HISTORY REVEALED: An interview with The Grey Zone writer/director Tim Blake Nelson and stars David Arquette and Mira Sorvino. By Warren Curry 10/16/02 Part 1 of 2

"The movie is about being human more than it is about the Holocaust or Jews," says writer/director Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God, O) about his new film, The Grey Zone. Adapted from his play, and based on real-life events, Nelson's latest work is an extremely difficult chronicling of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando: a unit of Jewish prisoners who were given special privileges by the Nazis -- the most substantial advantage being the gift of a few extra months of life -- in exchange for their assistance in the extermination of fellow Jews.

Although the Holocaust has served as a frequent cinematic subject, this particular aspect of the tragic piece of history is one that has been rarely discussed in any forum. "I had never heard about the Sonderkommando until I read about them in Primo Levi's essay The Grey Zone, in his book The Drowned and the Saved, when I was in my early 30's," admits Nelson. "I was astonished at what I read. I understand why the Sonderkommandos are buried in Holocaust historiography. Because as Levi points out in the essay, we would much rather see history as propelled forward by binary forces in opposition to one another -- good and evil, victim/perpetrator, white and black."

Nelson, known to most for his work as an actor (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Good Girl), casted against type in several of The Grey Zone's key roles, most notably in the case of Hoffman, who is played by David Arquette (Eight-Legged Freaks). "I felt really honored to be a part of the movie and Tim having the confidence to let me portray this part. I'm just indebted to him," remarks Arquette, an actor who is more often thought of as an AT&T pitchman than a thespian relishing challenging parts in dark independent films. An almost equally surprising member of the cast is Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion), an actress accustomed to playing roles exponentially more glamorous than her part in The Grey Zone. Sorvino (who, standing at 5'9", slimmed down to a frightening 108 pounds during production), though, hardly finds this change unwelcome. "It was a relief to not have to think for one second about your image or being pretty at all," she notes. "To be pretty in that atmosphere would be almost insulting. It made it simple to just go about my work and do my scenes without thinking about the camera at all or the lighting at all."

Although the majority of his cast knew nothing about the Sonderkommando prior to reading the script, Nelson made sure they were well versed in the subject before production commenced. "Tim gave us a whole list of books. Filip Muller wrote a book called Eyewitness Auschwitz, which I found so helpful," points out Arquette. "He was a Sonderkommando, he lived through it all. He wrote this book, and it was just completely revealing and honest and heart wrenching and unbelievable. There was just a huge list of books that we had. I went to the Museum of Tolerance and the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C." Sorvino, whose character Dina is part of a group of female prisoners who help smuggle gunpowder out of the camp, adds, "The costume designer, at the last minute, found a book of interviews with those women. It was like 40 different women who had been interviewed for this book that was written, probably, in the 50's. It was a perfect reference for us, because it spoke about their daily conditions, the 4 women on who are characters are based, about how they smuggled the gunpowder out, their punishment and their demeanor right before they were killed."

Perhaps the most troubling facet of The Grey Zone is its ambiguous moral stance -- or to put it bluntly, its refusal to flatly condemn the actions of the Sonderkommando or, conversely, portray them as victims utterly overwhelmed by the situation. "In history's darkest times, we'd like to think in terms of extremes. We don't want to accept that there are nuances and grey areas," offers Nelson. He continues, "Even if there are, talking about them is seen as destructive and not helpful, because how else could you see the Holocaust, but as the evil of Nazism and the victimization of Jews? People, as Levi points out in his essay, protect that way of looking at history, because it serves them. I'm a Jew and I understand why that serves all of us -- Jew and Gentile alike. Yet, as Levi points out, ultimately it doesn't serve us. We need to understand how each of us is vulnerable, and how human beings are inevitably and tragically vulnerable because of needs basic to us -- in the case of the Sonderkommandos, the need to survive. What is more basic than that? And this need to survive is co-opted by the Nazis to create a labor force for the extermination of the Jews." Nelson is not content to view the Holocaust through the same dominant lens so prevalent in the overwhelming majority of media depictions of the atrocity. He states, "The film is not judging the Sonderkommandos, but it is saying that the traditional way of construing Jews as victims in the Holocaust is really not the entire story; because to construe them as pure victims is to sanctify them, and they were human beings. Ultimately, who put them in that situation? Not the Jews -- the Nazis. But to sanctify someone simply because they were on the other side is an oversimplification."

While ostensibly a period piece, the film is unique in its embracing of a very contemporary flavor, mainly through the dialogue, the rhythms of speech and Nelson's intriguing decision not to have his Jewish characters utilize accents. "Tim made a very deliberate effort to make the characters seem as normal and modern as everyone at this table," remarks Sorvino while eyeing the group of gathered journalists. "He expressly did not have us prepare Polish or Hungarian or Yiddish accents. He also wrote the dialogue in a very modern, colloquial way rather than something from an old movie. He wanted you to watch it and say, 'That could be me.'" Nelson elaborates, "I have tired of Jewish characters in Holocaust films speaking in English with those accents. I think it distances the audience from the experience, because you're allowed to say, 'Oh, it's those people from that time fifty years ago.' It distances the actors also, because they take on the mantle of the character of 50 years ago. I simply wanted this film to feel absolutely immediate."

Those who worked on The Grey Zone believe that the movie will achieve its desired effect if audiences are able to grasp the film's relevance as it pertains to the world's current environment. "It's relevant in today's climate, especially with the fact that we're about to go to war, which I'm completely against," states Arquette. "I think it's important to do films that remind us of some of the horrors of war and make sure not to make the same mistakes we've made in the past." Nelson, when asked about the meaning of the film's final line of dialogue, "This is how the work continues," delivered in voice-over by a young female character, answers, "It's not meant as a judgment of (the Sonderkommando), it's meant as a judgment of us. It's to say to you as an audience member, 'What dust are you breathing in to have the privileges you enjoy?' She doesn't say, 'This is how the work continued,' she says, 'This is how the work continues.'" To further his point, Nelson again references Levi's vastly influential essay, "In the final line of Levi's chapter, he says, 'We are all in the ghetto, and the ghetto is walled in, and outside the lords of death are waiting.' He's urging a reading of the Holocaust that is not historical, that is not allegorical, but which is present. It's saying to you, read the Holocaust as an event that is happening now in less extreme ways. Don't read it as history, because in history it's in a dustbin."

The Grey Zone, which Lions Gate Films will release on October 18 and also stars Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, David Chandler and Allan Corduner, is one of the most powerful films of the year. A work that is every bit as provocative as it is emotionally taxing, and one sure to leave a marked impression on every viewer who encounters it.

(Read Ryan Kugler's review of The Grey Zone)

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