Defiance (2008 film)
Encyclopedia
Defiance is a 2008 World War II
era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick
, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans
, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland
(now Belarus
) during the Second World War
. The film stars Daniel Craig
as Tuvia Bielski, Liev Schreiber
as Zus Bielski
, Jamie Bell
as Asael Bielski
, and George MacKay
as Aron Bielski
.
Production began in early September 2007 and had a limited release in the United States
on December 31, 2008. It went into general release worldwide on January 16, 2009 and was released on home media on June 2, 2009. The film was an adaptation of Nechama Tec
's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans.
, targeting Jewish people. Among the survivors not killed or restricted to ghetto
es are the Bielski brothers, who are Jews: Tuvia (Daniel Craig
), Zus
(Liev Schreiber
), Asael
(Jamie Bell
), and Aron
(George MacKay
). Their parents are dead, slain by the local police under orders from the occupying Germans. The brothers flee to the Białowieża Forest, vowing to avenge their parents.
They encounter other Jewish escapees hiding in the forest and the brothers take them under their protection and leadership. Over the next year, they shelter a growing number of refugees, raiding local farms for food and supplies, moving their camp whenever they are discovered by the collaborating police. Tuvia kills the local police chief responsible for his parents' deaths and the brothers stage raids on the Germans and their collaborators; however, Jewish casualties cause Tuvia to reconsider this approach because of the resulting risk to the hiding Jews. A long-time sibling rivalry between the two eldest brothers, Tuvia and Zus, fuels a disagreement between them about their future: as winter approaches, Zus elects to leave his brothers and the camp and join a local company of Soviet partisans
, while his older brother Tuvia remains with the camp as their leader. An arrangement is made between the two groups in which the Soviet partisans agree to protect the Jewish camp in exchange for supplies.
After a winter of sickness, starvation, attempted betrayal and constant hiding, the camp learns that the Germans are about to attack them in force. The Soviets refuse to help them and they evacuate the camp as German dive-bombers strike. A delaying force stays behind, led by Asael, to slow down the German ground troops. The defense does not last long, with only Asael and Sofiya surviving to rejoin the rest of the group, who, at the edge of the forest, are confronted with a seemingly impassable marsh. They cross the marsh, but are immediately attacked by German infantry supported by a Panzer III
. Tuvia then flanks the tank with a captured MG34 and turns it on the Nazi soldiers. Isaac is shot and killed while trying to throw a grenade which detonates on him. Just as all seems lost, the Germans are assaulted from the rear by a partisan force led by Zus, which has apparently deserted the Soviet retreat to rejoin the group. As the survivors escape into the forest, the film ends as on-screen text states that they lived in the forest for another two years, building a hospital and a school, ultimately growing to a total of 1,200 Jews. Original photographs of the real-life characters are shown, including Tuvia Bielski in his Polish Army uniform, and tells their ultimate fates: that Asael joined the Soviet Army and was soon killed in action, and that Tuvia and Zus survived the war and emigrated to America to form a successful trucking firm in New York City. The epilogue also states that the Bielski brothers never sought recognition for what they did, and that the descendants of the people they saved now number in the tens of thousands.
with a budget of $50 million.
In May 2007, actor Daniel Craig was cast in the lead role. Paramount Vantage
acquired the rights to distribute Defiance in the United States and Canada. The following August, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, and Tomas Arana were cast. Production began in early September 2007 so Craig could complete filming Defiance before moving on to reprising his role as James Bond
in Quantum of Solace.
Defiance was filmed in three months in Lithuania
, just across the border from Belarus
. Co-producer Pieter Jan Brugge felt the shooting locations, between 150 and 200 kilometers from the actual sites, lent authenticity; some local extras were descended from families that had been rescued by the group.
reported that 57% of critics gave the film a positive review based upon a sample of 132, with an average
score of 5.8/10. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 58 based on 34 reviews.
