
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CHECK THEATRE
DIRECTORIES
OR CALL FOR
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www.walkonwaterthemovie.com
The Center's 7th Annual
Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival
"Too Jewish?"
Never!
65 screenings, 37 different movies
April 10-21, 2005
• United Artist Theaters, Commerce Township • Palladium Theaters, Birmingham
• Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor • Cineplex Odeon Devonshire, Windsor, Ontario
• Showcase Cinema West, Flint
Don't miss our Gottlieb Award winner: A Journey of the Spirit
For information, call 248.432.5402
or visit jccdet.org or djff.org.
3/31
2005
46
PARK WEST
GALLERY
LENORE MARWIL
vnwa
NORTHWEST AIRLJNESe
t3P/ 441
THE CENTER
JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
937300
However, unlike some lesser films,
this documentary shows all the fac-
tors that went into their decision —
from craven ones like losing the
German film market to the pressure
they felt from the American govern-
ment, homegrown bigots and isola-
tionists to not be seen as leading
Hollywood's "Jewish war" on the
Nazis.
imply put, Daniel Anker's
documentary Imaginary
Witness: Hollywood and the
Holocaust, debuting on cable's
American Movie Channel (AMC) on
April 5, is excellent and worth
watching.
Some of his
points may be
familiar to those
who've paid
attention to the
history of the
depiction of the
Holocaust in
American film
and television.
Some may quib-
ble with his deci-
sion not to cover
some of the
important
European
Holocaust docu-
mentaries that,
no doubt, influ-
enced some
Rod Steiger in Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker"
American film-
makers.
Nonetheless,
Anker's film
The handful of anti-Nazi films
works as a multifaceted, thoughtful
made before America's entry into
overview of Hollywood's reaction to
war in 1941 are reviewed — with
the rise of the Nazis and, later, the
Chaplin's The Great Dictator garner-
Holocaust.
Anker, the son of a German-Jewish ing the honors as by far the best of
this small group.
refugee, has made documentaries on
Right after the war, a group of top
American political subjects, and this
studio executives went to Europe
background shows as he brings in
and saw the camps firsthand. This
scholars and others to describe how
prompted them to put out newsreels
the changing American socio-politi-
cal landscape shaped the decisions of that realistically depicted Nazi atroc-
ities. However, as Anker points out,
studio executives and filmmakers to
they didn't follow these newsreels up
address (or not address) the Nazis,
with dramatic films on the
anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
Holocaust. The subject remained
The documentary begins with an
largely taboo for the next two
undisputed statement-of-fact:
decades.
Hollywood studio bosses, most of
who were Jewish, refused to make
HOLLYWOOD'S HOLOCAUST on page 49
anti-Nazi films until the late 1930s.