Independent on Sunday Article

When Henry Bean's The Believer won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's. Sundance Film Festival, the future looked bright for the writer- director. and. his debut film. Ten months on and while the movie is released in the UK. this. week, it remains in limbo in the US. The story of a Jewish neo-Nazi who. struggles to reconcile the diametrically opposed ideas in his head, it was. passed over by every Hollywood studio, each loath to offend the Jewish. community. Due to premiere on American cable channel Showtime, the film. then. found its 45-day run suspended indefinitely after the events of 11. September.. While The Believer may still receive a theatrical Stateside release, its. fate is. less than assured.

Bean, a self-described "secular Jew" who later married a woman whose. father. is a rabbi, was inspired to write the script after reading an article about. a Ku. Klux Klan member who turned out to be Jewish. "I started out with the idea. of a. neo-Nazi who really can never escape his Judaism as much as he tries," he. says.. "The more he tries, the more Jewish he becomes." In the early scenes, Danny. (played with devastating power by newcomer Ryan Gosling) recalls his. childhood,. where his probing theological questions were waved away by his rabbi. teacher. It. was an experience Bean knew well himself.

While Judaism might purport itself to be "a religion of questions", as. Bean. puts it, the fact that the charismatic Danny is then seen to argue that. "Judaism. is a sickness" to his fascist colleagues was always going to cause. problems. A. noted Hollywood scriptwriter whose credits include Deep Cover and Internal. Affairs, Bean partly blames the failure to secure a US distribution deal on. the. reaction of Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal. Centre. for Holocaust Studies. Aware that potential distributors would be anxious. for. the blessing of a major Jewish organisation, Bean screened the film to nine. members of the Centre, including Cooper. "Once I walked into the room and. met. them, I knew I was making a mistake," he recalls. "I took one look at the. rabbi. and thought 'This is a guy who doesn't like people like me.' He's a guy who. wants you to be a good little boy. He looks at me and thinks 'This is a. troublemaker.' He's a conservative man. Not religiously conservative but. politically conservative."

The day after the screening, a representative of Paramount Classics,. the. film's distributor, called Cooper to ask his opinion. "I told her the film. didn't work," the rabbi tells me over the phone, from his LA office. "It. didn't. work for us, anyway. There was a particular scene that I found over-the-top. and. very disturbing. A Torah scroll was torn during the trashing of the. synagogue. I. felt it was essentially a primer for a hate-crime."

Ironically, in a film Bean always thought of as a "comedy", the scene. Cooper. refers to is where Danny regains his faith, as he recoils from the acts of. vandalism perpetrated by his skinhead friends. Nevertheless, Cooper's. reaction. was enough to scare off the Hollywood majors; Bean, believing the screening. was. "a strategic mistake" on his part, now wishes he had gone instead to the. Anti-Defamation League, who later gave the film "a nice little OK".

In an attempt to rescue his film's reputation, Bean subsequently went. on the. road with The Believer, screening it at festivals around the world,. including. Edinburgh and Moscow. It was here that press reports began to indicate that. the. director was partially blaming the reaction of Cooper and the Wiesenthal. Centre. for his film's non-release. "This was interpreted by Henry Bean as the. Simon. Wiesenthal Centre - that great powerhouse of Hollywood! - coming after his. movie," says Cooper. "The truth is we never made a phone call, never made a. press release."

Cooper believes "a kind of campaign has been created around this film". to. stir up controversy and win some favourable publicity (and maybe even a US. release date). "It's been a clever manipulation to try to cast the film as. somehow being victimised by the Wiesenthal Centre 'thought-police'," says. Cooper. "That's very unfortunate and not appreciated. It is highly. inappropriate. to point the finger at the Wiesenthal Centre when, if there was any. campaign. whatsoever, it's of his (Bean's) doing."

Whether Bean deliberately set out to save his film by grabbing column. inches. with invective against the Centre is hard to say. Certainly, when we met in. Edinburgh, he had no qualms about letting his opinion be known. "I hear. that. Simon Wiesenthal himself is uncomfortable with the organisation," he told. me.. Cooper, meanwhile, points out the Centre is "not above using provocative. messages" to inspire debate. He cites their screening of Tony Kaye's. American. History X, a film he feels - unlike The Believer - has a "clear. pedagogical". message in its finale, where Edward Norton's neo- Nazi ultimately rejects. his. racist beliefs. "American History X - which we showed in our museum to. racist. and anti-racist skinheads - had the evolution of a character. You did care. a. little bit, and you saw a change. It is a reflection of reality."

Undoubtedly a more complex and sophisticated film than American History. X,. The Believer's viewpoint, according to Bean, is "on the side of argument,. rather. than on a particular side". Bean credits his film as boldly going where. Kaye's. film feared to tread. "American History X was too careful to make sure you. knew. it wasn't on the side of the Ed Norton character. It tried to give him some. populist ideas, but they were afraid of being mistaken for promoting that. stuff.. Whereas, we're willing to risk it. I want to seduce the audience, so they. feel. their own responsiveness to these arguments."

Laced with ironic humour, and free from the reverential tones of most. Hollywood movies that deal with Holocaust-related issues, Bean's film does. play. a dangerous game - though it's hard to swallow the idea that it endorses. Danny's. anti-Semitic beliefs. If anything, it's a warning shot fired by Bean. following. the rise of the anti -immigration movement. "History," as he says, "goes. not in. cycles but spirals."

- James Mottram