The Believer Page #5

Synopsis: "The Believer" explores a Jewish student's private journey to understand the meaning of Judaism in his life. Set in New York City, the Plot follows a morally confused young adult struggling with the conflict between his beliefs and his heritage. "The Believer" examines themes of religion, family, and self-loathing. It is a psychological examination into the forces of intolerance, both on the individual and society as a whole.
Genre: Drama
Director(s): Henry Bean
Production: IDP Distribution
  6 wins & 10 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.2
Metacritic:
75
Rotten Tomatoes:
83%
R
Year:
2001
98 min
Website
498 Views


(boy) Fear of the Lord|is the beginning of wisdom.

Fear of God makes you|afraid of everything.

AII the Jews are good at is being afraid,|at being sacrificed.

(bangs gaveI)

Do you even beIieve in God?

I'm the onIy one who does beIieve.

I see him for the power-drugged madman|that he is.

And we're supposed to worship this deity?

I say, never!

Avi,...

..go ask Rabbi Springer to come|and remove Danny from my cIass.

And, you,...

..if you had come out of Egypt, you wouId've|been destroyed in the desert,...

..with aII those who worship the goIden caIf.

Then Iet Him destroy me now.

Let Him crush me|Iike the conceited buIIy that He is.

Go ahead.

Danny!

DanieI BaIint!

Come back!

(footsteps)

(foghorn)

- How are things going?|- Fine.

We'd like to talk to you about something.

- Are you all right?|- Yeah.

We are about to launch|an above-ground, intellectually serious,...

..fascist movement.

We wanna build bridges to certain positions|in the political mainstream.

Works like The BeII Curve, SociaI BioIogy,|Earth First, The Genome Project.

We'll have lectures,|invite blacks and Jews and liberals.

Chomsky speaks, Stanley Crouch.

You know, l've been waiting my whole life|for something like this.

We want you to help us run it.

Give speeches,...

..lead seminars, handle the fundraising.

- Handle the fundraising?|- We need someone with intelligence.

Well, what about the synagogues|and Manzetti and all that?

We need intellectuals.|We have enough thugs.

l'm not an intellectual.

l mean, l... l read, but...

Fundraising is just... lt's...

Danny,...

..we want you to talk to people.

Can you do that for us?

Well, yeah, sure, l can... You know.

(Lina) Do you have a decent suit?

(Curtis) We'll get him one.

We'll sort him out.

We'll get him a cellphone|and, er, anything else he needs.

(vomits)

(coughs)

(shower)

Where'd you get this?

Where'd l get what?

What are you doing?

Where'd you get it?

We stole it from a synagogue.

Can you read it?

Put something on, all right? You're not|supposed to be naked in front of it.

Why not?

Because it's... They think it's the word|of God and it's holy and the flesh isn't.

That's stupid.

Yes, it's stupid. Put something on.

You see, the Jews love to separate things.

The holy from the profane,|the meat from the milk,...

..the wool from the linen,|the Sabbath from the week,...

..the Jew from the gentile.

lt's as if one little scrap of this|is gonna completely contaminate that.

Who gets contaminated?|The Jews or the gentiles?

lt's a good question.

How come there's no punctuation?

That was a later invention and...

..Jews don't really need it, because|they know the whole thing by heart.

Every word and every letter.

Do you know it like that? By heart?

No.

But you can read it, right?

The Hebrew.

- What do you care?|- Because l wanna know.

- What's this word?|- Don't touch it. Um,...

That's uh,...

''Va'yomer... ''

''And he said...''

What did he say?

''Va'yomer Adonai I'Avram...

..Iech Iecha meartzecha u'mimoIadetcha...

..umibet avicha eI ha'aretz asher...

..arecha. ''

What does it mean?

''And God said to Avram,...

..take yourself away from your land,...

..away from the place you were born,|away from your father's house,...

(sighs) ..and go to a new land,...

..a place that l will show you.''

l want you to teach it to me.

Why?

Know your enemy.

Because it's a basic text of Western culture|and l wanna read it in the original.

- OK?|- Listen, it's extremely difficult.

lt'll take you years to learn it.

l'm good at languages.

OK.

