James Harstad
Professor Edelheit
Anti-Semitism in America
10/28/2014
Reflection on Film Focus Neil Slavin’s Focus, the film which takes after the book of the same name by Arthur Miller, is a film which tries to portray racism in a relatively novel light. It attempts to display bigoted racism by showing the general populace of the Brooklyn populace as being racist against someone work of appearance alone. While this raises questions of how authentic the film must portray middle class life of New York in the 1940’s. It still does a meaningful job in portraying a story of a neutral minded man who is forced to decide between an alignment of bigotry or relative humanism. While I dismiss the premise that glasses alone could turn your well known neighbors and employer against you. The representation of characters in this movie is simply engaging and their representations are highly artistic. The film starts off with Mr. Newman as a neutral minded individual; he has no real political or social affiliation, no family other than his mother and a comfortable but not entirely fast paced job. He is simply a moderate man who is content living the life of a respected middle class American. His neutrality is represented when he witnesses the rape at the beginning of the film of the woman. When asked the following day of what transpired he simply pretended to know nothing. He is a man who has a see no evil, is no evil mentality. When he begins wearing glasses and becomes “Jewified”. He is immediately forced to no longer be the “neutral man” by way of people’s reactions to his dress. He snaps from the comfort of a good Christian man to an “International Jew” by his peers and neighbors. Even his mother points that he looks like a Jew. Truly, he becomes ostracized by his friends, career, and neighborhood for simply looking like a Jew and is cast out of society