Pawnbroker DVD

 Powerful Realistic Hard A Must See
Filmed in Black and white, I first saw this when I was a teen on the big screen. It was a world I never knew but understood. This is a serious film to be watched without interuption , in the semi dark , like a theater, for its full impact. There is one scene where Steiger looks up to the sky in front of his store that stays with me till today. See the movie and you will know what affected me as a youth. Recently I saw Steger talked about this scene in an interview and I knew what he was talking about and where he had to go for that moment.
Submitted by Vince (Tampa)
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 One of the most shattering, powerful and honest '60s films.
The picture which spearheaded the innovative wave of American cinema at mid-decade was Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker" (1964), the highly controversial film which gave Oscar-nominee Rod Steiger his first impressive shot at a character lead: Sol Nazerman, a middle-aged Jewish American who runs a dilapidated pawnshop in Harlem. Nazerman's background, as sketched in for us, is relatively unique: the man survived the concentration camps in Europe twenty years earlier, after the rest of his family perished. But Nazerman's personality, in the present, is clearly an extension, and exaggeration, of a state that beginning to infect the American public. Nazerman survives in the Sixties by eschewing all relationships, loyalties, and commitments, either to other people or to causes. The world around him is heightened in its ugliness--slums and suffering everywhere--and Nazerman makes no attempt do anything about it, since he has gradually convinced himself that things cannot be altered for the better. He exercises a passionless affair with the widow of his one-time best friend; he berates the spontaneous, flippant young Puerto Rican, Jesus (Jaime Sanchez), who works as his assistant; he spurns the attempts of a well-meaning welfare worker (Geraldine Fitzgerald) to strike up a friendship. Nazerman operates as an island unto himself, until a series of shocking accidents and outrages force him to extend himself back into the world at large. Though Nazerman's story is a far cry from the experiences of most people, it still served as an allegory for current events. Non-involvement emerged as a major social wave of the Sixties, in response to the ever growing rate of crime, and became the subject of movie makers who attacked this latest brand of amorality with a heated anger. "The Pawnbroker" was a case in point, though the film was immediately attacked from a number of corners. It was accused of being anti-Semetic, offering an image of a Jew who believes in nothing but money; of being anti-Negro, for presenting blacks in villainous roles; and of being pornographic, for featuring exposed breasts for the first time in a modern American commercial film. These attacks were, of course, all unfair. Though Nazerman happens to be a Jew, he is in no way presented as representing Jewish characters in general, but rather an unpleasant modern trend toward alienation that cuts across all cultural barriers. For the character of the black Harlem gangster, the filmmakers hoped to cast any of a number of big name black stars. Brock Peters finally agreed to do the role, with a clear understanding that portraying nothing but clean-cut, highly intelligent, almost infallible black characters--as Sidney Poitier was doing in such films as "The Slender Thread", "A Patch of Blue", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" and "To Sir, With Love"—only offered an unrealistic image of the Negro in America, and thus was essentially counter-productive. And the exposed breasts—occurring in a scene, in which a desperate young Negro hooker offers herself to Nazerman, reminding the man of his own wife--could not be considered pornographic, since the scene is anything but erotic or arousing. We are moved to feel anguish for the woman and for Nazerman, who is once again learning to feel pain, sorrow, and humiliation. Though in fact based on a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, "The Pawnbroker" often looks like a dramatic work transferred to the screen without its theatrical origins ever being left completely behind. Even the flashbacks, a purely cinematic device, to Nazerman's youth in Europe are overly obvious, and set into the film in predictable, contrived ways. Despite this, the adult handling of such volatile and controversial subject matter qualifies "The Pawnbroker" as a significant movie milestone. Decicated to the memories of Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913-2005) and Brock Peters (1927-2005). [filmfactsman]
Submitted by filmfactsman (Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
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 Monumental Work of Art
I've been viewing movies over 50 years and I would put The Pawnbroker in my top five best films of all time. It's powerful, poetic and filled with human empathy. The end-scene is an example of the power of subtlty and understatement. Both the film and Rod Steiger got stiffed at that year's academy awards. The following year the academy tried to make up for it's dismal failure by giving Steiger best actor for In The Heat Of The Night. A day late and a dollar short. Highlights of the film include the wonderful character studies of the downtrodden who come in to pawn their sad and pitiable possessions. Brock Peters is most effective as a Harlem crime kingpin. Curiously, the title song and poetic lyrics is not featured in the film. A version by Tony Bennett is deeply moving and guaranteed to choke you up, as is this powerful and curiously overlooked film.
Submitted by Bob (Toledo, OH, USA)
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