New York Times critic A. O. Scott
called the film "stiff, musclebound." He said that Zwick "wields his camera with a heavy hand, punctuating nearly every scene with emphatic nods, smiles or grimaces as the occasion requires. His pen is, if anything, blunter still, with dialogue that crashes down on the big themes like a blacksmith's hammer." Scott also said the film unfairly implied that "if only more of the Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe had been as tough as the Bielskis, more would have survived". The review states further that "in setting out to overturn historical stereotypes of Jewish passivity, ...(the film) ends up affirming them."
New Yorker
film critic David Denby
praised the film, saying that "it makes instant emotional demands, and those who respond to it, as I did, are likely to go all the way and even come out of it feeling slightly stunned." Denby praised the performances in the film, which he described as "a kind of realistic fairy tale set in a forest newly enchanted by the sanctified work of staying alive."
The Times
and The Guardian
reported some Poles fear "Hollywood has airbrushed out some unpleasant episodes from the story", such as the Bielski partisans' alleged affiliation with those Soviet partisans
directed by the NKVD
, who committed atrocities against Poles in eastern Poland
, including the region where Bielski's unit operated. Gazeta Wyborcza
reported six months before the film's release that "News about a movie glorifying [the Bielskis] have caused an uproar among Polish historians publishing in the nationalist press", who referred to the Bielskis as "Jewish-communist bandits". Other historians have been characterized as being "more cautious", describing the group's banditry as understandable when survival is at stake.
The newspaper commented after the film's release that it "departed from the truth on several occasions", including depicting pre-war Nowogrodek as a Belarusian town where "no one speaks Polish", "there are only good Soviet partisans and bad Germans" and "Polish partisans are missing from the film altogether". Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz, in an article published in the leading Polish daily Rzeczpospolita
, criticized the film for vastly simplifying the historical reality in which it is set and failing to adequately place the events it describes within the complex historical situation during World War II in Eastern Poland
.
A review by Armchair General magazine cited the book Women in the Holocaust by Dalia Ofer and Lenore Weitzman, to argue that in reality the Bielskis were less egalitarian than the film suggests, and that "the fighters had the first pick among women for sexual partners."
Zwick responded to the criticism by saying that Defiance is not a simple fight between good and evil. He told the Times in a statement: "The Bielskis weren't saints. They were flawed heroes, which is what makes them so real and so fascinating. They faced any number of difficult moral dilemmas that the movie seeks to dramatise: Does one have to become a monster to fight monsters? Does one have to sacrifice his humanity to save humanity?"
Nechama Tec
, on whose book the film is based, stated in an interview with Rzeczpospolita that she was initially shocked by the film, especially by the intense battle scenes, which included combat with a German tank
. These battles never occurred in reality: the partisans tried to avoid combat and were focused on survival. She explained this divergence as an adaptation concession producer Edward Zwick made to make the film more thrilling and necessary to obtaining the necessary funding, such being the realities of Hollywood. Nevertheless, after seeing the film a number of times, Tec said that she is liking it "more and more". Zwick said Adolf Hitler sent two German divisions into the forest to search for the partisans and were unable to locate them.
On March 5, 2009 The Guardian
reported: "A film starring Daniel Craig about a Jewish underground resistance movement that took on the Nazis has prompted a storm of protest in Poland. [...] Defiance has been booed at cinemas across the country and banned from others because of a local perception that it is a rewriting of history and anti-Polish." On March 11, 2009, the Polish Embassy in London disputed the report, stating: "This embassy has been in touch with Defiance's only distributor in Poland, Monolith Plus, and we have been told that this film has not experienced any form of booing, let alone been banned by any cinemas."
Most reviewers from Belarus
criticized the film for a complete absence of Belarusian language
and for the Soviet partisans singing a Belarusian folk song while they would more likely be singing Russian songs. "The word Belarusian is spoken out only three times in the movie", the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belorussii wrote. Veterans of the Soviet partisan resistance in Belarus criticized the film for inaccuracies. Some reviews, as in Poland, criticized the film for ignoring the Bielski partisans' crimes against the local population.
for its soundtrack by James Newton Howard
. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
for 2008.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...
, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
The occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany occurred as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and ended in August 1944 with the Soviet Operation Bagration.- Background :...
. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans
Bielski partisans
The Bielski partisans were an organisation of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in the vicinity of Nowogródek and Lida in German-occupied Poland...
, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(now Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
) during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The film stars Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
as Tuvia Bielski, Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
as Zus Bielski
Alexander Zeisal Bielski
Alexander Zeisal 'Zus' Bielski was a leader of the Bielski partisans that rescued approximately 1,200 Jews from Nazi execution in Belarus during World War II.-Biography:...
, Jamie Bell
Jamie Bell
Andrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot , King Kong , Hallam Foe , Jumper , Defiance , The Eagle and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn .- Early life :Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of...
as Asael Bielski
Asael Bielski
Asael Bielski was the second-in-command of the Bielski partisans during World War II.-Early life:Asael was the third son of David and Beila Bielski, being about two years younger than his brother Tuvia who later commanded the Bielski Otriad...
, and George MacKay
George MacKay (actor)
-Biography:MacKay was born in London, England. At the age of five, he produced, directed and created his very own production of the play Peter and the Wolf with his friends playing the characters...
as Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski, later changed to Aron Bell, is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski...
.
Production began in early September 2007 and had a limited release in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on December 31, 2008. It went into general release worldwide on January 16, 2009 and was released on home media on June 2, 2009. The film was an adaptation of Nechama Tec
Nechama Tec
Nechama Tec is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, where she studied and worked with the highly-regarded sociologist Daniel Bell, and is a noted Holocaust scholar...
's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans.
Plot
The film opens with on-screen text stating: "A true story". It is August 1941 and Nazi forces are sweeping through Eastern EuropeEastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, targeting Jewish people. Among the survivors not killed or restricted to ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
es are the Bielski brothers, who are Jews: Tuvia (Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
), Zus
Alexander Zeisal Bielski
Alexander Zeisal 'Zus' Bielski was a leader of the Bielski partisans that rescued approximately 1,200 Jews from Nazi execution in Belarus during World War II.-Biography:...
(Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
), Asael
Asael Bielski
Asael Bielski was the second-in-command of the Bielski partisans during World War II.-Early life:Asael was the third son of David and Beila Bielski, being about two years younger than his brother Tuvia who later commanded the Bielski Otriad...
(Jamie Bell
Jamie Bell
Andrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot , King Kong , Hallam Foe , Jumper , Defiance , The Eagle and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn .- Early life :Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of...
), and Aron
Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski, later changed to Aron Bell, is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski...
(George MacKay
George MacKay (actor)
-Biography:MacKay was born in London, England. At the age of five, he produced, directed and created his very own production of the play Peter and the Wolf with his friends playing the characters...
). Their parents are dead, slain by the local police under orders from the occupying Germans. The brothers flee to the Białowieża Forest, vowing to avenge their parents.
They encounter other Jewish escapees hiding in the forest and the brothers take them under their protection and leadership. Over the next year, they shelter a growing number of refugees, raiding local farms for food and supplies, moving their camp whenever they are discovered by the collaborating police. Tuvia kills the local police chief responsible for his parents' deaths and the brothers stage raids on the Germans and their collaborators; however, Jewish casualties cause Tuvia to reconsider this approach because of the resulting risk to the hiding Jews. A long-time sibling rivalry between the two eldest brothers, Tuvia and Zus, fuels a disagreement between them about their future: as winter approaches, Zus elects to leave his brothers and the camp and join a local company of Soviet partisans
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
, while his older brother Tuvia remains with the camp as their leader. An arrangement is made between the two groups in which the Soviet partisans agree to protect the Jewish camp in exchange for supplies.
After a winter of sickness, starvation, attempted betrayal and constant hiding, the camp learns that the Germans are about to attack them in force. The Soviets refuse to help them and they evacuate the camp as German dive-bombers strike. A delaying force stays behind, led by Asael, to slow down the German ground troops. The defense does not last long, with only Asael and Sofiya surviving to rejoin the rest of the group, who, at the edge of the forest, are confronted with a seemingly impassable marsh. They cross the marsh, but are immediately attacked by German infantry supported by a Panzer III
Panzer III
Panzer III was the common name of a medium tank that was developed in the 1930s by Germany and was used extensively in World War II. The official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen III translating as "armoured battle vehicle". It was intended to fight other armoured fighting vehicles and...
