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Bob Balaban, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Robin Williams
face Nazi terrorism in Jakob the Liar
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The comedy begins with the turn of a make-believe radio dial. Static fills the air. There is music. Then, after the screeching hiss of broadcast distortion, English Prime Minister Winston Churchill interrupts the program with a special announcement: Allied Forces are making advances against the Nazis.
None of it is true. At least Jakob (Robin Williams) has no way of confirming it. But after accidentally overhearing a radio bulletin reporting the Soviet Army's advance against the German forces, his good news has made him an unlikely hero of his Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland.
So Jakob, a cafe owner, concocts his own fictional radio news. Hiding behind a curtain, contorting his voice to Churchill-like perfection, Jakob's clownish performance is enough to convince young Lina (Hannah Taylor Gordon) that freedom is around the corner.
Only in the movies could Williams' brand of buffoonery save the war. Jakob the Liar makes for an unsettling collaboration between comedy and the Holocaust. Is this an appropriate way for movies to treat Nazi evil? Williams' radio sketch owes a great deal to his 1987 comic hit Good Morning, Vietnam. In the hands of a clown, Jakob the Liar becomes "Good Morning, Auschwitz."
Fresh on the heels of Italian comic Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful, a film whose massive box-office take was equaled by its critical acclaim, one wonders if the movies have found a way to make Holocaust stories appealing to mainstream audiences. In the face of such evil, Life is Beautiful says loud and clear, "Make audiences laugh."
It's not that the story of Jakob the Liar is so unfamiliar. I've read Jurek Becker's novel. I've watched the 1974 German film Jakob Der Lugner. Neither work takes an extensive comic stance like director Peter Kassovitz's new Jakob adaptation. Sure, casting Williams as the unlikely hero was bound to introduce more comedy, although there is something offensive about this Jakob's clownish behavior.
"We made this movie two years ago, and I think it was about the same time that Roberto was making Life is Beautiful," says Williams, speaking recently at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. "We found out after we finished it about his movie. Do I think that Life is Beautiful opened doors for Holocaust movies? It's good news-bad news, because I think that comparisons are being made. I think we made a different movie. His is definitely a comedy, and ours is a drama with moments of humor.
"We'll have to see if it's opened doors. If Jakob the Liar doesn't do very well, then it's closed doors."
Like most Hollywood productions, Jakob the Liar is tastefully authentic. The production was filmed entirely in Eastern Europe. There are a number of Eastern Europeans in the cast, including Armin Mueller-Stahl, who provides an emotional connection with the 1974 Jakob film.
Look closely at Jakob's wardrobe. The cloth yellow stars stitched onto his ragged tweed coat are believably worn. Like some state-of-the-art museum exhibit, Jakob the Liar re-creates life in the Polish ghetto with lifelike intensity. The film's feeling of despair is oppressive.
Slouched deep in the front row of a Toronto screening room, watching those moments when Jakob the Liar gave Williams the comical green light, I must admit that I was surprised by just how uncomfortable the movie made me feel.
The truth of the matter is that I liked Life is Beautiful a lot. With every opportunity I've had to rewatch the film, I've enjoyed Benigni's daring slapstick even more. Maybe that's the secret behind Jakob the Liar's comic failings -- if you're going to have fun with something as dismal as the Holocaust, you better be prepared to push the envelope.
"Maybe there will be somebody who makes some really dark comedy about the Holocaust," says Williams. "It will depend on the director. Just when you say that a boundary is set, someone will come around and make some outrageous comedy. Look at The Producers, which was made in the 1960s. At that point no one had ever made a comedy based on funny Nazis. But they did it, and that's wonderful."
Film is the great history teacher, but the historical nature of Jakob the Liar is nothing more than entertaining rhetoric. Over the years, movies have made Hitler the ultimate screen villain.
At the Toronto fest, Jakob the Liar was accompanied by the Errol Morris documentary Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr., a complex tale about a revisionist nut who denied that hundreds of thousands of Jews were exterminated at Auschwitz. Spanish director Fernando Trueba has treated the Nazis as comic foils with his World War II farce The Girl of Your Dreams.
Hitler never makes an appearance in Jakob the Liar. It's not even Hitler's voice that Jakob hears on the radio. The evil of its story is kept at a distance. The concentration camps are a train's ride away.
But the ominous appearance of a locomotive and its stream of thick, black smoke makes it clear that the gas chambers are nearby. Jakob the Liar is a story with 6 million tragic victims, whether it cares to admit it or not.
"I think there is room for different films about the Holocaust," says Peter Kassovitz -- Jakob the Liar director--at Toronto.
A Holocaust survivor himself, Kassovitz had no reservations about treating the story with humor. He does admit, though, that his personal relationship to the Holocaust makes it easier for him to deflect criticism.
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By Steve Ramos
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Robin Williams answers questions about his new film,
Jakob the Liar, at the Toronto Film Festival.
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"I don't think we should say that there is only one way to treat this subject," he says. "There are many approaches, including the way we did it. I think there's room for everybody."
In his essay "Resistance to the Holocaust," Philip Lopate looked at various Holocaust movies and questioned their impact on audiences. It was clear that something emotional was lost when translating the Holocaust story for audiences who weren't there. Tailoring Jakob the Liar for Holocaust survivors probably would undermine its commercial possibilities.
The Holocaust is a Jewish experience. But the commercial goals of a Hollywood movie -- especially a Hollywood movie starring Robin Williams -- necessitate that Jakob the Liar is anything but a Jewish experience.
Watching Jakob the Liar's Holocaust dramedy surely tears away at the horror that was the mechanization of the Nazi death camps. ©
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