Classic Movie Review - The Chosen
Apr. 26th, 2004 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI considered posting it to ATPO, but OnM seems to have this tied up and I'm afraid of stepping on toes. Also considered www.teaattheford.com but not sure where I'd post it.
This Sat, flipping channels, I landed on 1981 gem I'd never really seen before - called The Chosen, based on the best selling young adult novel by Chaim Potok. It stars Robby Benson and Barry Stiller. The reason the film inspired me to write something is it reminded me of Angel The Series and the relationships between Spike and Angel, but also between Angel and his father, as well as his son.
Here's the movie review - it contains spoilers for the movie as well as Ats 5.18.
The Chosen
Based on the book by Chaim Potok
Film, written by Chaim Potok and Edwin Gordon, directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan
(Disclaimer: I’m not Jewish and have no knowledge of Hebrew and limited knowledge of Judaism. Also my theology studies, what little I had, date back about ten years. So I apologize in advance for any errors. What I know is taken directly from the movie I saw, which I saw once, this Saturday night, on PBS. )
"A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!" (p. 264). Reb Saunders, The Chosen by Chaim Potok.
The Hebrew word for Mind is apparently similar to the Hebrew word for King, it is also apparently the inverse of the Hebrew word for heart and fool.
The Chosen
Here is the review from The Wall Street Journal regarding the film and the book:
“It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again....” http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/potok1311-des-.html
And the description from Amazon.com:
“ Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. Though on the surface it explores religious faith--the intellectually committed as well as the passionately observant--the struggles addressed in The Chosen are familiar to families of all faiths and in all nations.
In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.”
While flipping channels on Saturday night, I landed on an old 1980s movie that I had never really sat down and watched. Oh, it had been shown before, but I had an aversion to Robby Benson in the 1980s and early 1990s, so skipped it. Mistake. This is a fascinating film about the relationship of two boys who are mirror reflections of each other. While the film takes place in 1940s Brooklyn and it is between the son of a Hasidic Jew and the son of a Non-Orthodox/Zionist, the tale can be appreciated by any religion and can involve two boys of any walk in life. The producer who obtained the rights to the book was Methodist. He was interested in the novel because it explored two different ways of looking at the same religion, yet tolerating both.
What struck me about the movie was how closely some of its themes paralleled themes in Angel The Series Season 5, especially the two lead characters, Danny and Reuven who in some ways remind me a great deal of Angel and Spike. Also the relationship between Danny and his father, reminded me of the relationship between Angel and his father, but even more so, the relationship between Angel and his son, Connor. The tale is a universal one – one about fathers and sons and it deals with a universal trope – the tale of the fool and the king, otherwise known as The Fisher King. A tale we’ve seen discussed in numerous films, myths, fairy tales, and novels.
Good films contain a pivotal scene that through visual metaphor and dialogue perfectly describes the two lead characters, their relationship and their journey. In The Chosen, this scene appears approximately twenty minutes into the film – it takes place in a garden, a small backyard garden that has a wrought iron fence around it. Reuven is sitting on the ground, his hands in the earth, tending to the plants, wearing casual clothes. Danny is formally dressed in Hasidic attire, wears a hat, and is sitting on a ledge next to the fence. Danny is holding a book, while Reuven is reciting. Danny keeps checking Reuven’s recitation. Reuven attempts to memorize a Shakespearean speech, which I believe is the “tomorrow” speech from Macbeth. The line emphasized in the speech is “perchance to dream”, which Reuven flubs repeatedly. The flub leads to a discussion of dreams, Danny’s obsession with the study of psychology, and finally a discussion of the difference between heart and mind.
Danny asks Reuven what the Hebrew word for King is. Reuven answers and Danny stresses that it starts with an “m” and ends with an “l” . Then he asks Reuven what the Hebrew word for Fool is. Danny stresses the word for Fool starts with an“l” and ends with an “m”. Then Danny asks Reuven the word for heart and stresses that it has the same spelling as fool. The king, Danny tells Reuven, places his mind before his heart. The fool places his heart before his mind.