. Tuvia then flanks the tank with a captured MG34 and turns it on the Nazi soldiers. Isaac is shot and killed while trying to throw a grenade which detonates on him. Just as all seems lost, the Germans are assaulted from the rear by a partisan force led by Zus, which has apparently deserted the Soviet retreat to rejoin the group. As the survivors escape into the forest, the film ends as on-screen text states that they lived in the forest for another two years, building a hospital and a school, ultimately growing to a total of 1,200 Jews. Original photographs of the real-life characters are shown, including Tuvia Bielski in his Polish Army uniform, and tells their ultimate fates: that Asael joined the Soviet Army and was soon killed in action, and that Tuvia and Zus survived the war and emigrated to America to form a successful trucking firm in New York City. The epilogue also states that the Bielski brothers never sought recognition for what they did, and that the descendants of the people they saved now number in the tens of thousands.
Cast
- Daniel CraigDaniel CraigDaniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
as Tuvia Bielski - Liev SchreiberLiev SchreiberIsaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
as Zus Bielski - Jamie BellJamie BellAndrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot , King Kong , Hallam Foe , Jumper , Defiance , The Eagle and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn .- Early life :Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of...
as Asael BielskiAsael BielskiAsael Bielski was the second-in-command of the Bielski partisans during World War II.-Early life:Asael was the third son of David and Beila Bielski, being about two years younger than his brother Tuvia who later commanded the Bielski Otriad... - George MacKayGeorge MacKay (actor)-Biography:MacKay was born in London, England. At the age of five, he produced, directed and created his very own production of the play Peter and the Wolf with his friends playing the characters...
as Aron BielskiAron BielskiAron Bielski, later changed to Aron Bell, is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski... - Alexa DavalosAlexa DavalosAlexa Davalos is an American actress. She has appeared in several Hollywood films, including Feast of Love, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Mist, Defiance, and Clash of the Titans.-Early life:...
as Lilka Ticktin, a Polish refugee and Tuvia's love interest. - Allan CordunerAllan CordunerAllan Corduner is an English actor.-Early life:Corduner grew up in a secular Jewish home in North London with his mother, father and a younger brother. His mother had escaped to England from Nazi Germany with her family in 1938...
as Shimon Haretz, the brothers' old school-teacher. - Mark FeuersteinMark Feuerstein-Career:Feuerstein got his break-through on television as a recurring character on the daytime soap opera Loving. When director Nancy Meyers was casting What Women Want, her daughter recognized Feuerstein from Practical Magic and insisted that her mother cast him...
as Isaac Malbin, an intellectual. - Tomas AranaTomas Arana-Life and career:Arana was born in Auburn, California. He grew up in San Francisco and studied classical theatre at the prestigious American Conservatory Theater and at the City College of San Francisco. Afterwards he relocated to New York and acted in off-Broadway productions...
as Ben Zion Gulkowitz, a resistance leader. - Mia WasikowskaMia WasikowskaMia Wasikowska is an Australian actress. After starting her career in Australian television and film, she first became known to a wider audience following her critically acclaimed work on the HBO television series In Treatment...
as Chaya Dziencielsky, Asael's love interest. - Iben HjejleIben HjejleIben Hjejle is a Danish actress, notable for starring in the John Cusack film High Fidelity . In Denmark, she is perhaps best known for appearing in the Danish television sitcom Langt fra Las Vegas and playing the girlfriend of Danish comedian Casper Christensen, her real life boyfriend...
as Bella, Zus' love interest. - Jodhi MayJodhi MayJodhi May is an English actress.-Early life:Born in Camden Town, London, May first acted at the age of 12 in 1988's A World Apart. The role earned her a Best Actress award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, shared with her co-stars Barbara Hershey and Linda Mvusi...
