I’ve already written about Jonathan Glazer’s “controversial” Oscar acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” but many people are still not over it.
The British filmmaker had made parallels between the Holocaust-setting in ‘Zone of Interest’ and the current conflict in Gaza. It was difficult to decipher exactly what he meant, with some claiming that he had mentioned refuting his own Jewish upbringing on-stage.
It is possible that Glazer didn’t choose the correct words to express what he meant to say, you could see his hands shaking while on-stage, reading from a paper, but his words have led to his being called a “self-hating Jew.” Others are saying he “hijacked the holocaust” for political gain.
It didn’t help that Glazer skipped the backstage pressroom after the win, something that most of the winners don’t do, and hasn’t done any interviews to clarify what he meant in his speech. Of course, given the tumultuous nature of the middle eastern conflict, you’re getting a whole bunch of opinions, left and right, about the matter.
Hungarian director László Nemes, who won the 2016 Oscar in the same category as ‘Zone,’ for his masterful “Son of Saul,” which was also set at Auschwitz, has condemned Glazer’s speech:
I like ‘The Zone of Interest’ very much and I think it’s an important movie. When you make a movie like this, there is a responsibility attached to it. Glazer has clearly failed to measure this responsibility, including vis-a-vis the destruction of the European Jews. And it was appalling that the elite of cinema was applauding him for it.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, wrote on X: “It’s truly disheartening to see someone minimize the Holocaust literally as they are accepting an award for a film they made … about the Holocaust. Glazer talks about understanding where dehumanization can lead, yet is blind to the fact that it’s Hamas’ dehumanization of Jews & Israelis that led to the current war. Let me be clear: Israel is not hijacking anyone’s Jewishness. It’s defending every Jew’s right to exist.”
When asked to comment, Glazer’s reps, unsurprisingly, declined. I believe his goal now is to just weather the storm and move on from this thing.