Early on, we learn about Danny’s superior mind. He possesses a photographic memory and total recall. (Similar actually to Angel’s photographic memory detailed in Supersymmetry, S4 ATS, where Angel literally can remember the placement of everyone at a lecture.) At one point in the film, Reuven gives Danny a paper – the front page – within five minutes Danny has read and memorized everything on it, reciting it back to Danny without error. Reuven can barely remember Macbeth, he stumbles over the phrasing. (Similar in some ways to Spike who stumbles over bad poetry and can’t remember the correct word.) When the boys first meet on a baseball field they are antagonists. Danny, in fact, injures Reuven severely with a baseball. He hits the ball, Reuven has pitched to him, at Reuven’s eye – Reuven wears glasses and a piece of glass ends up in his eye, which the doctors have to surgically remove. Through the first half of the film, Reuven wears an eye patch. Danny is described at the ball game as the best hitter in the league. Reuven is a pitcher, neither the best or the worst. Reuven just happens to enjoy the game. The ball game also tells us a great deal about these two boys – one, Reuven, attempts to communicate with Danny, is friendly, and pitches the ball, enjoys the game, sees it as a social outing, the other Danny, is reserved, hits balls and is interested in accomplishment.
In a series of scenes, the film proceeds to depict the boys’ relationships with their fathers. Danny’s father, Reb Saunders played by Rod Steiger, raised Danny in silence. Yet, Reb is also very joyful. In one scene Danny and Reuven sit at a dinner table filled only with men, as Reb Saunders teaches, breaks bread, and chants joyfully over the meal. Another – at a wedding, shows Reb Saunders dancing. He is also shown playing chess with his youngest son and warmly tucking the boy in bed. Yet, he only speaks to Danny when someone else is present. When Reuven asks his father, Professor David Malter about this. Prof Malter responds it is an old way of raising a boy. And how lonely and isolated Danny must feel, desperate for a friend, someone to confide in. Reb Saunders is the leader of the Hasidic community, a great man, a religious man – who expects his son to work hard and follow his rules. Danny yearns for his father’s approval, but does not want to follow in his father’s footsteps – he does not want the destiny that his father has set out for him, becoming a “rabbi”. (Angel similarly had an austere father, who raised him in silence. Only barking orders at him or disapproving of what he did. He felt that his father did not care for him. And his son Connor has a similar response to Angel, who is also silent, and expects Connor to be something similar to what he is, to follow in his path.) Danny would like to follow his own path, not follow his father’s. But he does not know how to do this without losing his father. Danny’s family is also very large in comparison to Reuven’s. Reuven only has his father. Danny has a mother, a sister, a brother, and numerous relatives always around him.
Reuven’s father, Prof. David Malter, played by Maxmillian Schell, is a quiet man, barely sings, doesn’t dance, and spends most of his time at a typewriter or studying in a library. He also teaches but in a school setting and in casual clothes. His relationship with Reuven is very nurturing, loving. He also does not appear to be well in most of the film. A shadow of sickness hangs over the man. He speaks to Reuven when they are alone. In one scene Reuven discusses cooking with his father and states how he’ll at least be well-fed at the Saunders house, since Mrs. Saunders is a great cook. His father argues that he’s just as good a cook as Mrs. Saunders. Another scene, when Reuven comes back late beaten up, his father offers to make him breakfast. Reuven’s father in some ways echoes Danny’s mother, he’s more maternal, more nurturing. (Reminds me of William/Spike’s relationship with his mother – very nurturing, at times you don’t know who is taking care of whom. One parent. No other family in evidence. And the parent is sickly.)
As the movie plays out the events of the time begin to affect and interfere with the two boys burgeoning friendship. As do their differences in culture and worldviews. The common factor in each of these conflicts is the nature of each boy. How they see each other, the world, and navigate their way through it. The time period is 1945, WWII has just ended and news releases on the Nazi death camps have just made the headlines. The main issue in the Jewish community is a Jewish State. The Hasidic Community is portrayed as joyful, but inclusive, and very traditional – while the Zionist community is also shown as joyful but open and non-traditional. The Hasidic feels like the territory of the head – we always see them around books, studying, the dances and chants are studied, there are boundaries drawn, while the Zionist community feels like the territory of the heart – we see them having co-ed dances, flirting and making out with girls, eating lunch, fighting for their cause.
In one scene, half-way through the movie, Danny’s mother notices Reuven flirting with Danny’s sister. She tells Danny who then proceeds to pull Reuven aside, informing him that in their culture marriages are arranged. His sister’s marriage was planned when she was six years of age. Reuven reacts emotionally to this news. How can you do this to her? Doesn’t love factor in? Don’t people have choices? How can you pre-plan everything? Danny shakes his head sagely and states, “that’s the way it is. I’m only telling you this, because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Yet, Reuven’s influence convinces Danny to go to the more open University “Hirsch” as opposed to the more conservative “Yeshiva”. Danny wants to study psychology and knows Yeshiva does not focus on this field. And it is Reuven’s father who provides Danny with different books, books outside of the Talmaud or his own faith. Reuven tells Danny to follow his heart – to study psychology if that is what he wants. Psychology is the study of the mind, but also the unconscious, which is the realm of the heart. Meanwhile Reuven begins to yearn to become a rabbi, the path Danny’s father pre-ordained for him. Rabbi is the realm of the heart – emphasizing with others needs and helping them, but also deals with intense study and knowledge, which is the realm of the mind.
The central conflict that arises appears on the surface to be between the boys’ fathers. Yet, the fathers never meet. The war ends and Jews like Reuven’s father fight for a free Jewish state. A place where they can be safe from things like the Holocaust. The Hasidic community is vehemently against this. Because they believe God will show them to this land. They can’t do it alone. The must wait for the Messiah to lead them. Their studies of the Talmaud determine this. The battle is one between heart and head. The Hasidic community fears that if they pursue a Jewish State outside of the dictates of their faith – their faith will not have a role in its development. The Non-Hasidic Jewish Community (Zionists) believe that if they don’t pursue a Jewish State themselves, they risk another fate like the one experienced in the last World War. They feel they must make their own destiny, prophecies be damned. Since Reuven’s father takes an active role in this fight, his writings making the front page of the Newspaper, Danny’s father prohibits him from speaking to Reuven. Reuven cannot understand this. How can you just stop speaking to me, because we disagree? In the interim – Reuven’s father gets really sick and Reuven must take care of him and the UN ratifies and acknowledges the state of Israel. Because Israel is now a Jewish State, Danny’s father lifts his ban, and Danny attempts to re-enter Reuven’s life. Reuven tells him off at first. “My father was ill, I had to take care of him, where were you then? Where were you when I needed a friend?”
This may be the one major flaw in the film – since I did not quite understand why Reuven forgave Danny. Danny says I’m sorry then tells him, my father would like to speak to you and the next two scenes are between Reuven and his father, and then Danny, Reuven and Danny’s father. The second to last scene contains the quote at the top of this review.
"A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!" Reb Saunders, (p. 263 of The Chosen, also stated in the film).
In it Danny’s father never says a word to Danny, he speaks to Reuven about Danny. He tells Reuven why he chose to raise Danny in silence and why he is choosing to allow Danny to pursue his own path now. (This scene reminds me a little of Angel’s discussion with Vail about Connor in Origin, or Kate’s father’s discussion with Angel about Kate in The Prodigal – in both the father discusses the son, not with the son, but with someone else who is peripherally involved.) When Danny was a little boy he came to his father, proud and superior – he not only read a book his father gave him, he swallowed it. He could recite from memory every word in it. Yet, when his father asked him what he felt for the people in the stories or how he identified with their plight, Danny said he felt nothing. “Master of the Universe, what have you done – you have given me a son with a superior mind, but without a heart, without a soul – what use is he to me without these things.” So Reb Saunders decided to raise Danny as his father raised him, in silence, and in doing so, Danny began to understand what it was like to be isolated. What it was like to be alone. To be apart from others. And through this understanding, he was able to feel compassion for people in a similar plight. He could emphasize with them. He did not see himself as above them. Now he has a son who has a mind, heart and soul. Go forth into the world and make of it what you will, Reb Saunders tells Danny, but do it as a Jew. Remember who you are and feel for the world around you.
The last scene in the film is between Danny and Reuven. Danny has come to say goodbye to Reuven, he has chosen to switch schools from the Jewish College Hirsch to the Ivy League non-denominational school – Columbia. The last line in the movie…is a tale told by Reb Saunders to Reuven about a father and son. The son is estranged from his father and wishes to be reunited, the father agrees, telling the son, he will meet him halfway.
