2023-11-16 21:54:00
by Valerio Cappelli
Jeremy Piven in «The Performance»: «This story in Nazi Germany in today’s anti-Semitism is tragically relevant». The story of the writer who married Marilyn Monroe was considered lost
These are the last pages of Arthur Miller. The writer with the pipe and the stern and tender gaze who crossed paths with the distant world of Marilyn Monroe, a short, intense, tormented marriage.
Tac Tac Tac. Harold is a talented tap dancer who has a fading career in New York clubs. During a European tour, he is approached by a thoughtful and kind German, in love with his whirlwind dance, from whom he receives an offer that is difficult to pass up: a large sum to put on a show in Berlin, one shot, one event, no repeats . We are in 1937. The German does not know that the dancer is Jewish; the Jew does not know that the guest of honor on the show will be Adolf Hitler.
Arthur Miller’s latest story, The Performance, becomes Shira Piven’s film. The protagonist is her brother, Jeremy Piven, the German is an unrecognizable Robert Carlyle. Miller published his short story in the New Yorker in 2002, three years before his death, when America had turned its back on him, considering him outdated. “Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have and we want to punish our roots,” says his daughter, director Rebecca Miller.
Yet the novella contains the heart of its theatre: moral dilemmas. «My dancer is thirsty for success – says Jeremy Piven who comes from a family of theater people and has won three Emmys and a Golden Globe – that event in Berlin will be the obsession of a day, every intense meeting is already a story of love, and the question Miller asks is: to what extent are we willing to accept compromises to achieve success, if we risk contaminating our identity? How much are we willing to lose to make our dreams come true? Harold must make a decision that reconnects him to the hidden part of himself, to his moral integrity. I identified with him.”
The energy of dance is intertwined with the signs of war. «It’s not the typical Second World War film, we’re at the prelude to the Holocaust», continues the actor. There is something in the frame that takes us back to Bob Fosse’s Cabaret. Harold finds himself dancing while the world is falling apart. It is the archive footage that reminds us of this. There are swastikas everywhere.
«Anti-Semitism has reignited in many parts of the world. This film is tragically current, and it is a way to learn from history.”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
November 16, 2023 (modified November 16, 2023 | 8:53 pm)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
#Arthur #Miller #film #story #Jewish #tap #dancer #dances #front #Hitler #time.news