The Believer (film)
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| The Believer | |
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| Directed by | Henry Bean |
| Produced by | Daniel Diamond |
| Written by | Henry Bean |
| Starring | Ryan Gosling Billy Zane Theresa Russell Summer Phoenix |
| Distributed by | Palm Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January, 2001 |
| Running time | 99 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Believer is a 2001 film written by Henry Bean and Mark Jacobson, and directed by Bean. Ryan Gosling stars as the title character. Summer Phoenix, Theresa Russell, and Billy Zane are also featured. The story was inspired by the life of Daniel Burros, a classic example of the self-hating Jew.
It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.
[edit] Plot Summary
The film follows the story of Daniel Balint, a once brilliant but troublesome student at an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva who has become a fanatically violent New York City Neo-Nazi by his early 20's. The film plots his rise through the ranks of a (fictional) American Neo-Fascist party while he attempts to reconcile his religious past with the anti-Jewish part of his identity. In the process he must hide his true ethnic identity from his fellow Neo-Nazis. When it is discovered he is Jewish by New York Times reporter Guy Danielson he foreshadows the movie's finale with a threat to kill himself. He fufills this by blowing himself up along with a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
[edit] Sources
- Henry Bean, The Believer: Confronting Jewish Self-Hatred. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002. ISBN 1-56025-372-X.
[edit] External links
- Unofficial The Believer website
- The Believer at the Internet Movie Database
- Guide to The Believer DVD
- The Believer at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
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