The relationship between Danny and Reuven reminds me a great deal of Angel and Spike. One boy raised by a religious, stern father – the other by a nurturing mother type. One boy all about the head. The other boy all about the heart. Through their interactions with each other they come to terms with the part of themselves they haven’t considered. And they also understand their fathers a little better. Through Reuven, Danny finds a way to reunite with his father and pursue a path that is not predestined or in his head, but lies in his heart. Through Danny, Reuven discovers a path he had not thought of that requires his head not his heart but which his heart can inform. (Reuven has decided to become a rabbi not unlike Danny’s father.)
The movie reminds us that without compassion for others, we remain isolated, alone. Also that our lives are not predestined or pre-ordained by the society in which we are born. We can decide our own future. We have choice. The title of the film refers both to the Jewish people – “The Chosen” by God (idea of Fate or Destiny) but also to the idea of Choice, that we have our chosen path. We need both heart and head to navigate our way through life. In Angel this season, the character of Angel is much like the Danny character, he feels superior in mind and strength, yet lacking in heart. He feels encouraged that he is “Chosen” as Danny is the Chosen one. But Danny realizes in the end that his own choices make him who he is, that he cannot follow the ones his father has pre-planned for him. He is not his father’s puppet. Nor does his father wish this from him. He learns from his friend Reuven to follow his own path, and his father learns through Reuven to let his son go, so he will not lose him. My gut tells me this story may be the one that is being depicted on Angel this year – the decision to stop following someone else’s pre-arranged plan and make your path coupled with the ability to join heart and head, not letting one necessarily rule the other.
The Chosen was released as a 108-minute movie in 1982. It won the top award at the World Film Festival in Montreal. It opened simultaneously in one thousand theaters and reportedly raised fifty-million dollars (?!) for charitable institutions.
Producers: Edie and Ely Landau
Released by: Analysis Films and Twentieth Century-Fox
Director: Jeremy Paul Kagan
Screenplay: Edwin Gordon, Chaim Potok
Cast:
Reuven Malter: Barry Miller
Danny Saunders: Robby Benson
Professor David Malter: Maximilian Schell
Reb Isaac Saunders: Rod Steiger
Cameos by Ron Rifkin as the boy’s baseball coach, and Chaim Potok as a teacher.
Thanks for reading.
This Sat, flipping channels, I landed on 1981 gem I'd never really seen before - called The Chosen, based on the best selling young adult novel by Chaim Potok. It stars Robby Benson and Barry Stiller. The reason the film inspired me to write something is it reminded me of Angel The Series and the relationships between Spike and Angel, but also between Angel and his father, as well as his son.
Here's the movie review - it contains spoilers for the movie as well as Ats 5.18.
The Chosen
Based on the book by Chaim Potok
Film, written by Chaim Potok and Edwin Gordon, directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan
(Disclaimer: I’m not Jewish and have no knowledge of Hebrew and limited knowledge of Judaism. Also my theology studies, what little I had, date back about ten years. So I apologize in advance for any errors. What I know is taken directly from the movie I saw, which I saw once, this Saturday night, on PBS. )
"A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!" (p. 264). Reb Saunders, The Chosen by Chaim Potok.
The Hebrew word for Mind is apparently similar to the Hebrew word for King, it is also apparently the inverse of the Hebrew word for heart and fool.
The Chosen
Here is the review from The Wall Street Journal regarding the film and the book:
“It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again....” http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/potok1311-des-.html
And the description from Amazon.com:
“ Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. Though on the surface it explores religious faith--the intellectually committed as well as the passionately observant--the struggles addressed in The Chosen are familiar to families of all faiths and in all nations.
In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.”
While flipping channels on Saturday night, I landed on an old 1980s movie that I had never really sat down and watched. Oh, it had been shown before, but I had an aversion to Robby Benson in the 1980s and early 1990s, so skipped it. Mistake. This is a fascinating film about the relationship of two boys who are mirror reflections of each other. While the film takes place in 1940s Brooklyn and it is between the son of a Hasidic Jew and the son of a Non-Orthodox/Zionist, the tale can be appreciated by any religion and can involve two boys of any walk in life. The producer who obtained the rights to the book was Methodist. He was interested in the novel because it explored two different ways of looking at the same religion, yet tolerating both.
