Ray Pride

Marc Levin's a notably combative figure, but it took some convincing to get him on camera for "The Protocols of Zion," in which the veteran filmmaker of "Slam" takes to the streets of New York to confront and question purveyors of various and sundry anti-Semitic beliefs.

Levin's reluctance began as not wanting to showboat on camera as directors like Nick Broomfield ("Heidi Fleiss," "Kurt & Courtney," "Biggie & Tupac") love to do, but HBO Films' Sheila Nevins told him that if there were any movie that needed Levin's personality, "The Protocols of Zion" would be it.

The end of 2005 is filled with evocations of history and different ideas of how filmmakers ought to respond to it. Other openings this week alone include the $150 million Christian parable financed by a reclusive billionaire who is one of the largest owners of movie theaters in America, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"; and "Syriana," partially financed by Participant Productions, headed by a co-founder of eBay whose current enterprise makes cost-benefit analyses of whether getting a movie they've made into the cultural conversation, such as "Syriana" or "Good Night, and Good Luck" would do as much good as simply contributing the potential loss to another form of social action.

Levin's approach is more old-fashioned; he tells me he's interested in muscular, confrontational docs, which he calls "Extreme Docs," like athletic "X-games," which I'm fond of calling "WTF Docs," or "What the Fuck?" documentaries, where things on screen are almost too true to be good. "I love that, WTF, What the fuck, that's fantastic," Levin said emphatically when we spoke recently.

After 9/11, Levin was astonished to find the number of street preachers in New York who still hawked "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a notorious Tsarist-era forgery that purports to be the secret plans for Jews to take over the world and which Hitler and many others have drawn from in the century since. His first encounter after the WTC attacks with resurgent anti-Semitism was with a taxi driver, an émigré from Egypt, who offered the claim that Jews were warned not to go to work on that bright, clear morning. "It's all written in the book," the cabbie told him.

It's vision and revision: how can any rational person in contemporary society believe such things? What makes such falsity plausible? "I remember I was in Toronto, I was executive producer on a TV series, `Street Time' on Showtime. I went and saw `Bowling for Columbine.' I loved it, I was like, `Oh my God, documentaries, they're finally in theaters, people are lining up, it's changing the perception of what a documentary film is. Michael Moore. I was like, what am I up here doing a TV series for? I started in documentaries, I love documentaries, I got to get back to what I love!"

Levin's eyes were opened this summer, "just walking down the streets in New York City, and seeing `Enron,' and `Murderball' and `Aristocrats' and `Mad Hot Ballroom' and "The March of the Penguins' and `Why We Fight.' I mean, these are the films that interest me. One thing that's fascinating is that we live in a world where you have 500 cable channels, you've got twenty all-news channels, you've got the web. Who would have thought that the marketplace would open up for the point-of-view, idiosyncratic, indie filmmaker? But there's such a hunger for what the fuck does it mean? You don't get that on TV. With all the all-news channels, it's just the same infotainment. Some news, but you're barraged. There's no such thing as `meaning' because you have to have counterpoint. You can never synthesize. On the web, it's an overload--what's information, what's disinformation, what's real?"

What's real is appetite. "Somehow, at least in this unique moment, the marketplace has opened up [for] people who say, `I still hunger for meaning.' And somebody to tell me at least how they put it together, to have an authentic voice and not something that's prefab like reality TV. Quirky. But it can be entertaining. Involving. The documentary has stepped forward and said, right now, we're going to do that. It's very exciting. I see the other side. Some people criticizing me for making [this film] too `WTF,' not enough scholars. It's like the critic who said about `Capturing the Friedmans,' `Where are the psychiatrists?'" You see it for real, you judge for yourself. Not just the Sunday morning [pundits], the academics, or the politicians, the theologians. I hope that you're right. That the WTF form, which has proved it can make it in the market, can be a way that different people from different points of view can say, `Hey. This is what I think is going on.'"

"The Protocols of Zion" opens Friday at Landmark Century.

(2005-12-06)

Also by Ray Pride

It's a blunder-filled life
Harold Ramis' "The Ice Harvest," an exquisitely sleazy twenty-first century proto-noir, is deadpan, implacable, inexorable and downright cruel, a marvel of moviemaking, tautly paced, immaculately crafted
(2005-11-29)

Tip of the Week
Although Miramax sat on this one for almost half a decade, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 horror opus is one of the most dread-steeped, agonizing horrors of the past ten years
(2005-11-29)

Born to Rent
Chris Columbus says "Rent" is the movie he was born to make
(2005-11-21)

Tip of the Week
Wichita's a town some hundreds of miles south of Fargo, but Harold Ramis' latest, "Ice Harvest," is kissing-close to the Coen Bros.' "Fargo," and that's a good thing
(2005-11-21)

The one you're looking for
(2005-11-15)

Tip of the Week
(2005-11-15)

Splash Panel
(2005-11-08)

Catching a Buzz
(2005-11-08)

Tip of the Week
(2005-11-08)

Through the past, darkly
(2005-11-01)

Author Visit
(2005-11-01)

The Art of War
(2005-11-01)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment