Case study: The Pawnbroker

September 29, 2010 | Author David Clough

The Pawnbroker (1961)

Sidney Lumet’s film about a Jewish pawnbroker in Harlem was adapted from Edward Wallant’s novel. It featured a remarkable array of talents: cinematography by Bernard Kaufman (On The Waterfront), edited by Ralph Rosenblum (The Graduate, Catch 22) and a strong cast headed by Rod Steiger.

The protagonist, Sol Nazerman (Steiger), is a Jewish Holocaust survivor; now running a pawnbroker’s shop in Harlem, who has anaesthetised himself against any feelings for his fellow human beings and repressed all memories of his past. The film tells the story of his painful reawakening: first to his memories and then to the impossibility of remaining detached from the suffering around him. At the end of the film, he comes to a full awareness of his own inescapable involvement with humanity and performs a symbolic act of atonement.

Its subject, the experience of a Holocaust survivor, was something that not been explored in such depth and detail in mainstream American cinema until then. The subject was regarded as too painful in the post-war period, especially amongst Jewish emigrants, and an unofficial taboo remained in place for many years. Even here, the symbolism in the film is largely Christian in its motifs (Nazerman’s Puerto Rican assistant is called “Jesus” and the spike used in the final scene has obvious Calvary connotations). This symbolism might even be regarded as a little heavy-handed, but the film still has real power and depth.

Part of this comes from the film-making itself: Lumet creates two distinct worlds with contrasting rhythms and atmospheres. We have the interior of the Pawnbroker shop: a place of cages and oppressive shadows; and the ghetto outside which is vivid and frenetic, choreographed by Quincy Jones’ jazz score. Punctuating the film is the harsh rattle of subway trains that, in one memorable sequence, conjure up for Nazerman the nightmarish journey to the camps.

Innovative, for that time, was the use of flashbacks that flickered for only a couple of frames; a ‘subliminal’ technique (possibly borrowed from Alain Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad); that brilliantly evokes the invasion of repressed memories; images that grow and take on unwilling substance in Nazerman’s mind.

CHARACTERS IN CONFLICT

In the sequences edited together for this clip, we are shown a selection of the parade of characters which Nazerman encounters daily. All of them want something from him: money, sympathy, friendship or just conversation. All are true Aristotelian characters with simple goals but also with recognisable and empathetic humanity. They are skilfully and memorably drawn and they are the forces at work upon the protagonist; failing at first, but eventually succeeding, in helping to bring about a change in him.

Set against them is the conflict within Nazerman himself; his increasingly desperate efforts to remain untouched and untouchable. By denying them any outward show of human empathy, he is also trying to deny its existence inside himself. There are few protagonists in contemporary films who bear the burden of their past so heavily, or who work so hard to contain it.

© David Clough 2010

Key speechRead the speech

Nazerman explains why Jews have a gift for commerce

(Nazerman is asked by Jesus (Jaime Sanchez), his shop assistant, about Jewish business success: “So how come you people come to business so natural?”)

Nazerman: You people? Oh, I see. Yeah. I see. I see, you, uh, you want to learn the secret of our success, is that right? All right, I teach you. First of all, you start off with a period of several thousand years, during which you have nothing to sustain you but a great bearded legend. Oh, my friend, you have, uh, no land to call your own, to grow food on or to hunt. You have nothing. You’re never in one place long enough to have a geography or an army or a land myth. All you have is a little brain. A little brain and a great bearded legend to sustain you and convince you that you are special, even in poverty. But this, uh, this little brain, that’s the real key, you see.

With this little brain, you go out and you buy a piece of cloth, and you cut that cloth in two and you go out and sell it for a penny more than you paid for it. Then you run right out and buy another piece of cloth, cut it into three pieces and sell it for three pennies profit. But, my friend, during that time, you must never succumb to buying an extra piece of bread for the table or a toy for a child, no. You must immediately run out and get yourself a still larger piece of cloth and so you repeat this process over and over.

And suddenly you discover something. You have no longer any desire, any temptation to dig into the Earth to grow food or to gaze at a limitless land and call it your own, no, no. You just go on and on and on repeating this process over the centuries, over and over, and suddenly you make a grand discovery. You have a mercantile heritage! You are a merchant. You are known as a usurer, a man with secret resources, a witch, a pawnbroker, a sheenie, a mocky and a kike!

Screenwriting & Film Studies