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Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Danny Cohen, executive producer of Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama The area of interesthas said he “fundamentally disagrees” with the director’s politically oriented Oscar acceptance speech.
Accepting the international feature film Oscar last Sunday, Glazer spoke at length, highlighting what he described as the shared ideology behind the film’s subject matter and contemporary world events.
“All of our decisions were made to reflect and confront ourselves in the present, not to say: ‘Look what they did then,’ but ‘Look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped our entire past and present,” Glazer said.
“Right now, we are here as men who refute their Judaism and the Holocaust hijacked by an occupation, which has brought so many innocent people into conflict. If the victims of October the. Whether it is the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist? This is what Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, the girl who shines in the film, decided, as she did in life. She dedicated this to her memory and her resilience. Thank you.”
Since then, Glazer’s speech has been widely reported and discussed, with voices from across the political spectrum raising and criticizing the filmmaker.
Speaking in response about the Impious In the podcast hosted by Israel’s Channel 12’s Yonit Levi and The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, Cohen, the former head of BBC TV, said he thought it was important to point out that Glazer’s speech “upset a lot of people.”
“Many people feel upset and angry about this. And I understand that anger frankly,” Cohen said.
“Many people from the Jewish community who contacted me felt that it was an extraordinary and very important film. And it tells the story of the Holocaust and is an important piece of Holocaust education. And I think they have been bothered by the feeling they have that it has been mixed up with what is happening now. “Whether that was Jonathan’s intention or not.”
Cohen added: “I fundamentally disagree with Jonathan on this. The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, which continues to hold and abuse hostages, which does not use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza, but to hide and allow Palestinians to die. “I think the war is tragic and terrible, and the loss of civilian life is terrible, but I blame Hamas for it.”
When Freedland and Levi asked Cohen if Glazer had informed him of his plans for the speech, he said no. He understood that the speech had been drafted by Glazer and his longtime producer, James Wilson. Glazer and Wilson have not yet spoken publicly about the discussion surrounding the speech.
Cohen concluded by saying The area of interest It was one of the “most notable films in decades.” But he believed Glazer’s speech had become a “great distraction” that overshadowed an “extraordinary triumph of cinema.”
Loosely inspired by Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name and set outside the walls of Auschwitz during the Holocaust, the German-language film Area of interest stars Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller (tonight also nominated for Best Actress for Anatomy of a fall) as Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig, as they strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden separated from the Nazi concentration and extermination camp by a short wall. What happens on the other side is rarely hinted at.
He Area of interest He also won the Oscar for Best Sound for Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn.