Web Exclusives | What’s the ‘Protocol’ Here? |
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| Written by Ilene Rosenblum | |||||
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Marc Levin’s Cinematic Exploration of Anti-Semitism Jews knew about the attacks of September 11, 2001. Jews control the media. They exaggerated or invented the Holocaust to gain sympathy. So say the subjects of Marc Levin’s “Protocols of Zion,” a film that gets its name from the fraudulent and influential anti-Semitic pamphlet, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” published in the early twentieth century, which detailed Jewish leaders’ plot of worldwide domination. At a post-screening Q & A session at the Chicago International Film Festival, Levin said that myths such as those perpetrated by documents like “The Protocols” exist and prohibit multicultural understanding. Debunking the “mother of all conspiracies” will open up the forum for discussing real issues, he said. “I thought [”The Protocols” had been] thrown on the trash heap of theory,” Levin said. But throughout the film, Levin finds pockets of people who still believe and perpetrate the myths peddled by the pamphlet. Viewers travel along with him to booksellers on the streets of New York City and to the National Alliance white supremacist movement headquarters in Hillsboro, West Virginia, which both sold out of the document. Interspersed between his various interviews are citations from the original “Protocols” and footage from recent Arab television miniseries playing them out. While Levin claims in the movie that the main focus was inspired by anti-Semitic responses to 9/11, Levin’s research of these claims leads him to other forms of anti-Semitism. As a consequence the focus sometimes becomes fuzzy. Levin interviews Palestinian-American youth in Brooklyn, Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman, extremist right wing Zionists, and white supremacists—all of them male— tounmask the absurdity of anti-Semitic bigotry. The film successfully uses humor to show the falacy in anti-Semetic arguments. A man in New York City explains the Jewish conspiracy as PEPSI— Pay Every Penny to Support Israel. He alleges that 35 cents from every can of Pepsi goes there. The mayor of the city, Michael Bloomberg, is Jewish, and former mayor Rudolph Giuliani (“Jew…liani”) might as well have been in on this plot too, he says. Unfortunately, the film lacked expert testimonial, particularly from Arabs and from skeptics, Jewish or not. It also almost entirely lacked women’s voices. Levin’s explanation of the bias as a consequence of the editing process, as simply the result of attempts to minimize talking heads and “to get out there in the middle of the mix… to start the dialogue with the gonzo street energy”—is unconvincing and fails to justify the glaring omissions. Levin said he hopes the film doesn’t become “ghettoized” as a Jewish film because, he said, even though the film is about anti-Semitism, hatred is a threat to everyone. “Any of us are potential victims,” he said. It’s likely that “Protocols” will have greater success than other Jewish-themed movies in reaching a broader audience. It drives straight to human instinct—what makes us feel threatened, loved and feared, and viewers need no background in Jewish history to follow along. “You know what hate is in your heart,” Levin said. While Levin’s stated intention to debunk anti-Semitism was fairly successful, it is doubtful that most viewers will come away with a sense of the anti-racist humanism he claims to strive for. “Protocols” is playing in New York City and Los Angeles and will open in Chicago on December 9th. It will be released on home video late next summer.
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