The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at The Castro Theater
Written: Jul 28 '00 (Updated May 05 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent films from around the World shown by a pleasant, courteous volunteer staff.
Cons: Perhaps too many people for the space in which the reception was held.
The Bottom Line: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival show new and old pictures of great historical and cultural interest in one of the great Movie Palaces: San Francisco's Castro Theater.
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| macresarf1's Full Review: Downtown |
San Francisco is a Movie Town. Film Festivals abound.
In addition to the big one, The San Francisco International Film Festival, in the Spring, there are Asian, Black, German, Italian, Jazz, and other film gatherings. The Lesbian and Gay Film Festival is in June. The Castro Theater, near the corner of Castro and Market, is the great Movie Temple of the City, and it provides a home, at least in part, to many of these festivals.
The Jewish Film Festival takes place in July and August. The 20th Anniversary Edition was broken into four parts: San Francisco, Berkeley to the east, Menlo Park to the south, and San Rafael to the north. I like the Festival and have attended several of them because, as is often true at festivals, I get to see some films available in a theater nowhere else. Two years ago, for instance, I saw Michael Verhoeven's extraordinary MY MOTHER'S COURAGE.
Also, though I don't know the extent of the Jewish Community in the Bay Area, I am always impressed by the warmth and intelligence of the people who gather at the Castro for this event.
This year's offerings ranged from Paul Wegener's famous and infamous THE GOLEM (1920), with a new score by Daniel Hoffman, performed by DAVKA, to Dante Desarthes's tribal comedy COURS TOUJOURS (France, 2000). Many of the films this year, as in the past, had Holocaust themes: FREE FALL ORATORIO (Forgacs, Hungary, 1996), FROM SWASTIKA TO JIM CROW (Cheatle, et al, USA, 1999), THE JAZZMAN OF THE GULAG (Sasfati, France/Netherland, 1999), THE SPECIALIST (Sivan, France/Israel/Germany/Austria/Belgium, 1998). As often is the case, certain films dealt with Civil Rights themes, such as SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY (Ankar and Goodman, 1999). A heartening feature this year was a co-presentation of DIOGENES: ANSAR 3 (Fels and Wetzler, Netherlands/Israel, 1998) and RETURN TO OUJA (Szlovak, France, 1987), a cooperative adventure with Cinemayaat, The Arab Film Festival.
I attended last night the Closing Celebration of the San Francisco leg of the Festival. As always, I was impressed with the volunteer organization, which was everywhere courteous and helpful. The only trouble I had was with a ticketing agency, used for the first time this year (but all was straightened out to my satisfaction).
First, I saw a fascinating documentary KURT GERRON'S KARUSELL (Ziok, 1999) on a controversial figure in the history of European Film. Kurt Gerron, a huge florid man, was a widely seen character actor in German Films of the 1920's and early 1930's. He played, for instance, the club owner who tries to browbeat Marlene Dietrich in THE BLUE ANGEL (1930). He was also Tiger Brown, who sings "Mack the Knife" in Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht's original stage version of The Three Penny Opera. He moved to France and then Holland where, while continuing to star in cabaret, he acted in and directed films, notably in a collaboration with Michael Powell's future partner, Emerich Pressburger -- i.e., INCOGNITO (1935).
In 1942, Gerron was transported from Occupied Holland by the Nazis to a series of model concentration camps in Germany. In these places were gathered the greatest collection of Jewish popular and other artists left in Europe. People like Friedrich Hollander joined Gerron on stage every night to entertain and calm distraught Jewish families being sent to camps further further east, from which few people ever returned. In 1944, Gerron was sent to Theriesienstadt, where he made a deal with the Devil, which has disgraced his reputation, and largely caused him to disappear from books on film and stage history. (He is not listed, strangely, in Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion.)
