Review
NIGHT WILL FALL (2014) And THE PAWNBROKER (1964) – Review
By Sam Moffitt
Night Will Fall 2014 Directed by Andre’ Singer, Written by Lynette Singer Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and Jasper Britton
The Pawnbroker 1964 Directed by Sidney Lumet Written by Norton S Fine and David Friedkin from a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, Starring Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters and Jaime Sanchez
I met a Holocaust survivor, very recently. I was in a discount store, standing in line pay for my purchases. In front of me was an older gentleman, wearing a cap that looked like a military veteran’s cap. I enjoy talking with other veterans and thanking them for their service. I always want to hear what other veterans have done in service to our country.
“Is that a military cap you’re wearing?” “No, but I survived World War Two.” He said this with a German accent so my next question, “Were you in Germany and survived the air raids?” “No, I survived the Holocaust, I was at Bergen Belsen.”
For once in my life, I was speechless, I mean what can you say? “I’m so sorry to hear that. That’s terrible. Must have been traumatic?” Any comment seems so pointless, so futile when meeting someone who managed to survive such a miserable experience.
All I could think of to say was “I’m sorry, you must have been a child and saw things no child should witness?” “I saw my Father, my Mother, two sisters and my brother, all killed.” Now I really didn’t know what to say. I managed to congratulate him on surviving and told him I was sorry so many people in this country, and in Germany, either don’t believe it happened or approve that it did happen. It never occurred to me to ask to see his number tattoo, I took him at his word. That would have been too morbid to ask such a thing.
His response to my comment about Holocaust denial was a simple shrug and “I know.” I will never forget that encounter and I say this as an introduction to two movies that show exactly what the Holocaust was like, one a documentary showing absolutely that the Holocaust did occur and one a fictionalized portrait of a survivor regaining his humanity after years of trying to live without emotions of any kind.
I learned of the Holocaust very early. My brother Philip had a paperback book, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann which I read cover to cover, astounded and horrified. I was only 12 years old, I read that book more than once trying to get my head around the concept of genocide, that a nation could decided that entire ethnic group need to be rounded up and killed. All these years later I am still trying get my head around it, and the fact that some people in this country live in willful denial that it happened at all. Night Will Fall is an outstanding and horrifying documentary, made up of footage shot by American, English, Canadian and Russian army photographers who were told to film everything as the concentration camps were liberated. General Dwight Eisenhower himself, among other military leaders, ordered this done because “People will never believe it happened.”
The footage was to put in the hands of no less a director than Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein. The documentary was meant to be shown in theaters in England and the United States. For reasons now lost, but can be easily imagined, this never happened, the footage was shelved, and was not seen until 2014.
I recommend that anyone with a heart, or a brain that is working, watch Night Will Fall, but be forewarned, this is strong stuff. I do not have a weak stomach, but I had to stop this movie several times, often for a couple of days, to regain some equilibrium.
This is not a date movie or light entertainment or something to watch while having dinner. I have seen Holocaust documentaries before, huge piles of dead bodies bull dozed into mass graves. Take those images and increase them 1000%. The combat photographers were ordered to not do any fancy camera work, Allied leaders did not want anyone to question the footage. There are long panning shots of acres, and acres, and still more acres of piles of dead bodies, stacked like cord wood or hay stacks, or piles of trash. English, American and Canadian troops ordered all captured German soldiers, and sometimes civilians, to help carry these dead bodies to mass graves to be buried. This was in direct violation of the Geneva convention, if any German soldiers complained I doubt they were taken seriously. The Russians on the other hand shot every German soldier they captured. The sheer numbers alone are staggering, it recently came to light, using the Nazi’s own records, that many more the 9 million people were murdered in the name of National Socialism. I would say the Holocaust deniers should all be made to see this, but I doubt it would change anyone’s “mind.” As an aside I know the smell of death, I worked for a time, very recently, for a funeral home. I did what they called first care transport, I picked up and delivered to their care center the dead from hospital morgues, County Medical Examiners and nursing homes. The smell of the dead is unmistakable, strong and sometimes overpowering. So, I can well imagine what those killing fields smelled like.