What struck me about the movie was how closely some of its themes paralleled themes in Angel The Series Season 5, especially the two lead characters, Danny and Reuven who in some ways remind me a great deal of Angel and Spike. Also the relationship between Danny and his father, reminded me of the relationship between Angel and his father, but even more so, the relationship between Angel and his son, Connor. The tale is a universal one – one about fathers and sons and it deals with a universal trope – the tale of the fool and the king, otherwise known as The Fisher King. A tale we’ve seen discussed in numerous films, myths, fairy tales, and novels.
Good films contain a pivotal scene that through visual metaphor and dialogue perfectly describes the two lead characters, their relationship and their journey. In The Chosen, this scene appears approximately twenty minutes into the film – it takes place in a garden, a small backyard garden that has a wrought iron fence around it. Reuven is sitting on the ground, his hands in the earth, tending to the plants, wearing casual clothes. Danny is formally dressed in Hasidic attire, wears a hat, and is sitting on a ledge next to the fence. Danny is holding a book, while Reuven is reciting. Danny keeps checking Reuven’s recitation. Reuven attempts to memorize a Shakespearean speech, which I believe is the “tomorrow” speech from Macbeth. The line emphasized in the speech is “perchance to dream”, which Reuven flubs repeatedly. The flub leads to a discussion of dreams, Danny’s obsession with the study of psychology, and finally a discussion of the difference between heart and mind.
Danny asks Reuven what the Hebrew word for King is. Reuven answers and Danny stresses that it starts with an “m” and ends with an “l” . Then he asks Reuven what the Hebrew word for Fool is. Danny stresses the word for Fool starts with an“l” and ends with an “m”. Then Danny asks Reuven the word for heart and stresses that it has the same spelling as fool. The king, Danny tells Reuven, places his mind before his heart. The fool places his heart before his mind.
Early on, we learn about Danny’s superior mind. He possesses a photographic memory and total recall. (Similar actually to Angel’s photographic memory detailed in Supersymmetry, S4 ATS, where Angel literally can remember the placement of everyone at a lecture.) At one point in the film, Reuven gives Danny a paper – the front page – within five minutes Danny has read and memorized everything on it, reciting it back to Danny without error. Reuven can barely remember Macbeth, he stumbles over the phrasing. (Similar in some ways to Spike who stumbles over bad poetry and can’t remember the correct word.) When the boys first meet on a baseball field they are antagonists. Danny, in fact, injures Reuven severely with a baseball. He hits the ball, Reuven has pitched to him, at Reuven’s eye – Reuven wears glasses and a piece of glass ends up in his eye, which the doctors have to surgically remove. Through the first half of the film, Reuven wears an eye patch. Danny is described at the ball game as the best hitter in the league. Reuven is a pitcher, neither the best or the worst. Reuven just happens to enjoy the game. The ball game also tells us a great deal about these two boys – one, Reuven, attempts to communicate with Danny, is friendly, and pitches the ball, enjoys the game, sees it as a social outing, the other Danny, is reserved, hits balls and is interested in accomplishment.
In a series of scenes, the film proceeds to depict the boys’ relationships with their fathers. Danny’s father, Reb Saunders played by Rod Steiger, raised Danny in silence. Yet, Reb is also very joyful. In one scene Danny and Reuven sit at a dinner table filled only with men, as Reb Saunders teaches, breaks bread, and chants joyfully over the meal. Another – at a wedding, shows Reb Saunders dancing. He is also shown playing chess with his youngest son and warmly tucking the boy in bed. Yet, he only speaks to Danny when someone else is present. When Reuven asks his father, Professor David Malter about this. Prof Malter responds it is an old way of raising a boy. And how lonely and isolated Danny must feel, desperate for a friend, someone to confide in. Reb Saunders is the leader of the Hasidic community, a great man, a religious man – who expects his son to work hard and follow his rules. Danny yearns for his father’s approval, but does not want to follow in his father’s footsteps – he does not want the destiny that his father has set out for him, becoming a “rabbi”. (Angel similarly had an austere father, who raised him in silence. Only barking orders at him or disapproving of what he did. He felt that his father did not care for him. And his son Connor has a similar response to Angel, who is also silent, and expects Connor to be something similar to what he is, to follow in his path.) Danny would like to follow his own path, not follow his father’s. But he does not know how to do this without losing his father. Danny’s family is also very large in comparison to Reuven’s. Reuven only has his father. Danny has a mother, a sister, a brother, and numerous relatives always around him.
