------------- Daniel ------------- (USA 1983)
Directed by Sidney Lumet; Written by E.L. Doctorow, based on his own novel "The Book of Daniel"; With Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse, Amanda Plummer, Edward Asner, Ilan M. Mitchell-Smith, Ellen Barkin, John Rubinstein, Maria Tucci, Joseph Leon, Tovah Feldshuh, Lee Richardson, David Margulies, Carmen Matthews, Julie Bovasso, Jena Greco
**** out of **** (A MASTERPIECE)
"Some day I shall understand"
Sidney Lumet's film "DANIEL" and E.L. Doctorow's novel "The Book of Daniel", which it is based upon, are inspired by the controversial historical case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
At first some words about the complex story. Paul and Rochelle Isaacson (Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse) were executed in the early 1950s for alleged espionage. Their children Daniel and Susan can't get over this. In the late 1960s, after an attempted suicide of his politically more active sister Susan (played by Amanda Plummer), the rather unpolitical Daniel (Timothy Hutton) tries to find out what exactly happened in the past, tries to understand his parents' lives, tries to help his sister and to get along with his own live ...
In the first place "DANIEL" is about the effects of parents' lives on the lives of their children and about the wish of human beings to understand their parents. Lumet said in a Village Voice interview: "To me, 'DANIEL' is the story of a boy who buries himself with his parents, and spends the rest of his life trying to climb out of the grave." But the multi-layered film deals with other problems as well. Through a complex flashback structure it illuminates from Daniel's view the history of the American left from the 1930s to the late 1960s, including the different left movements. In its criticism of death penalty and McCarthyism, the film is also a political statement.
Sidney Lumet is one of the masters of the American cinema. He has given us the masterpieces "12 ANGRY MEN", "LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT", "THE PAWNBROKER", "THE HILL", "SERPICO", "DOG DAY AFTERNOON", "NETWORK", "PRINCE OF THE CITY", "THE VERDICT" and "RUNNING ON EMPTY". Lumet himself is politically left-leaning, and "DANIEL" is probably one of his most personal works. It was about seven years before he got the chance to realize this project. Many people who worked on "DANIEL" helped him by taking only the minimum salary set by the union. Timothy Hutton, for instance, turned down a million-dollar offer on a film and worked on "DANIEL" instead for about 25000 dollars.
And Lumet is right when he writes in his book "Making Movies": "Despite its critical and financial failure, I think it's one of the best pictures I've ever done." The film proves again Lumet's ability to tell complex, emotionally absorbing, unsentimental stories. Everything works in this uncompromising film. Doctorow provided an extraordinarily multi-layered screenplay. Timothy Hutton (who later starred with Nick Nolte and Armand Assante in Lumet's very good cop thriller "Q & A"), Edward Asner, Lindsay Crouse, Mandy Patinkin, Ilan M. Mitchell-Smith (who plays the young Daniel in the early 1950s) and Amanda Plummer stand out in a good cast. The fine cinematography supports the flashback structure by a careful use of color filters. The rich soundtrack, mainly consisting of songs interpreted by Paul Robeson, perfectly fits and illustrates the film's themes. The editing is excellent as well (a good example is the brilliantly filmed end sequence).
An especially moving scene of the film, also showing Lumet's typically great use of the city of New York, is a sequence in which young Daniel and young Susan (played by Ilan M. Mitchell-Smith and Jena Greco) walk through New York in search of their home.
"DANIEL" is a must-see. Of course, don't expect standard Hollywood entertainment, but a serious work. See also Sidney Lumet's later drama "RUNNING ON EMPTY" (starring River Phoenix, Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch), another masterful movie about similar themes.
(C) Karl Rackwitz (Klein Köris, Germany, 1999)
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