THE Fania Fenelon, cabaret singer Jewish descent who played and sang in the women's orchestra' in Auschwitz, caused a furore in the United States where 'Playing for Time' was made and first screened.
Zionist organisations claimed that it was a travesty cast supporter PLO in the role, ana a campaign was launched against the film. Some of those involved in received death threats.
In publicity for the film, the ITV buyers for the British network, make much this controversy presumably in order to stir up public interest so as to ensure anurence. SUCO publicity is a disservice not only to the film and all those also to the historical subject it involved treats. Absurd ine very idea that meone WRO supports Palestinian cause is some kind ot anti-semite incapable of compassion for the sufferings of the Jews under fascism, is only absurd, but distasteful, allios! obscene This political slander itself is a sad reflection how hittie has been learnt the dreadful history of the period depicted in the film.
Arthur Miller's script for the film, based on Fenelon's memoirs, does not delve into the political issues involved. It is really a study of morality, a deeply-felt humanist As Miller himself said about the film realised there was possibility of a drama around this theme the concentration camp. In this particular chestra had a certain small area of choice that did not exist for other victims inside. You call l Have drama without choice, and without will, and without the human personality exerting itself, all which existed in the camps.' Moved This comment may sound a little detached, but the film itself is far from that. Only the most callous could watch it without being profoundly moved. That is a tribute to the script and the production, but particularly Redgrave herself, whose performance is beyond praise The 'small area of choice' facing the prisoners in how sothey responded to their situation is the film's major theme. Miller avoids answers. and his refusal to le. or to resort to artistic devices, melodrama, sentimentality, or sensation, is what gives the film its special quality.
renelon herself represents the human conscience bearing witness to une events. distinguishes her from the rest s her unstinting honesty and compassion, and it is thes which valled The upholds.
The most moving scene for me was the scene at night in the barracks when a young woman comes to confide simplistic Fenelon her with adoration and longing asking rania to tell her detalis about this person who has so captivated her young friend that the other Gently, Fania woman amares ner guts but also ocauly... that her friend is in love, and she treats this as precious and wonderful, more so because of the brutal, acnumanising which such a flower.
feelings for She speaks her feelings.
her What a tells you must have been.
"for your for your rania understands see this aberration, something the human nature the worst degradation.
love could She gently explains to the young woman the meaning of Fania reassures shocked confidante: to feel at all is a blessing... to of fighting the pure, everything is pure proper young lady that It is Fenelon's wisdom and the compassion which enable her love not as At one als tae poet of saved which reveals the power imminent transcend She also has the generosity to help her friend to enjoy wilal emononal and sexual pleasure she can take from the hell in which they live The most difficult area of choice concerns the morality survive by oppressors.
only defiant are noble, but he also shows that compromise is fraught and many-sided.
point, Fenelon is seemingly execution by only half-Jewish: her yellow star is thus torn in half. Later, Fenelon restores the torn-off Socialist Challenge half of her badge, making it a sign of pride not of shame. Asked why she does so, she replies that she does * hear KnOW, but it indication of her refusal to humiliate herself similarly wner. Nazi officer congratulates her on This music feeds the spirit and strengthens us for this difficult work', Fania rebels and says. Mv name i Fenelon. mother's name way. identity, since this denies her , she refuses to deny her nunlalily.
Solace She has no time for the intense Zionism to which one of her companions turns for solace, however I'm sick of it!' she cries 'Gentiles, Jews I'm tribe, I'm She does allow her CLOC humanity of the Nazis, either. She SOCi tha Wild horrible that their tormentors are as human a themselves, however much the woman may want to cast them as monsters.
Miller demonstrates this point ettectively in scene in which a woman SS officer mourns a little boy that she had cruelly removed from its captive mother like a plaything, and had then returned renelon is respected b the inmates for her integrity and strength. One of these her because you take them says to her that satisfied to be a person e This no ideologies — you're however, an Ideologica. point that the film itself is and it is one that in the end weakens its impact.
Solution The argument that it is the which matters, ideology, the fact thai the causes of the holocaust were political, and tha the solution to wars, racism and oppression is also political In denying this, the film ends a strange climax. The Liberation somehow flawed in retrospect, by the knowledge that all that suffering failed to produce a better world sings the Marseillaise.
the national anthem of seemed inapPropriate, hole.
people of France, and of the rest of the war-torn world, needed more than national anthems to help them to construct the future. 15 January 1981
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casting Vanessa Redgrave as