as Tamara Skidelski, a cousin of the Bielskis' who was raped by a Nazi soldier. - Kate FahyKate FahyKatherine "Kate" Fahy is an English stage and film actress from Birmingham. She studied drama at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and then joined its "Young Vic Theatre Company". Later on she joined the Everyman Theatre Liverpool Company, where she met actor Jonathan Pryce...
as Riva Reich - Iddo GoldbergIddo GoldbergIddo Goldberg is an English-Israeli actor.Goldberg was born in Haifa, Israel. He has had several notable roles, including playing Ben on the television show Secret Diary of a Call Girl. He also appeared in the 2008 war film Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.-Actor:-External links:...
as Yitzhak Shulman - Ravil Isyanov as Victor Panchenko, Russian partisan commander, roughly based on the real life partisan figure, Nikolai Mayakov.
- Rolandas Boravskis as Gramov, the 2nd in command of the Russian partisans.
Production
Zwick began writing a script for Defiance in 1999 after he acquired film rights to Tec's book. Zwick developed the project under his production company, The Bedford Falls Company, and the project was financed by the London-based company Grosvenor Park ProductionsGrosvenor Park Productions
Grosvenor Park Productions is a production and film-financing company. It is owned by Canadian film financing mogul Don Starr, headquartered in Los Angeles, and has an international office in London.-Filmography:* Penelope...
with a budget of $50 million.
In May 2007, actor Daniel Craig was cast in the lead role. Paramount Vantage
Paramount Vantage
Paramount Vantage is the specialty film division of Paramount Pictures , charged with producing, purchasing, distributing and marketing films, generally those with a more "art house" feel than films made and distributed by its parent company.Paramount Classics was launched in 1998 and...
acquired the rights to distribute Defiance in the United States and Canada. The following August, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, and Tomas Arana were cast. Production began in early September 2007 so Craig could complete filming Defiance before moving on to reprising his role as James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
in Quantum of Solace.
Defiance was filmed in three months in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, just across the border from Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
. Co-producer Pieter Jan Brugge felt the shooting locations, between 150 and 200 kilometers from the actual sites, lent authenticity; some local extras were descended from families that had been rescued by the group.
Response
Defiance received mixed to positive reviews from film critics. Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 57% of critics gave the film a positive review based upon a sample of 132, with an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 5.8/10. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 58 based on 34 reviews.
New York Times critic A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
called the film "stiff, musclebound." He said that Zwick "wields his camera with a heavy hand, punctuating nearly every scene with emphatic nods, smiles or grimaces as the occasion requires. His pen is, if anything, blunter still, with dialogue that crashes down on the big themes like a blacksmith's hammer." Scott also said the film unfairly implied that "if only more of the Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe had been as tough as the Bielskis, more would have survived". The review states further that "in setting out to overturn historical stereotypes of Jewish passivity, ...(the film) ends up affirming them."
New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
film critic David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
praised the film, saying that "it makes instant emotional demands, and those who respond to it, as I did, are likely to go all the way and even come out of it feeling slightly stunned." Denby praised the performances in the film, which he described as "a kind of realistic fairy tale set in a forest newly enchanted by the sanctified work of staying alive."
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported some Poles fear "Hollywood has airbrushed out some unpleasant episodes from the story", such as the Bielski partisans' alleged affiliation with those Soviet partisans
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
directed by the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, who committed atrocities against Poles in eastern Poland
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
, including the region where Bielski's unit operated. Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...
reported six months before the film's release that "News about a movie glorifying [the Bielskis] have caused an uproar among Polish historians publishing in the nationalist press", who referred to the Bielskis as "Jewish-communist bandits". Other historians have been characterized as being "more cautious", describing the group's banditry as understandable when survival is at stake.
