Q&A with Stephen Daldry, director of “The Reader”

This is from our guest blogger, Abby, who was here last night for a special screening.

Last night, Museum Chairman Robert Morgenthau and his wife, Lucinda Franks Morgenthau, hosted a private screening of The Reader at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Mr. and Mrs. Morgenthau had seen the movie a month ago, and found the topic so compelling they have been discussing it since then, acknowledging that they have very different views about the meaning of the film. The Morgenthaus are friends with Harvey Weinstein, producer of the The Reader, and before you know it, plans were underway to have a screening here in early January. The result was an evening attended by 350 people, among the guests in attendance, and the one person who made me completely star-struck, was novelist, National Book Award winner, and short story writer Joyce Carol Oates.

For me, the most interesting part of the evening was the Q&A with the director following the film. I took some notes in the dark, and here is what I have reconstructed from the conversation.

Q: How did you approach this heart-wrenching love story?

Mr. Daldry began visiting Germany each year from the age of 12 on. He loved it. And as a person from the U.K. he, himself, had an extraordinary and complicated relationship with Germany. He loved going there as a kid and had early love affairs there. The book’s author, Bernhard Schlink, experienced first-hand the complex nature of growing up in Germany after the war. In a brochure handed out at the screening, he writes: “In Germany, when the post-war generation came of age, they learned about their country’s hateful past. Then they had to face how entangled their beloved parents, teachers and mentors were in that past.” Summarized Mr. Daldry, “What do you do when you find out your love is a criminal?”

Later, an audience member reported that Kate Winslet, the Golden Globe-winning star of the movie, was on “Oprah” earlier in the day and asked Mr. Daldry if he had seen it. (He had not, as he was flying in for this engagement.) She asserted that Kate had said, “This is not a Holocaust movie.” Mr. Daldry did not disagree. “This is not a movie about the experience of the Jews in the Holocaust. This is a German story of the German experience of living through that time. There is an entire generation of Germans who live with that legacy. It is a movie about guilt.”
Given the audience, it is no surprise that guilt continued to be a theme in the line of questioning.

A statement was made that I could tell was on the tip of everyone’s tongue regarding the depiction of a grown child survivor of the Holocaust.
Q: I was struck and offended by the survivor, the ways she was living – wealthy, rich. She was unsympathetic.

Daldry responded thoughtfully by saying that he spent a lot of time thinking about the survivor and he talked with Annette Insdorf, (a friend of the Museum who is the Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University and the author of the seminal work, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust). “I wanted to show someone who flourished, who had the moral and political authority. I didn’t want her to be a victim.”

Blogger’s Note: Not having read the book, I can’t tell you how the character is depicted there. The four people I asked who did read the book did not remember. Therefore I don’t know if this is an issue exclusive to the film. Can anyone tell me?

The Reader is, indeed, a controversial film, and raises issues that are discomfiting. It was not easy for me to view the film here at work; perhaps it would have been less troubling for me to see it in my local cinema. Still, I am fascinated about perceptions of generations of Germans and prejudices we hold toward them. Our education department in particular has worked closely with young Germans and Austrians, through a variety of programs, to help foster understanding between these communities and young Jews. Sixty-four years after the end of the war, and our work continues.