A Film Canon

This extraordinary film examines anti-semitism as a nuance, or presence, rather than a discrete act, thereby taking faux-liberals, rather than overt anti-semites, as its target. In doing so, it brings the practicalities and minutiae of anti-semitism into dramatic relief, as journalist Philip Green (Gregory Peck) pretends to be Jewish for six months to say "what hasn't been said before", and finds that the most common response to announcements of his identity is an ambiguous silence, often accompanied by the slightest change in facial expression, or the most fleetingly defensive body language, only capable of being fully captured by the camera. In fact, the most overt anti-semitic statement is proferred by a Jew, whose internalised prejudice is all the more shocking for being so calmly rationalised, both personally and professionally. That said, Kazan does occasionally instantiate the awkwardnesses that he critiques, particularly whenever Jewish political or religious beliefs are raised, belying a deeper desire to construe the Jew in extrinsic terms that is encapsulated in a Jewish scientist's reflection that his Jewishness doesn't reside in religion (he is an atheist) nor in race (there are many different Jewish racial strains), but merely in his opposition to anti-semitism - although this may also be construed as part of the extrinsic categorisation endemic to freedom of speech. In any case, the film's radicality stills outweighs its regressiveness, and finds supreme expression in the (lasting) ambiguity as to whether Green's fiancee Kathy (Dorothy McGuire) is anti-semitic - a question that ultimately identifies this amorphous anti-semitic presence with discursion, such that the only reprieve becomes the kind of political action that Kazan's particularly bodily style of directing, inflected through Method Acting, exemplifies: "They haven't got the guts to take the step from talk to action. One little action on one little front...it's gotta start somewhere."