FilmSkool — a free film school
The Believer
A hardcore US racist skinhead who, because of his intelligence, leads a gang dedicated to fighting the enemy: the supposed American-Jewish conspiracy for domination. However, he's hiding a secret: he's Jewish-born, a brilliant scholar whose questioning of the tenets of his faith has left him angry and confused, turning against those who he thinks have a tragic history of their own making.
2001 · Directed by Henry Bean · 98 min · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 5 frames
Tagline
He's a jew. He’s a Neo-Nazi. With one true enemy… Himself!
Plot
The film begins with a continuing series of flashbacks into the childhood of Daniel Balint, a young Jewish yeshiva student. Brilliant but troubled, he often challenged his teachers with unorthodox interpretations of scripture. During a debate about the Binding of Isaac, Daniel argues that the story was not about Abraham's faith but God's power: that God's purpose was not to have Abraham accomplish a particular task, but rather to demand unquestioning obedience, harshly depicting God as a bully. It is from these early experiences that Daniel begins to defect from his Jewish identity.
In the present day, Daniel is now a fanatically violent neo-Nazi in New York in his early twenties. Daniel and his group of skinhead friends find a meeting of fascists run by Curtis Zampf and Lina Moebius, where he also makes a connection with Lina's daughter Carla. Daniel advocates killing Jews, and a banker named Manzetti in particular, but Curtis and Lina oppose harming Jews on practical if not moral grounds. Impressed with Daniel's intelligence and oratory, Lina invites him to their camp retreat in the country. Afterward, Daniel and his neo-Nazi friends pick a fight with two African-American men, get arrested, and are bailed out by Carla. He spends the night with her but returns to his ailing father's home where he is harangued by his sister Linda for his Nazi beliefs, but she also urges him to stay and have Shabbat dinner. The men watch TV, which is forbidden on the Sabbath according to some Orthodox Jews, leading them to commiserate on the incomprehensibility of Jewish law.
Guy Danielsen, a journalist writing an article on hate groups, meets Daniel for an interview. He listens to Daniel's antisemitic speech, but then reveals that he knows Daniel is Jewish from tracking down his old rabbi and bar mitzvah record. Enraged by this, Daniel pulls out a pistol and threatens to commit suicide if Guy publishes the truth.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Henry Bean
- Cinematography: Jim Denault
- Edited by: Mayin Lo, Lee Percy
- Music: Joel Diamond
- Production design: Susan Block
- Produced by: Susan Hoffman, Eric Sandys, Frank M. Calo, Peter Hoffman
Cast
- Ryan Gosling as Danny Balint
- Summer Phoenix as Carla Moebius
- Theresa Russell as Lina Moebius
- Billy Zane as Curtis Zampf
- Garret Dillahunt as Billings
- A.D. Miles as Guy Danielsen
- Glenn Fitzgerald as Drake
- Elizabeth Reaser as Miriam
- Joshua Harto as Kyle
- Ronald Guttman as Danny's Father
Production
- Country: United States of America, Canada
- Language: Hungarian, Hebrew, English
- Studios: Fuller Films, Fireworks Pictures
- Budget: $1,500,000
- Box office: $1,309,316
- Themes: new york city, neo-nazism, antisemitism, bigotry, hatred, self-loathing, antijudaism
On this film
This is the plain index, shown because JavaScript is off. Every lesson here is a free video published by the channel credited on it and plays through that channel's own embed — FilmSkool hosts nothing.