HOLLYWOOD DOES THE DREYFUSS CASE TO BE DIRECTED BY ROMAN POLANSKI SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/polanski-dreyfuss.php
WHO WILL PLAY THEODOR HERZL WHOSE DETERMINATION TO REVIVE ISRAEL WAS FUELED BY HIS PRESENCE AT THE DREYFUSS TRIAL?….RSK
One of the most tragic injustices in modern Jewish history is about to become a major motion picture, to be directed by acclaimed and controversial director Roman Polanski.
Alfred Dreyfus, a late 19th century French military officer, was a model of assimilation for the French Jewish community until he was framed for treason and sent to Devil’s Island.
For over a decade, the Dreyfus family and a growing body of supporters expoused the officer’s innocence and fought for his release. The most famous of them was Emile Zola, whose legendary polemic “J’Accuse” became a landmark in the battle against European antisemitism.
After 12 years of campaigning, Dreyfus’s innocence was finally proven and he was released. But the case had already split France down the middle, becoming a flashpoint for the battle between the political left and right, reactionaries and revolutionaries, liberals and conservatives, militarists and their opponents; and, most of all, between antisemites and those who fought for equal rights and tolerance.
At the same time, the Dreyfus case sparked the modern Zionist movement. Theodore Herzl was a young Viennese journalist who covered the Dreyfus case, and the ferocious antisemitism he witnessed in a country that was ostensibly a model of modernity and tolerance led him to write the seminal text of political Zionism, Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”).
Polanski, a secular Jew, may be the perfect director for such a story, as he has been a victim of an antisemitism perhaps even more virulent than that faced by Dreyfus. During World War II, he survived the Krakow Ghetto by living as a street child, scavenging food and shelter while dodging the German soldiers who used him for target practice. His mother was murdered in Auschwitz.
His experiences as a Holocaust survivor have informed many of films, which often concentrate on ordinary people who are suddenly thrust into a world of instability and violence beyond their control. Among his acclaimed works have been Knife in the Water, Rosemary’s Baby, Repulsion, The Tenant, Chinatown, and the Oscar-winning The Pianist, which many consider the finest Holocaust film ever made.
Polanski has always been a controversial figure, however. His films have been criticized for their perverse, dark, and often disturbing vision of the world; and the man himself remains a fugitive from justice, having been convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a charge he fled in 1978. While he enjoys Hollywood support for many of his projects, he remains unable to return to the United Stateswithout being arrested.
The director apparently wants to make his Dreyfus film, entitled D., as a political thriller.
“I have long wanted to make a film about the Dreyfus Affair, treating it not as a costume drama but as a spy story,” Polanski said. “In this way one can show its absolute relevance to what is happening in today’s world.”
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