Reuven’s father, Prof. David Malter, played by Maxmillian Schell, is a quiet man, barely sings, doesn’t dance, and spends most of his time at a typewriter or studying in a library. He also teaches but in a school setting and in casual clothes. His relationship with Reuven is very nurturing, loving. He also does not appear to be well in most of the film. A shadow of sickness hangs over the man. He speaks to Reuven when they are alone. In one scene Reuven discusses cooking with his father and states how he’ll at least be well-fed at the Saunders house, since Mrs. Saunders is a great cook. His father argues that he’s just as good a cook as Mrs. Saunders. Another scene, when Reuven comes back late beaten up, his father offers to make him breakfast. Reuven’s father in some ways echoes Danny’s mother, he’s more maternal, more nurturing. (Reminds me of William/Spike’s relationship with his mother – very nurturing, at times you don’t know who is taking care of whom. One parent. No other family in evidence. And the parent is sickly.)
As the movie plays out the events of the time begin to affect and interfere with the two boys burgeoning friendship. As do their differences in culture and worldviews. The common factor in each of these conflicts is the nature of each boy. How they see each other, the world, and navigate their way through it. The time period is 1945, WWII has just ended and news releases on the Nazi death camps have just made the headlines. The main issue in the Jewish community is a Jewish State. The Hasidic Community is portrayed as joyful, but inclusive, and very traditional – while the Zionist community is also shown as joyful but open and non-traditional. The Hasidic feels like the territory of the head – we always see them around books, studying, the dances and chants are studied, there are boundaries drawn, while the Zionist community feels like the territory of the heart – we see them having co-ed dances, flirting and making out with girls, eating lunch, fighting for their cause.
In one scene, half-way through the movie, Danny’s mother notices Reuven flirting with Danny’s sister. She tells Danny who then proceeds to pull Reuven aside, informing him that in their culture marriages are arranged. His sister’s marriage was planned when she was six years of age. Reuven reacts emotionally to this news. How can you do this to her? Doesn’t love factor in? Don’t people have choices? How can you pre-plan everything? Danny shakes his head sagely and states, “that’s the way it is. I’m only telling you this, because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Yet, Reuven’s influence convinces Danny to go to the more open University “Hirsch” as opposed to the more conservative “Yeshiva”. Danny wants to study psychology and knows Yeshiva does not focus on this field. And it is Reuven’s father who provides Danny with different books, books outside of the Talmaud or his own faith. Reuven tells Danny to follow his heart – to study psychology if that is what he wants. Psychology is the study of the mind, but also the unconscious, which is the realm of the heart. Meanwhile Reuven begins to yearn to become a rabbi, the path Danny’s father pre-ordained for him. Rabbi is the realm of the heart – emphasizing with others needs and helping them, but also deals with intense study and knowledge, which is the realm of the mind.
The central conflict that arises appears on the surface to be between the boys’ fathers. Yet, the fathers never meet. The war ends and Jews like Reuven’s father fight for a free Jewish state. A place where they can be safe from things like the Holocaust. The Hasidic community is vehemently against this. Because they believe God will show them to this land. They can’t do it alone. The must wait for the Messiah to lead them. Their studies of the Talmaud determine this. The battle is one between heart and head. The Hasidic community fears that if they pursue a Jewish State outside of the dictates of their faith – their faith will not have a role in its development. The Non-Hasidic Jewish Community (Zionists) believe that if they don’t pursue a Jewish State themselves, they risk another fate like the one experienced in the last World War. They feel they must make their own destiny, prophecies be damned. Since Reuven’s father takes an active role in this fight, his writings making the front page of the Newspaper, Danny’s father prohibits him from speaking to Reuven. Reuven cannot understand this. How can you just stop speaking to me, because we disagree? In the interim – Reuven’s father gets really sick and Reuven must take care of him and the UN ratifies and acknowledges the state of Israel. Because Israel is now a Jewish State, Danny’s father lifts his ban, and Danny attempts to re-enter Reuven’s life. Reuven tells him off at first. “My father was ill, I had to take care of him, where were you then? Where were you when I needed a friend?”
