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PEOPLE & ARTS Saturday 29 February 2020
Nazi cautionary dramas wade into political, factual disputes

By LYNN ELBER cent statement called such
AP Television Writer inventions "dangerous fool-
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Holly- ishness and caricature."
wood mustered its creative Weil responded that the
forces in the 1940s when drama was not a docu-
Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germa- mentary and he'd carefully
ny sought to conquer the avoided borrowing a spe-
world, with Humphrey Bog- cific moment from an ac-
art standing up to the fas- tual person's life. That failed
cist regime in "Casablanca" to satisfy Rabbi Marvin Hier,
and director Ernst Lubitsch founder of the Simon Wi-
mocking it and its dictator esenthal Center in Los An-
in "To Be or Not to Be." geles that's named for the
More than 70 years later, death camp survivor and
an increase in hate crimes, real-life Nazi hunter.
emboldened white su- While dramas can help
premacists and political educate people about
upheaval have prompted Nazism, Hier said, such proj-
TV and film makers to re- ects must be labeled a
visit Nazism. The works are fictional account of a real
varied and their receptions event or risk giving fodder
mixed, but they share a to Holocaust deniers.
goal: to use fiction to learn Pete Simi, co-author of
from 20th-century totali- This image released by HBO shows John Turturro in a scene from "The Plot Against America." "American Swastika: Inside
tarianism and its horrors, in- Associated Press the White Power Move-
cluding the Holocaust that ment's Hidden Spaces of
claimed the lives of 6 mil- that, collectively, we return cies as an area of profound Belsen, which were among Hate" and a professor at
lion Jews. to these terrains when we concern. the concentration camps Chapman University in
In Amazon's "Hunters," an have some kind of problem The late Roth's book proved where the German-or- Southern California, sees
unlikely group of 1970s New to work out that we think is "allegorical to what we're dered mass killings of Jews potential in Hollywood's fo-
Yorkers target German Na- related to them." dealing with now, and the and millions of others were cus on Nazi Germany. One
zis who have brought their David Simon, executive pro- vulnerable cohorts now carried out. The stories of reason: it can help expose
genocidal quest to Ameri- ducer of "The Plot Against are not necessarily Jewish hardship that he heard the followers who are "re-
ca. HBO's "The Plot Against America," unabashedly la- Americans, although anti- from her as a child eventu- branding" themselves in a
America" is based on Philip bels the six-episode series Semitism has increased," ally fueled Weil's desire to bid to make white suprem-
Roth's novel that posits a debuting March 16 "a po- Simon said. "The real vulner- honor her experience and, acy palatable.
repressive early 1940s U.S. litical piece." The cast in- able (groups) are people through his work, become "The more we understand
government led by Charles cludes Winona Ryder and with black and brown skin, a Holocaust avenger and what the Nazis represent-
Lindbergh, the real-life John Turturro, and early re- immigrants and Muslims." a "superhero, in some way." ed, the more we are able
aviation hero and anti-Se- views were admiring. As for why he's asking view- There have been Oscar- to analyze the contempo-
mitic isolationist. The Oscar- "It's a critique of xenopho- ers to seek clarity in the worthy films about the Ho- rary versions of Nazis" and
winning "Jojo Rabbit" is in bia and demagoguery rear-view mirror, Simon said locaust, Weil said, but he avoid being deceived
Lubitsch's satirical mode, and the use of 'the other,' that history provides a stur- wanted to dramatize the by their efforts to subvert
deepened by tragedy. the fear of 'the other' to dy, well-vetted foundation tragedy and its aftermath "what they actually repre-
Preceding them was "The drive political power and on which to build a mean- in an unconventional way. sent," Simi said.
Man in the High Castle," to create a political dy- ingful allegory. "If we can't He described his approach Simon said he'd like to see
the 2015-19 Amazon series namic," Simon said, a pat- apply it to the future, then as "bold and pulpy and "The Plot Against America"
based on Philip K. Dick's sci- tern that he said predates all that history is pretty use- fresh," one that invites a make waves of its own.
fi novel of the same name President Donald Trump. less," he said. new audience to enter the "In a perfect world, this proj-
about a fallen America "The demonization of the David Weil, creator of story through the perspec- ect gets off the entertain-
ruled by WWII victors Ger- immigrant cohort has been "Hunters" starring Al Pacino tive of characters such as ment pages and is argued
many and Japan. going on for as long as the and Logan Lerman, shares Lerman's young hunter, Jo- on the editorial pages or
The war has had other republic." Simon's belief in the power nah. op-ed pages," he said.
screen comebacks. Dur- Ironically, he'd originally of such storytelling. "In doing so, they'll begin to "That's the reason to do it,
ing the political and social passed on bringing Roth's "I think sometimes the best learn about the truth of the is to have the argument
turmoil of the mid- to late- novel to the screen be- way for us to grapple with Holocaust and the plight now, because civil liberties
1960s, cynical and irrever- cause it appeared irrele- the truths of our reality of Jewish people and the are being affronted now.
ent films including "King vant. and our present is to see it plight of all 'others,'" Weil American institutions and
Rat" and "What Did You Do "The first time somebody through a different prism said. American norms are under
in the War, Daddy?" were approached me about and a different lens," said Creative license may be duress right now.""q
released alongside tradi- the adaptation was in Weil. "So I used the lens of allowed for tone or even
tional battle epics such as 2013, right after (President 1977 America to speak the wholesale creation of
the star-laden "Battle of the Barack) Obama's second about the kind of racism a band of Nazi hunters, but
Bulge." inauguration. And I thought and xenophobia and anti- tampering with the facts of
"We seem to have waves to myself that it seemed like Semitism that we're con- a hallowed event crosses
of interest in both the Ho- an artifact" in an increas- tinuing to face today, to al- the line for some. A scene
locaust and World War II, ingly inclusive society, Si- low people to really try and in which inmates of the
not always at the same mon said. The subsequent take a step back." Auschwitz camp in Poland
time," said Sharon Willis, a election and its results Weil's direct inspiration was act out a fatal chess game
film scholar and professor forced him to reconsider his grandmother, Sara Weil, never occurred, according
at the University of Roch- that view, he said, citing a survivor of Auschwitz- to the site's museum and
ester in New York. "I feel restrictive immigration poli- Birkenau and Bergen- memorial, which in a re-