Director Christa Maerker

US Premiere


Project
Background

The Roth Explosion: Confessions of a Writer
Germany, 1998, Video, 53 minutes. In English.

Director Christa Maerker and author Philip Roth.

Philip Roth is an American writer, who allows some of his protagonists in his autobiographical novels to write autobiographical novels, as in the "Zuckerman"-trilogy. In his novels disguises and hides, invents and adds to reality, provoking his critics to ask: what are the facts, what is fiction? He belongs to America's most read authors and highly praised through the highest literary awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for "American Pastoral", his 22nd book published in 1998.

Roth was born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents. His grandparents came from Eastern Europe and spoke Yiddish at home. The internal contradictions of his life became his subjects: the forces of a strictly Jewish milieu within a broader American context, attempts to escape ("Portnoy's Complaint", in which his hero Alexander Portnoy calls himself the 'Raskolnikow of Whacking Off'), and the resulting feelings of guilt. His books are written in moods that swing between solemnity and insane comedy. This comic approach and his unfettered fantasy often led to strong controversy. He was declared an Anti-Semite, and one whose witty approach allows no serious encounter with Jewish history. The opponents attacked the attackers - and Roth always reacted through his literature ("Operation Shylock" and "Sabbath's Theater").

He lives in a remote place in Connecticut. The hype and noise about his separation from the actress Claire Bloom, who could not resist writing an indisputably ugly biography about the end of her marriage to Roth ("Leaving a dolls house"), do not interest him.

For the filmed profile, to which he agreed in April 1998 - a great rarity especially for America, where he never appears in front of a camera - he chose the most recent five of his 23 books for deeper inspection. In the film he talks about his childhood in Newark and on the New Jersey-coast and about the books which use these experiences as background ("Sabbath Theatre" and "American Pastoral"). He talks about "Operation Shylock" and the repeated reproach of Anti-Semitic writing. He talks about the experience of living through the last year with his father ("Patrimony") who was diagnosed of having a brain tumor - and how he, by writing about the experience, was able to cope with the tragedy. He talks about his last novel "I Married A Communist", which his American readers regard as his answer to Claire Bloom's book. And he talks about his relationship to Claire Bloom.What are the facts, what is fiction?

Those last five books have accumulated more prizes than his previous books and the film is therefore called The Roth Explosion.

-- Christa Maerker, May 1999

Born in Berlin. Apprentice, later critic and editor of the arts section of Spandauer Volksblatt. Thereafter she wrote for radio (critic and essayist of 60-minute-reports and profiles) and for newspapers (Frankfurter Rundschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Weltwoche, FAZ).

Since 1974, Maerker has completed 45 documentary films for ARD-TV and ZDF-TV. She specializes in cinema, literature, and profiles. Authors of books on cinema (most recently "Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller", Rowohlt-Berlin). Screenplays (including "Die Schweizermacher") and radio plays.

Maerker is a member of several governmental film funding institutions and has worked with the International Filmfestival Berlin since 1979. She travels and lectures (mostly on cinema) for the Goethe Institute in the USA, Canada, South East Asia, New Zealand. She has been a guest lecturer at universities in the USA and South East Asia. She lives in Berlin and elsewhere.

Copyright © 1999 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. All rights reserved.
The SFJFF World Wide Website address is http://www.sfjff.org