This may be the one major flaw in the film – since I did not quite understand why Reuven forgave Danny. Danny says I’m sorry then tells him, my father would like to speak to you and the next two scenes are between Reuven and his father, and then Danny, Reuven and Danny’s father. The second to last scene contains the quote at the top of this review.
"A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!" Reb Saunders, (p. 263 of The Chosen, also stated in the film).
In it Danny’s father never says a word to Danny, he speaks to Reuven about Danny. He tells Reuven why he chose to raise Danny in silence and why he is choosing to allow Danny to pursue his own path now. (This scene reminds me a little of Angel’s discussion with Vail about Connor in Origin, or Kate’s father’s discussion with Angel about Kate in The Prodigal – in both the father discusses the son, not with the son, but with someone else who is peripherally involved.) When Danny was a little boy he came to his father, proud and superior – he not only read a book his father gave him, he swallowed it. He could recite from memory every word in it. Yet, when his father asked him what he felt for the people in the stories or how he identified with their plight, Danny said he felt nothing. “Master of the Universe, what have you done – you have given me a son with a superior mind, but without a heart, without a soul – what use is he to me without these things.” So Reb Saunders decided to raise Danny as his father raised him, in silence, and in doing so, Danny began to understand what it was like to be isolated. What it was like to be alone. To be apart from others. And through this understanding, he was able to feel compassion for people in a similar plight. He could emphasize with them. He did not see himself as above them. Now he has a son who has a mind, heart and soul. Go forth into the world and make of it what you will, Reb Saunders tells Danny, but do it as a Jew. Remember who you are and feel for the world around you.
The last scene in the film is between Danny and Reuven. Danny has come to say goodbye to Reuven, he has chosen to switch schools from the Jewish College Hirsch to the Ivy League non-denominational school – Columbia. The last line in the movie…is a tale told by Reb Saunders to Reuven about a father and son. The son is estranged from his father and wishes to be reunited, the father agrees, telling the son, he will meet him halfway.
The relationship between Danny and Reuven reminds me a great deal of Angel and Spike. One boy raised by a religious, stern father – the other by a nurturing mother type. One boy all about the head. The other boy all about the heart. Through their interactions with each other they come to terms with the part of themselves they haven’t considered. And they also understand their fathers a little better. Through Reuven, Danny finds a way to reunite with his father and pursue a path that is not predestined or in his head, but lies in his heart. Through Danny, Reuven discovers a path he had not thought of that requires his head not his heart but which his heart can inform. (Reuven has decided to become a rabbi not unlike Danny’s father.)
The movie reminds us that without compassion for others, we remain isolated, alone. Also that our lives are not predestined or pre-ordained by the society in which we are born. We can decide our own future. We have choice. The title of the film refers both to the Jewish people – “The Chosen” by God (idea of Fate or Destiny) but also to the idea of Choice, that we have our chosen path. We need both heart and head to navigate our way through life. In Angel this season, the character of Angel is much like the Danny character, he feels superior in mind and strength, yet lacking in heart. He feels encouraged that he is “Chosen” as Danny is the Chosen one. But Danny realizes in the end that his own choices make him who he is, that he cannot follow the ones his father has pre-planned for him. He is not his father’s puppet. Nor does his father wish this from him. He learns from his friend Reuven to follow his own path, and his father learns through Reuven to let his son go, so he will not lose him. My gut tells me this story may be the one that is being depicted on Angel this year – the decision to stop following someone else’s pre-arranged plan and make your path coupled with the ability to join heart and head, not letting one necessarily rule the other.
The Chosen was released as a 108-minute movie in 1982. It won the top award at the World Film Festival in Montreal. It opened simultaneously in one thousand theaters and reportedly raised fifty-million dollars (?!) for charitable institutions.
Producers: Edie and Ely Landau
Released by: Analysis Films and Twentieth Century-Fox
Director: Jeremy Paul Kagan
Screenplay: Edwin Gordon, Chaim Potok
Cast:
Reuven Malter: Barry Miller
Danny Saunders: Robby Benson
Professor David Malter: Maximilian Schell
Reb Isaac Saunders: Rod Steiger
Cameos by Ron Rifkin as the boy’s baseball coach, and Chaim Potok as a teacher.
Thanks for reading.
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Thanks for the review!
Date: 2004-04-26 09:58 am (UTC)