Theriesienstadt was the most infamous of the Nazi model camps. Featured in the TV mini-series THE WINDS OF WAR, it was a kind of Potemkin Village in which life was much better than that found in other camps. When the International Red Cross wanted to inspect conditions in concentration camps during World War II, they were sent to Theriesienstadt. There, in return for a promise of his life, Gerron agreed to direct a propaganda film on life in the Camp: THE FUHRER GIVES THE JEWS A CITY (Gerron, 1944).
The film, full of scenes of happy looking, well fed inmates working and playing at artistic pursuits, had several purposes. SS Chief Heinrich Himmler exported the film to defuse rumors of mass exterminations being carried out by the Nazis. It was also shown in the remaining Ghettos of Europe to prepare people for the day that they themselves would be uprooted. And most insidiously of all, the film was shown widely to German audiences with the suggestion that Jews were living well in country settings, while "good Germans" were being bombed, starved and working hard in heavy war industries.
KURT GERRON'S KARUSSEL is, in a sense, a defense of Gerron. It gives documentary footage and follows his life in the movies, stage and cabaret, supported by interviews with artists and camp survivors, illustrated with songs identified with Gerron and interpreted by contemporary singers (e.g, Max Raabe, Ute Lemper). The point is made that Gerron did not actually direct the whole of THE FUHRER GIVES THE JEWS A CITY, and that his commands were interpreted to Czech cameramen by SS officers. Afterward, Gerron too was sent to Auschwitz with the rest. He is said to have protested his betrayal and begged for his life. By the time he stood before Dr Mengele, he was skin and bones. Gerron told him that he could no longer work and "was sent to the left."
Last night KURT GERRON'S KARUSSEL was preceded by the largest segment of THE FUHRER GIVES THE JEWS A CITY released for public viewing since the World War II. (The Nazi propaganda film is the kind of thing which still could be used by Holocaust deniers, something of an embarrassment to all concerned at this point.) And after KURT GERRON'S KARUSSEL, Director Llona Ziok was present for questions. Ziok's film reveals the incredible evil of the entire Nazi project.
There was an interval, in which I did some shopping and had a bit to eat at The Cove, across the street from the Castro Theater. Upon my return, I was kindly allowed back in by a volunteer, and found the auditorium transformed. The 20 piece San Francisco Sinfonetta, under Urs Leonhardt Steiner, and four soloists, performed selections from Kurt Weil's last stage work Street Scene (1947, words by Langston Hughes). In this rich colloquial music, I could hear inspiration for composers like Leonard Bernstein.
Then, in additional recognition of Weil's 100 Birthday, we saw the extraordinary 1995 music documentary, SEPTEMBER SONGS: THE MUSIC OF KURT WEIL by Larry Weinstein. Shot in an abandoned Nazi war factory (very much in the style of Verhoeven's MY MOTHER'S COURAGE), the film chronicles the life of Weil, this seminal figure in 20th Century Music. An overhead traverse which once carried tank turrets along the production line for installation drags a huge photo-mural of Weil into extreme close up. We are treated to a musical biography of Weil, and a political history of the first half of the Century. We see Weil in his partnership with Brecht, and his marriage to his chief interpreter, Lotte Lenya. After his escape from Germany, we observe how he adapted his style in forays into American Musical Theater, until his death from heart failure in 1950.
The music segments feature contemporary performers. The best of these were Nick Cave's introductory "Mack the Knife," Etore Strata's "Surabaya Johnny," a David Johannsen led quartet version of "Whiskey Bar" and Betty Carter in "Lonely House." Some of the big Rock Stars such as Elvis Costello and Lou Reid seemed to me, characteristically, way over miked on productions of "Lost in the Stars" and "September Song." The latter was so haltingly rendered by Reid as to be painful to listen to.
After the movie, several hundred of us went upstairs for Champagne, Kosher beer, cheeses, fruit and pastries. This upstairs lobby was packed, but people seemed to take it all good naturedly, and we had a good time.
If you are in San Francisco in July, you might well consider attending The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in the vibrant Castro Neighborhood.
Recommended:
Yes
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