The Pawnbroker
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Movie Reviews of The Pawnbroker
Movie Review: Honest Review
Summary: 5 Stars
The best psychodrama ever! Definetly made it into my movie collection. You will remember this movie for the rest of your life.Movie Review: A GREAT MOVIE (A TRUE CLASSIC)
Summary: 5 Stars
This is on of the best movis ever made, it is very hard to eplaine how good, YOU MUST SEE IT and better OWN IT.Movie Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent for the period. This film shot Steiger into Stardom. A must see for all holocaust aftermath followers.Movie Review: Brilliant film but with one inexcusable flaw
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Pawnbroker" is a bleak, shattering character study concerning the ravages of guilt on a holocaust survivor who has psychologically shut down his emotions in order to survive. Sol Nazerman's (Rod Steiger) guilt is based on his inability to save his family at Auschwitz while he himself has continued to live. His emotional shutdown results in his ability to empathize with the desperate, pathetic customers who pawn their valuables at his store, or to care about his mistress, his Puerto Rican employee, or anyone else. However, through a sort of cinematic stream of consciousness, director Sidney Lumet is able to reveal how current situations act as catalysts on Sol, enabling memories of the past, through flashback, to return and haunt him still. This is arguably the best performance of Rod Steiger's career, with exceptional support from the entire cast.So what's the flaw? Well, the filmmakers convincingly show where the horrors of hatred and bigotry that led to the Holocaust can lead. And then the filmmakers proceed to promote another form of hatred, as if this were somehow acceptable. The problem for me is that for no positive reason, several of the arch villains in this piece are shown to be gay men, and one can't help but wonder at the homophobia behind the director or author's choice in this. The main villain of the piece is Rodriguez (excellently played by Brock Peters), who uses the pawnship as a money-laundering "front" for his personal crime syndicate, and pays Sol well for his compliance. Rodriguez is continually shown with his blond male lover, a handsome but subservient figure in a non-speaking role. After one threatening interchange between Rodriguez and Sol in Rodriguez's living room, Rodriguez and the lover are seen ascending the stairs, presumably to the bedroom, to turn in for the night, leaving the distraught and vanquished Sol by himself. [...]
And then there are the three evil thugs who decide to rob the pawnshop. Prior to this robbery attempt, we see one of robbers lovingly examining the photos in a men's muscle magazine. Again, why??
The movie even contains an East Harlem nightclub scene, in which a pathetic drag queen of advanced age struts his sad stuff in a performance worthy of "The Gong Show" before removing his wig at the dance's end. For the third time, why???
This facile use of homosexuality to highlight modern-day evil is quite frankly repugnant and both tarnishes and sabotages an otherwise brilliant film. If the filmmakers are attempting to show where hatred toward one minority group can lead, how can the writer and director justify reviling yet another persecuted minority group? Were they not aware that hundreds of thousands of gay men and women also perished in the death camps? Was the suffering of the concentration camp prisoners who were forced to wear a yellow star more valid than the suffering of the prisoners who were forced to wear a pink triangle?
Movie Review: An unsentimental look at survivor's guilt
Summary: 4 Stars
`The Pawnbroker' was directed in 1965 by: Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men,1957; Serpico, 1973; Dog Day Afternoon, 1974)
The film deals with a Holocaust survivor suffering survivor's guilt after his wife and children died in the camps. He is now experiencing flash-backs to his experiences in the camps. He is clearly a man at war with himself and seeks to isolate himself from the world and people believing only in absolutes. Several people who appear to be lonely and desperate come into the store simply seeking company or help only to be turned away by his now cold indifference. Essentially this is a wonderful character study of man who has given up on life believing the world to be cruel and inhumane. I found the film well worth watching because it avoids a lot the sentimentality that can be seen in films of this nature.
Cinematography on `The Pawnbroker' was by Boris Kaufman the younger brother of Dziga Vertov (Man With A Movie Camera,1929) He had shot perhaps the finest of all poetic realist films, `L'Atalante' (1934, Jean Vigo) as well as `Zero For Conduct' (1933. Jean Vigo). In 1942 he moved to America where he made a name for himself by working with Elia Kazan on `On The Waterfront'(1954)and `Baby Doll' (1956) winning an Oscar for the former. His cinematography had a high contrast monochromatic element to it that can be clearly seen in `The Pawnbroker'. It has the same grittiness that can also be seen in the films of John Cassavettes. Music was composed by Quincy Jones which gives it a sixties Harlem flavour. The film stars the underrated Rod Steiger (On The Waterfront, 1954; In The Heat Of The Night, 1967; Fist Full Of Dynamite, 1972) in the lead role.