Cohn Wears Zionist Heart With Pride

“I am what one would call a perfectionist,” said the Swiss film producer Arthur Cohn, who is as renowned for his ardent Zionism as he is for his illustrious career. “I am involved in every aspect of a production, and I always believe in what I do.”

This philosophy has earned Cohn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and six Oscars, more than any other producer in history. His Oscar winners include Vittorio de Sica’s classic, “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” about the decline of an aristocratic Italian Jewish family during the Holocaust; the controversial documentary “One Day in September,” which re-examines the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich; and the Brazilian drama, “Central Station,” about a cynical schoolteacher who rediscovers her capacity to love through her relationship with an orphaned boy.

Cohn’s new film, “The Yellow Handkerchief,” is another character study of outsiders brought together by unusual circumstances. Brett Hanson (William Hurt) is a stoic ex-con just released from prison who joins an odd young drifter (Eddy Redmayne) and troubled teenager (“Twilight’s” Kristen Stewart in her first starring role) for a road trip through Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The wary strangers argue and gradually learn to trust each other, as the alternately lush and devastated terrain reflects their interior emotions.

“I was anxious to make an ‘all-American’ film in the United States that could prove a movie could be rewarding without sex or brutality,” Cohn said of why he was drawn to the project. “For this reason, I had a very hard time getting a distributor, which is why the release was delayed. They said the film was charming and poetic, but the lack of sex or violence rendered it uncommercial.”

The delay may have worked in Cohn’s favor, as, in the meantime, Stewart skyrocketed to superstardom for her portrayal of Bella Swan in the “Twilight” vampire film series. Cohn — who also discovered the now-famous European director Jean-Jacques Annaud — recalled that Stewart was just 17 when he hired her. “She was recommended by a director-actress I respect enormously, and that is Jodie Foster; Kristen played her daughter in ‘The Panic Room,’” Cohn recalled, and “‘The Yellow Handkerchief’ proves the true artistry of Kristen Stewart.”

William Hurt, who has been lauded for his restrained yet heart-rending performance in the film, marveled at Cohn’s stamina.  Yes, Cohn has a “contentious side,” Hurt said in an e-mail. And he can be “brutally (wonderfully, refreshingly) … honest.” Yet he “literally stands on the film set, quietly, attentively, in his light gray suit and yellow tie, a Swiss patrician, if you will, hour after sweltering hour in the endless, thick Louisiana heat … committing himself to a spiritual and physical loyalty to the work at hand.”

Former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky is also a fan. When “The Yellow Handkerchief” premiered in Israel at a benefit for Shaare Zedek Medical Center, which is de rigueur for all of Cohn’s films, Sharansky noted that , unlike some Jews who have achieved fame on the universal stage and go in for Israel bashing, Cohn enhances Judaism, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The producer is named after his grandfather, Arthur Cohn, who was the chief rabbi of Basel, Switzerland, responsible for Theodore Herzl holding the first Zionist Congress in that city in 1897.

Cohn’s mentor and teacher, de Sica, scheduled the world premiere of “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” in Jerusalem and was himself a supporter of the Jewish state. “During the Six-Day War, he asked the whole foreign press corps in Rome to come to his home at 5 a.m., and they all watched as he walked the long [trek] from his home to the Israeli embassy, and as more and more people joined along the way,” Cohn said.

“And in the embassy, he donated blood as a sign of his affection and sincere respect for Israel.”

Cohn said his own views about Zionism have not put him at odds with the left-wing Hollywood establishment, as his films “have nothing to do with my personal feelings.” But he was chagrined at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival when some 50 intellectuals and artists — among them director Ken Loach and actor Viggo Mortensen — protested the spotlight on movies about Tel Aviv, accusing the festival of “complicity with the Israeli propaganda machine.”

“I would not work with an actor who is openly against the state of Israel or who openly criticizes its right to be defending itself with boundaries which are defensible,” he said.  Artists have the right to express their views, but Cohn believes he also has every right not to work with them.

“Frankly, I had a film for which Viggo Mortensen was considered, and I said immediately, ‘I don’t want him’ — even though he would have been very good. I don’t need to work with people who openly, without being asked, take an aggressive attitude toward Israel.”

Cohn also has strong opinions about the plethora of Holocaust-themed movies that have emerged of late — although he is not naming specific films. “There have been too many of these films, and I believe many of them were not compelling enough to reach a wide audience,” he said. “We have to be careful that viewers don’t say, ‘We have seen enough of this.’ ”

“The Yellow Handkerchief” is playing at the ArcLight Hollywood and the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles.