Articles by Neil Rosen
Operation Finale is a Netflix production based on the abduction and trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann in 1960. The first part – being the planning and kidnapping of Eichmann – was a largely accurate but the second part takes considerable dramatic licence with the facts. Eichmann was the [...]
Steven Spielberg at 75
In the week I watched Mark Kermode interview Steven Spielberg, whose birthday falls today. It’s in the nature of such things that, if you interview arguably the most celebrated film director of our lifetime, you do not ask too many aggressive questions. Although Spielberg was not given a rough [...]
Valley of Tears
Last Friday I watched the final episode in the present series on More4. A further series featuring the Egyptian offensive in the southern front in the Yom Kippur is in production. I have written before that films made by both sides in World War Two were motivated by propaganda and this is the [...]
Boris Johnson, Judaism and politics
My niece sent me this Chanukah message from Boris Johnson – see here, courtesy of – TWITTER Like many including the Rust political columnists she cast Bojo as bumbling, lacking genuine conviction, chaotic, rackety, with an unusual personal life. However, even his sternest critics must [...]
Jew Suss: Rise And Fall (German: Jud Süss: Film ohne Gewissen) and German cinema
In 2010, Oskar Roehler directed a film titled Jud Süss: Film ohne Gewissen, (translation: Jud Süss—film without conscience). It is a film about a film. The original 1940 film Jud Süss, starring Ferdi Marian, was the brainchild of film buff Josef Goebbels through the Nazi-controlled UFA [...]
We fight Fascists/Daniel Sonnabend
This is the true story of the 43 Group constituted by Jewish people to fight domestic fascism after World War Two. It is a graphic account of violence, disruption of fascist marches and meetings, and intelligence gathering by a group fearful that – having defeated Nazism – the creed [...]
Ridley Road, Paris 1900, Paul Verhoeven revisited & The Directors
Ridley Road finished last Sunday and by and large I was impressed. Without in any way denigrating the Black cause that has suffered such discrimination in my lifetime it’s good that in the anti-racism platform the BBC gives expression to anti-semitism too. Ridley Road was set in 1962 when [...]
The Forgotten Battle (2020)
I worked up a full head of steam recently with a feminist film critic I met at the San Sebastián film festival over Paul Verhoven, the Dutch director of Basic Instinct. She had him down as a subversive, sexually exploitative, cineaste who was now out of date. I pointed out that his earlier films [...]
Valley of Tears – what happened?
I was very much looking forward on Friday night to the latest mega drama of Israeli TV – Valley of Tears – but searching for it on More 4 I could find no sign of it – instead 24 Hours in Casualty was being broadcast. I have found no information why it was pulled. I do hope [...]
The Public School film genre
On Friday at the unusual time of 6 am I watched the 1994 version of The Browning Version. It was originally the directorial project of Ridley Scott but then taken over by Mike Figgis. The screenplay was by Ronald Harwood (The Dresser) and the stellar cast included Albert Finney, Greta Sacchi [...]