The newspaper commented after the film's release that it "departed from the truth on several occasions", including depicting pre-war Nowogrodek as a Belarusian town where "no one speaks Polish", "there are only good Soviet partisans and bad Germans" and "Polish partisans are missing from the film altogether". Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz, in an article published in the leading Polish daily Rzeczpospolita
Rzeczpospolita (newspaper)
Rzeczpospolita is a Polish national daily newspaper, with a circulation around of 160,000. Issued every day except Sunday. Rzeczpospolita was printed in broadsheet format, then switched to compact at October 16, 2007...
, criticized the film for vastly simplifying the historical reality in which it is set and failing to adequately place the events it describes within the complex historical situation during World War II in Eastern Poland
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
.
A review by Armchair General magazine cited the book Women in the Holocaust by Dalia Ofer and Lenore Weitzman, to argue that in reality the Bielskis were less egalitarian than the film suggests, and that "the fighters had the first pick among women for sexual partners."
Zwick responded to the criticism by saying that Defiance is not a simple fight between good and evil. He told the Times in a statement: "The Bielskis weren't saints. They were flawed heroes, which is what makes them so real and so fascinating. They faced any number of difficult moral dilemmas that the movie seeks to dramatise: Does one have to become a monster to fight monsters? Does one have to sacrifice his humanity to save humanity?"
Nechama Tec
Nechama Tec
Nechama Tec is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, where she studied and worked with the highly-regarded sociologist Daniel Bell, and is a noted Holocaust scholar...
, on whose book the film is based, stated in an interview with Rzeczpospolita that she was initially shocked by the film, especially by the intense battle scenes, which included combat with a German tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
. These battles never occurred in reality: the partisans tried to avoid combat and were focused on survival. She explained this divergence as an adaptation concession producer Edward Zwick made to make the film more thrilling and necessary to obtaining the necessary funding, such being the realities of Hollywood. Nevertheless, after seeing the film a number of times, Tec said that she is liking it "more and more". Zwick said Adolf Hitler sent two German divisions into the forest to search for the partisans and were unable to locate them.
On March 5, 2009 The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported: "A film starring Daniel Craig about a Jewish underground resistance movement that took on the Nazis has prompted a storm of protest in Poland. [...] Defiance has been booed at cinemas across the country and banned from others because of a local perception that it is a rewriting of history and anti-Polish." On March 11, 2009, the Polish Embassy in London disputed the report, stating: "This embassy has been in touch with Defiance's only distributor in Poland, Monolith Plus, and we have been told that this film has not experienced any form of booing, let alone been banned by any cinemas."
Most reviewers from Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
criticized the film for a complete absence of Belarusian language
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
and for the Soviet partisans singing a Belarusian folk song while they would more likely be singing Russian songs. "The word Belarusian is spoken out only three times in the movie", the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belorussii wrote. Veterans of the Soviet partisan resistance in Belarus criticized the film for inaccuracies. Some reviews, as in Poland, criticized the film for ignoring the Bielski partisans' crimes against the local population.
Box office
Defiance made $128,000 during its two weeks of limited release in New York City and Los Angeles, California. It made $10 million during its first weekend of wide release in the United States, and by the end of its box-office run, the film made approximately $50 million worldwide.Awards and nominations
On January 22, 2009, the film received a nomination for an Academy Award in the category of Best Original ScoreAcademy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
for its soundtrack by James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
The Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score is one of several categories presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association , an organization of journalists who cover the United States film industry, but are affiliated with publications outside North America, since its institution in 1947...
for 2008.
Home media
Defiance was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 2, 2009. The bonus features included a commentary by director Edward Zwick, and four features about the making of the film.See also
- Rescue of Jews by Poles during the HolocaustRescue of Jews by Poles during the HolocaustPolish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives—and the lives of their families—to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people...
- List of Holocaust films
External links
- Defiance at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
- Defiance at Baltic Film Services
- Partisan Interviews at Interviews from the Underground (from "Defiance Movie" site resources)
- Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Daniel Craig from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- "Ed Zwick on Passivity, Jewish Power, and Hamas" by Jeffrey GoldbergJeffrey GoldbergJeffrey Mark Goldberg is an American journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic, having previously worked for The New Yorker. Goldberg writes principally on foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Africa...
- The Atlantic - January 16, 2009