Jonathan Glazer’s Words Were Baffling and Offensive

By now, everyone has heard that British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer made controversial remarks about Israel’s current war in Gaza while accepting the award for Best International Feature for his Auschwitz-focused movie, “The Zone of Interest,” at Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony.

But for those who haven’t heard, Glazer, who is Jewish, walked onstage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to accept his award and as part of his speech said, “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”

Glazer’s comments were a response to Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, following Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack against Israel. 

But less clear was what he was actually saying.

On social media, one thing everyone — whether pro- or anti-Israel—agreed on was that Glazer’s phrasing was confusing. 

In fact, immediately after Glazer spoke, many people, according to their X posts, were rewinding the ABC broadcast so that they could listen more closely to his speech. And on social media, one thing everyone — whether pro- or anti-Israel—agreed on was that Glazer’s phrasing was confusing. 

In the end, Glazer’s comments were both baffling and offensive.

I didn’t think “The Zone of Interest” was a great movie. The premise — a Holocaust drama that doesn’t physically take the viewer inside the Auschwitz concentration camp but instead focuses on the idyllic household immediately next-door to the camp, a home inhabited by a Nazi commandant and his family — is an intriguing one. The filmmaker appears to have applied a tactic employed by Steven Spielberg when that director made his famous blockbuster, “Jaws” — that is, the less you show the shark, the scarier it is — to his depiction of the concentration camp. While viewers of “The Zone of Interest” are never taken into the camp, gun shots and screams, among other sounds, from the other side of the wall attempt to capture the horror. 

But the experience of watching the film left me with neither a deeper understanding of what the Jewish victims, whom we never see, endured, nor sufficiently repelled by the Nazi family with whom we’ve spent the entirety of the film. 

Except for a couple effective scenes, including an early one where the mother of the Nazi household models a fur coat in front of her bedroom mirror — the viewer implicitly understands the coat was confiscated from a Jewish inmate — one gets the sense that the filmmaker did not appreciate the gravity of the material he was working with when constructing the film.

Much like he didn’t appreciate the gravity of his ill-advised words on Sunday when he attempted to use his platform to criticize Israel’s war in Gaza.

It’s the latest example of Hollywood elite criticizing Israel as a form of virtue-signaling. A handful of attendees on Sunday night, including Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish and Ramy Youssef, wore red buttons at the ceremony to signal their support for a ceasefire.

And no one offered the narrative from the other side. That includes Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director and Hollywood royal who had the opportunity to push back on Glazer’s comments while presenting the award later in the evening for Best Director. 

Steve Geiger, founder of the Mensch Foundation, was one of many leaders in the community who was angered by Glazer’s remarks as well as by the applause the director’s remarks generated. He called Glazer’s message “totally inarticulate” and questioned why, all night long, “nobody mentioned the hostages, that they’re still being held there in Gaza.”

“Everybody has a right to their stupid opinion, but what do you mean ‘ceasefire’?” Geiger added. “Hamas is still shooting rockets. People in Israel are still at risk from these schmucks.”

Of course, there was no mention of Hamas culpability at Sunday’s ceremony. Five months since Oct. 7, there are those who’ve all but forgotten about the brutality committed by Hamas that tragic day.

But Glazer, of all people, should know: We never forget.

Ryan Torok is a contributing writer for the Jewish Journal.