Night Will Fall is narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, Jasper Britten and Leonard Berney. It is a damning indictment of just how far humanity can sink, in only a few years. And the saddest part, genocide has continued, the Soviet Union under Stalin killed even more people than the Nazi’s did, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Serbian “ethnic cleansing”, the purges in Indonesia in the 1960s (detailed in Act of Killing 2012, another tough documentary to watch). And Night will Fall ends with a warning, that unless we remain vigilant it will happen again. Witness the radical right wing in this country either insisting it never happened or that the Nazi’s did not go far enough. Let these people have their way and it will happen again.
Just as an aside I worked for a time in the St. Petersburg, Florida Holocaust Museum as a security guard. My first day I was allowed to tour the museum to get familiar with the layout and the self-guided tours customers could take with an audio wand. I made it a point to look at everything and listen to every audio description on the tour. There are letters written and photos taken by the Nazis. One Wehrmacht soldier said they got extra rations of schnapps due to the hard work of shooting women and children. That museum also has one of the railroad cars that Jews and others were herded into, like animals, and taken to the death camps. I swear there was a dark cloud hanging over that car, I could not bring myself to touch it, I said a silent prayer for whoever had to ride in that rail car to what ever hell on Earth awaited them.
Just as horrible, in its own way, is The Pawnbroker starring Rod Steiger (The Illustrated Man) and directed by Sidney Lumet (The Verdict, Prince of the City). The effect of Holocaust survival is embodied in Sol Nazerman, The Pawnbroker of the title. Sol lives on Long Island with members of his extended family. He drives into New York City every day to attend to his basement level pawn shop, dark, caged in, all too similar to the cage the Nazis threw him and his family into not so long ago. He has an apprentice, Jesus (Jaime Sanchez, The Wild Bunch) who wants to learn the pawn business but also has friends who find out that Sol’s shop launders money for an uptown pimp, Rodriguez played by Brock Peters (Lost in the Stars, The McMasters.) Once a week Sol accepts an envelope full of cash from the pimp’s “associate.” The movie tells us in a very subtle way that Rodriguez has no interest in the women he procures, that his associate is more than a friend or an employee.
We meet a variety of New York City characters who come into Sol’s shop to sell items, sometimes to buy. One dollar seems to be his top offer for anything. He is rude to all of them, Sol has tried to turn off his emotions and does not want close contact with anybody. Most hurtful of all is a social worker who is visiting businesses in the neighborhood, played by Geraldine Fitzgerald (Harry and Tonto, Arthur). She has an obvious attraction for Sol and he makes it plain he is not interested to the point of being out right mean to her. Juano Hernandez (Sergeant Rutledge, Young Man With a Horn) is a lonely, shy man, a book reader who recognizes Sol as a very intelligent man. His attempt to discuss philosophy with Sol is met with rude comments and the hurt on his face is incredibly sad, Sol is so rude to him he actually steps back as if he were slapped. Throughout the movie Sol remembers back to the time before his family was rounded up and arrested, for being Jewish, and the time spent in a concentration camp. When Jesus girlfriend (Thelma Oliver)tries to tempt Sol he remembers back to seeing his wife turned into a prostitute by the Nazis, not uncommon. On the train to the camp the Jews are packed into cars so tightly there is no room to sit or lie down, Sol tries to keep his young son on his shoulders but gives way to exhaustion, the boy is smothered under the crush of humanity.
Jesus’ girlfriend is one of the women in Rodriguez’ stable. The plan is for Jesus and his friends (including Raymond St. Jacques and Charles Dierkop) to get the money Sol collects from Rodriguez. Jesus and his girlfriend will then have enough money to leave the city and start life over. Of course, the robbery is botched, Sol doesn’t care if he is killed, Jesus takes the bullet stumbles outside and in a moment of incredible agony Sol realizes he really did care for Jesus and regains his humanity, at a great cost. Rod Steiger in an interview with Filmfax magazine said he was most proud of The Pawnbroker and rightfully so, it is the performance of a lifetime.
There is more, so much more. I saw The Pawnbroker on network television, years ago, in a censored version. The dvd is flawless, uncut, it is devastating. The black and white cinematography captures a snapshot of New York City in the early 1960s. There are no special features, it is available on blue ray which I have not seen.
As Night Will Fall states plainly, we must be ever vigilant, or it will happen again.
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