You get that piece of paper|and that pen over there.

- AIeph.|- Looks like a little swastika.

lt's silent and it takes a vowel.

There aren't any vowels, there are just dots|that go underneath the letters.

l'll get you a chumash.

- (Danny) Beth.|- (Carla) Beth.

- GimeI.|- GimeI.

- DaIeth.|- DaIeth.

- Heh.|- Heh.

How come you're here and not with Curtis?

And don't say|it's cos of the free Hebrew lesson.

The sex is better.

Even though he's, uh,|he's got such a big dick?

When l'm with you,|there's a tragic dimension.

How many of you consider yourselves|anti-Semites?

Good.

Actually the term's imprecise, seeing as|Jews are only one of the Semitic peoples,...

..but for our purposes, we'll say that|an anti-Semite is someone that hates...

..or is against Jews.

Why do we hate 'em?

Let me put it this way.

Do we hate 'em cos they push their way in|where they don't belong?

Or do we hate 'em cos they're clannish|and they keep to themselves?

Cos they're tight with money,|or cos they flash it around?

Cos they're Bolsheviks|or because they're capitalists?

Cos they have the highest lQs|or cos they have the most active sex lives?

You wanna know the real reason|why we hate 'em?

Cos we hate 'em.

Cos it's an axiom of civilisation,...

..that just as man longs for woman,|loves his children and fears death,...

..he hates Jews.

There's no reason.

And if there were, some smart-assed kike|would try and prove us wrong,...

..which would only make us hate 'em|even more!

And really, we have all the reasons we need|in three simple letters.

J... E... W.

Jew!

You say it a million times, it's the only word|that never loses its meaning.

Jew.

Jew. Jew. Jew.

Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew.

(car horns blare)

l'll give your group 1 ,000 bucks.

You gave 50,000 to that college magazine.

Things were possible then that aren't now.

l actually feel at this moment|there's a lot of possibilities.

l read your piece. lt's very smart.

And very wrong.

ln what ways?

Forget the Jewish stuff.|lt doesn't play any more.

There's only the market now|and it doesn't care who you are.

- People still need values and beliefs.|- No, they don't.

Not the smart ones.

Look, l'll give you five grand if you can|document your tactics and status.

But when you fall off this horse,|come see me.

l could show you|how to make a lot of money.

l don't care about money.

You will.

You're a Jew.

You may not realise it but you are.

Maybe l am. Maybe we're all Jews now.|What's the difference?

What about... Drake?|Did he ever show up?

Uh, no, man. lt's weird. No-one's seen him.

Hey, listen, Danny. This is gonna be|a completely different kind of device, OK?

Stupid thing. D'you have any idea|how that made me look?

- ln front of Curtis and Lina.|- l know, l know.

l'm sorry. lt won't happen again, OK?

l got a brand-new timer|plus a back-up power source.

Gotta kill some Jews.

lt's all l ever talk about|and this time it's gotta happen.

lt will.

You should go.

(woman) On Shabbos, is it permitted to|pick up the phone if it rings for a Iong time?

(man) No. It couId be a wrong number.

If you think it might be a reIative|needing heIp,...

..knock the phone off the hook with your|eIbow and Iisten to see who's on the Iine.

(woman) When is it forbidden to...

The TaImud teaches us...

- May we peeI oranges on Shabbos?|- Yes, but...

..peeI them immediateIy.

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Henry Bean

Henry Bean (born 1945) is an American screenwriter, film director, film producer, novelist, and actor. Most famous as a screenwriter, Bean wrote the screenplays for Internal Affairs, Deep Cover, Venus Rising, The Believer, Basic Instinct 2 and Noise. The Believer was awarded the dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Festival and the Golden St. George at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival.Bean, who is Jewish, also acted in The Believer, and was a producer on Deep Cover and Noise. He was the director for The Believer and Noise. Bean is also the inspiration for the protagonist of Noise. He was so tired of constant noise around him and his home in New York that he decided to take the law into his own hands. If a car alarm was going off and the owner of the vehicle didn't rectify the situation, Bean would break into the car to disable the offending car alarm. Bean was eventually arrested and jailed. He admits to doing it a few more times since. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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