Focus - 2002 Drama - Arthur Miller 1945 Novel (Laura Dern, Willi

Focus - 2002 Drama - Arthur Miller 1945 Novel (Laura Dern, William H Macy) Video Codec..........: XviD ISO MPEG-4 Video Bitrate........: 1376kbps Duration.............: 1:46:54 Resolution...........: 848*478 Framerate............: 23.976 Audio Codec..........: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3 Audio Bitrate........: 448 kbps CBR Audio Channels.......: 6 Filesize.............: 1,471,584,752 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246628/ http://bayimg.com/baeegAADL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(novel) Focus is a 1945 novel by Arthur Miller dealing with issues of racism, particularly antisemitism. In 2002, a film version, starring William H. Macy, was released. Plot summary The novel is set in New York towards the end of the Second World War. Its protagonist is a Gentile named Newman, a personnel manager for a large company, who lives with his mother. Newman, though too timid to do much about them, shares the prejudices of his neighbour Fred, who is determined to deal with the "new element" in their neighbourhood, particularly a Jewish candy store owner called Finkelstein. However, a new pair of glasses have an unfortunate effect on Newman, altering his appearance in such a way that he begins to be mistaken for a Jew. He hires a prospective secretary who his boss thinks is an assimilated Jew using a WASPy fake name, and is told he will not get a promised promotion and be moved to an office where fewer people could see him. He is furious about being mistreated and quits; ironically, he later gets a new job at a company where the owner and much of the staff are actually Jewish. As antisemitism mounts throughout the city and the Christian Front organizes to turn general ill will into action, Newman marries a girl called Gertrude. She has seen antisemitism mobilised at close quarters before, when she lived with the ringleader of an organization that abused Jews in California (someone whose views that the U.S. will soon get rid of all Jews she notes without any editorial comment), and recognises how risky a position Newman is in when his garbage can, as well as Finkelstein's, is turned over in the night. She has also been mistakenly identified as Jewish, and is angry at this...because she is a Christian and is disgusted that anyone would think she is Jewish, not because she thinks anti-Semitism is wrong and hateful. Newman's principles and character mean that he would prefer to stand aside while the persecution of Finkelstein continues – his own latent antisemitism tacitly endorses it, while his reticence makes it hard for him to participate. But, accidentally caught up as a victim, non-participation is not an option. An attempt by Newman to convince Fred and his collaborators of his allegiance to their cause by attending an antisemitic rally results only in his being again taken for a Jew, attacked and ejected. Approached afterwards by Finkelstein, Newman tries to politely sell Finkelstein on the idea of leaving the neighborhood and moving somewhere where he won't be threatened. Finkelstein forcefully tells Newman he won't move: the anti-Semitic forces want to take over the U.S. (confirming what Gertrude told him earlier) and their crusade against Jews don't make any sense in that context because Jews comprise a very small percentage of the population. Finally, Newman and Finkelstein are together attacked in the street by a gang of men, who they fight off. Newman realizes he cannot count on Gertrude and walks away from their marriage, later going to the police to report the attack. Asked by an officer "How many of you people live there?" he declines to correct the mistake, realising that by accepting it he sets himself against those who have abused him, rather than against their intended targets. Cast William H. Macy ......... Lawrence 'Larry' Newman Laura Dern .............. Gertrude 'Gert' Hart David Paymer ............ Mr. Finkelstein Meat Loaf ............... Fred (as Meat Loaf Aday) Kay Hawtrey ............. Mrs. Newman Michael Copeman ......... Carlson Kenneth Welsh ........... Father Crighton Joseph Ziegler .......... Mr. Gargan Arlene Meadows .......... Mrs. Dewitt Peter Oldring ........... Willy Doyle Robert McCarrol ......... Meeting Hall Man (as Robert Mccarrol) Shaun Austin-Olsen ...... Sullivan Kevin Jubinville ........ Mr. Cole Stevens B.J. McQueen ............ Mel Conrad Bergschneider .... Tough's Leader Film Review - By Ami Eden http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Theatre_and_Dance/Theatre/America/Arthur_Miller/Focus.shtml Arthur Miller's Focus In his only novel, Arthur Miller explored contemporary anti-Semitism. Excerpted and reprinted with permission from "A World in Which Everything Hurts," published in the Forward (July 30, 2004). As a college student in the mid-1930s, Arthur Miller believed the answer to the Jewish question was clear: a leftist economic program combined with rapid assimilation. But during the next decade, the grim reality of 6 million dead in Europe and the persistence of anti-Semitism in the United States would pose a stark challenge to Miller's prescription. In the end, though, Miller concluded that, still, the solution was for Jews to fully integrate into American society and only their own moral failings would prevent them from overcoming anti-Semitism. The point is hammered home in Focus, when the novel shifts from a straight discussion of anti-Semitism to an analysis of the endless suffering of the Jewish people, with Miller employing the character of Mr. Finkelstein as a mouthpiece. As the Jewish shopkeeper struggles to decide whether to leave the Christian neighborhood in the face of harassment from anti-Semitic thugs, he recalls the centuries-old story that his father would frequently tell him of Itzik the peddler, who lived in a Polish village where gentile peasants rebelled against the ruling baron and stole more than 1 million kroners from him. Under the threat of death, Itzik was forced by the baron to swindle the ignorant peasants out of their newfound treasure. But then, to cover up his own role in the scam, the baron organized a pogrom, had Itzik's family murdered, and took back the money. Finkelstein's moment of enlightenment comes when he realizes that his father and so many other Jewish fathers of the past had mistaken tragically the moral of the story to be that the Jew was "fated to a bloody end." Instead, Finkelstein tells himself: "Itzik should never have allowed himself to accept a role that was not his, a role that the baron had created for him. When he saw that the baron was bent on diverting the peasants' wrath from himself, he should have allowed his indignation to carry him away and gotten on his wagon and driven directly home. And then when the pogrom came, as it would no matter what he did, he could have found strength to fight. It was the pogrom that was inevitable, but not its outcome. Its outcome only seemed inevitable because that money was in his house as the horses' hoofs came pounding into the village. That money in his house had weakened him, it was the blindfold they had put upon his face and he had no right to let them put it on him. Without that blindfold he would have been ready to fight; with it he was only ready to die." Any doubt that this is Miller's own view vanishes when Finkelstein decides not to flee from his new neighborhood, telling himself: "I am no Itzik"--read Izzy [Miller's father]--"They are not going to make an Itzik out of me." Through Finkelstein's stream of consciousness, Miller is telling his readers that the fatal mistake of Jews throughout history has been their repeated willingness to assume the role assigned to them by anti-Semitic societies, allowing themselves to be transformed from victims into partners in the crimes of the larger society. Miller, in other words, believes that the Jewish people carry the mark of Cain--for the sin of moral compromise. Miller could well be standing with the majority of American Jews in his ignorance of and disregard for the Jewish corpus. But few, while sitting atop such a shaky foundation, have offered such a sweeping and public verdict against the past. The greatest victim, however, appears to be Miller himself, who seems to have lacked not only a physical homeland, but also the emotional comfort and sustenance gained from Jewish culture, peoplehood, or faith. The resulting alienation fueled some of his best work, but also transformed the playwright into a new breed of wandering Jew--one perhaps even worse off than his historic predecessors.

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