CINCINNATI, Ohio — If you’ve never heard of filmmaker Jack Garfein, there’s a reason. At his peak, he was offered a 20-picture contract with Paramount. Then, after his first picture, Paramount nixed the deal. So why make a documentary about him? It’s the reason he fell, and what he did after, that’s compelling.
Garfein was silenced, blacklisted by HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), the watchdogs who sniffed out “commies” and other subversives, then destroyed their lives. HUAC claimed it was “protecting American freedom” by denying American citizens their rights to Freedom of Speech, Due Process and Legal Representation. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When Jack Garfein came to America in 1946, he had been through seven different concentration camps. His first “acting job” was as a teenager in the camps. His uncle had warned him that the kapos looked to “pretty boys” like himself for sexual favors. So, whenever he was summoned to their barracks to shine their shoes, he should fake a cough. That’s what he did and the clever ruse kept him from being sexually exploited. However, it also kept him from getting any extra food. When Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British, Garfein weighed only 22 kg (48 lbs). Malnourished and frail, the docs did not expect him to make it.
Yet make it he did. With an uncle in New York City to sponsor him, Garfein came to America and joined The Actors Studio where he was mentored by the titans of the time including Lee Strasberg, Irwin Pescatore and Elia Kazan. He was a very good actor, but his true calling was in directing. For his stage directing debut, Garfein found the most subversive piece he could find, End as a Man by Calder Willingham, a book that was sued by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. His cast included then unknowns, James Dean, George Peppard, Julie May Wilson and Ben Gazzara.
So what was the big deal? End as a Man, and the later film version The Strange One, was set in a brutal military school in the American South. It took a probingly critical look at Jim Crow and the toxic machismo of military school culture. Plus, with so many fit, shirtless young men sweating it out in rigorous training, the homoerotic undertones are not exactly subtle. This, and his “disrespect for lawful authority” was enough to get him blacklisted from Hollywood. That’s when Paramount nixed his 20-picture deal after only one picture.
Garfein could have climbed into a bottle, drowning his sorrows. However, after seven concentration camps, he had survived too much to just give up. Garfein strode to the forefront of the indie film movement, making low-budget movies without Hollywood moolah. With Paul Newman as his partner, Garfein later founded The Acting Studio West in 1966, revolutionizing film acting of the time, which leaned toward the melodramatic. Garfein taught his students that acting is about more than reciting lines. It’s about living in the moment with all of your senses, drawing upon memories and contradictions. “How beautiful it is that I can smell a flower and it brings back the memory of my mother.”
Documentary Film Director Tessa Louise Salomé paints a portrait of a complex, haunted man. While there are clips of an elderly Garfein speaking in interviews, much of it is narrated in first person by Willem Dafoe, whose voice carries an innately dark, haunted quality. Honestly, I did feel that The Wild One focuses too much on how The Strange One led to his fall from grace and too little about his resilience in independent films. For instance, I wish they had said more about his work with Marcel Marceau, of whom I am a great fan.The Wild Oneshows a few fleeting clips of the great mime, but doesn’t elaborate.
My biggest takeaway from The Wild One is this. When Jack Garfein heard people say of the Holocaust “Never Again,” he wanted to throw a shoe at them. His mantra was “Keep your eyes open.” He saw the specter of the Holocaust everywhere, including America. Germany modeled their Nuremberg Laws after Jim Crow Laws and the concentration camps after the American Indian Reservations.
When minorities are vilified as scapegoats, and people can be disappeared to foreign prisons without due process, you know you are living in dark times. That’s when we most need subversive visionaries like Garfein to hold a mirror up to society to make us take a hard look at ourselves and hopefully quicken our consciences.
The Wild One is available for streaming at Good Docs: DOCUMENTARIES that do GOOD in the world. .
And that’s show-biz!
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Eric George Tauber, a former San Diegan, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He now resides in Cincinnati.
