I've been haunted by THE PAWNBROKER for almost a month now. If you've perused the reviews on here, it's clear no one finds this an easy film to watch and not only because it deals with an existentially lonely man still traumatized by losing everything he ever loved in the Holocaust (though that is no small part of it).
No, unlike a lot of other Hollywood films, Rod Steiger's Sol Nazerman, traumatized and pitiable though he may be, is not a nice man. He views all other people as scum, whether they're young thugs out for money or similarly lonely souls expecting only so much as a brief conversation to alleviate their pain. He treats his second wife, herself a victim of the Holocaust who has lost loved ones, with a coldness that borders on contempt. He claims to have no bitterness or anger about what happened to him, but in every scene, there's the sense that this man is shouldering unimaginable pain and hatred. It's so real, raw, and hard to watch, especially because Nazerman hurts others constantly. However, one cannot condemn him once his flashbacks to life in the concentration camps become more prominent, revealing the roots of his trauma. Like few other character dramas, you wonder if you wouldn't be any different from Nazerman if you too lost your family, your job, your dignity. In this way, Nazerman is truly a three-dimensional character, not the saintly victim a lesser movie might portray him to be.
Nazerman has more than a few things in common with Travis Bickle from TAXI DRIVER. Both men are traumatized, angry, and alienated. Both men choose to languish in seedy settings, inhabiting places that reflect and validate their vision of the world as loveless, immoral, and contemptuous. They pretend to be above the lowlives and criminals around them while each is, in his own way, complicit in the crime around them if only by turning a blind eye (Nazerman's store is a front for a local racketeer played with cool, sleazy brilliance by Brock Peters, and Nazerman only objects once he learns Peters is involved in prostitution since Nazerman was forced to watch his wife be repeatedly raped in a Nazi brothel).
Of course, the endings of THE PAWNBROKER and TAXI DRIVER are quite different, even though both end on an ambiguous note for the protagonist. I am still reeling from the former. Does Nazerman overcome his alienation from society? I don't know... will the tragedy of Jesus' murder save Nazerman from his isolation or will he only burrow further into himself?
I'm aware this was more a mess of thoughts than a review. I'm still trying to process it all. And I think that's part of what makes this movie great.
No, unlike a lot of other Hollywood films, Rod Steiger's Sol Nazerman, traumatized and pitiable though he may be, is not a nice man. He views all other people as scum, whether they're young thugs out for money or similarly lonely souls expecting only so much as a brief conversation to alleviate their pain. He treats his second wife, herself a victim of the Holocaust who has lost loved ones, with a coldness that borders on contempt. He claims to have no bitterness or anger about what happened to him, but in every scene, there's the sense that this man is shouldering unimaginable pain and hatred. It's so real, raw, and hard to watch, especially because Nazerman hurts others constantly. However, one cannot condemn him once his flashbacks to life in the concentration camps become more prominent, revealing the roots of his trauma. Like few other character dramas, you wonder if you wouldn't be any different from Nazerman if you too lost your family, your job, your dignity. In this way, Nazerman is truly a three-dimensional character, not the saintly victim a lesser movie might portray him to be.
Nazerman has more than a few things in common with Travis Bickle from TAXI DRIVER. Both men are traumatized, angry, and alienated. Both men choose to languish in seedy settings, inhabiting places that reflect and validate their vision of the world as loveless, immoral, and contemptuous. They pretend to be above the lowlives and criminals around them while each is, in his own way, complicit in the crime around them if only by turning a blind eye (Nazerman's store is a front for a local racketeer played with cool, sleazy brilliance by Brock Peters, and Nazerman only objects once he learns Peters is involved in prostitution since Nazerman was forced to watch his wife be repeatedly raped in a Nazi brothel).
Of course, the endings of THE PAWNBROKER and TAXI DRIVER are quite different, even though both end on an ambiguous note for the protagonist. I am still reeling from the former. Does Nazerman overcome his alienation from society? I don't know... will the tragedy of Jesus' murder save Nazerman from his isolation or will he only burrow further into himself?
I'm aware this was more a mess of thoughts than a review. I'm still trying to process it all. And I think that's part of what makes this movie great.