Jakob der Lügner vs. Jacob the liar

While watching the credits of Peter Kassovitz's film, Jacob, the liar, roll down my t.v. screen, I was intrigued to see that it was adapted from a German book by Jurek Becker called Jakob der Lügner . Having a keen interest in German literature and film, I decided to read Becker's book and searched for it on a popular book-selling website from the rainforest. The novel popped up in the search results, as did a German film, also called Jakob der Lügner, directed by Frank Beyer. I bought them both, and after reading Becker's novel and watching Beyer's film I was surprised at the differences between both films and the book they were adapted from.

Jakob der Leugner and Jacob the Liar focus on Jakob Heym, a Jew struggling to survive in a Polish ghetto during World War Two. He makes up a story that he has a radio, forbidden in the ghetto, and fills the other ghetto inhabitants with hope as he tells them of radio reports that the allies were advancing.

Becker's novel uses a non-omniscient narrator, who admits he is unreliable, sometimes the narrative perspective shifts to other characters, and the technique of 'free indirect speech' is also used. The Jewish characters are, therefore, easy to relate to as their thoughts and feelings are shown. Several stories intertwine with the main story of Jakob. Beyer's film uses an internal narrator who is totally immersed in the ghetto experience and tells of only one story, Jakob’s. The narrator cannot offer any insight into Jakob’s mind, and therefore the viewer gains no inner-perspective on Jakob’s thoughts and experiences. These are, instead, conveyed through clever camera work e.g. close ups of facial expressions and the use of emotive music. Kassovitz's film uses Jacob himself as the narrator of his own story, using inner-monologues, which allows the viewer to be fully immersed in Jacob's thoughts.

The characterisation of Jakob is also very different in both films. In Becker’s novel Jakob is depicted as a ‘shy, fearful, reclusive individual’ (O Dochartaigh p.462), and furthermore, an anti-hero. Beyer’s Jakob is very similar to Becker’s, who finds himself as the hero of the ghetto almost by accident, as he is not trying to be a hero, he is just trying to survive. Even the appearance of Vlastmil Brodsky (Jakob) is far from that of the stereotypical hero; he has a weather-beaten, sleepy eyed, unattractive face. In contrast, the character of Jakob in the Kassovitz film (played by Robin Williams) is portrayed as a stereotypical ‘Hollywood’ hero, a kind of ‘leader and saviour’ of the Jews in the ghetto.

Humour plays a central role in Becker’s Jakob der Lügner; there are many humorous scenes that play on human weaknesses and appear comic even in such extreme circumstances as the Nazi controlled ghetto. However, the humour does not dominate the narrative of the story and is funny, yet moving. The 1974 film also contains humour, which stays true to the novel, for example, in the scene when Mischa and Rosa are in bed talking and Fajngold has to pretend he is deaf, the camera effectively switches from the couple to Fajngold, sitting up in bed with an expression of disgust and frustration on his face, inviting the viewer to laugh at the situation. By contrast, humour in the Kassovitz film is present from the beginning, and also very obvious, for example the joke, which Jakob tells:

Hitler goes to a fortuneteller and asks:
‘When will I die?’
She replies: ‘On a Jewish holiday.’
‘How do you know?’ he asks.
‘Any day that you die will be a Jewish holiday!’.
The humour continues in this cheap, exaggerated way throughout the film, far from the subtle humour present in the novel and 1974 film.

The ending of Becker’s novel and both films are significantly different. The novel has two endings, one fictitious ending created by the narrator, where Jakob dies heroically trying to escape the ghetto, and the ‘real’ ending, where the Jews are being deported. The narrator’s imagined ending leaves the reader with a sense of hope – just as Jakob’s ‘imagined’ radio gave hope to the Jews in the ghetto. However, Beyer’s film does move away from the novel in that it only has one ending: the ‘real’ ending from Becker’s text. Jacob imagines a scene as he is on the train; he is in the snow, hiding from brutal reality in dreams that halt in a freeze frame. The final credits are superimposed on stills of faces in the train suggesting lives that have ended. Kassovitz’s film, however, includes two endings, although different to those of the novel. The first is Jakob’s death at the hands of the Nazis after refusing to admit, in front of the other Jews, that the radio did not exist. This is also the highest act of resistance present in the 1999 adaptation. Furthermore, this scene bears a resemblance to that of a scene near the end of Mel Gibson’s 1995 film Braveheart. In both scenes, a crowd gathers and watches as the central figure is going to be executed if he does not withdraw his views, both characters have been beaten and tortured and both are finally executed, yet defiant to the end, as shown by a close-up of Jakob’s smiling face. Through this ending, Jakob is portrayed as a kind of heroic figure, ‘a Jewish resistance hero’ that contrasts greatly with the anti-hero of the original novel and 1974 film. After his execution, Jakob narrates a second ‘ Hollywood happy’ ending, where Russian tanks liberate the train that is deporting the Jews. Lina’s daydream turns into a colourful scene with Russian soldiers and a Chicago swing band playing music, which has been played previously on the radio in the barrack scene at the start of the film.


So, why are the films so different? Is it because they were made in different decades, in different countries, for different audiences? Which film is more 'successful' (how do you define success?) and why?




References:

Primary Text/Films:
Becker, Jurek, Jakob der Lügner (Leipzig: Verlag Philipp Reclam jun., 1988).
Jakob der Lügner. Dir. Frank Beyer (Germany, 1974).
Jacob, the Liar. Dir Peter Kassovitz (USA, 1999).

Secondary Texts:
Gilman, Sander L., Jewish Frontiers: Essays on Bodies, Histories, and Identities (Basingstoke: Plagrave Macmillan, 2003).
Insdorf, Annette, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (Cambridge: CUP, 2003)
Ó Dochartaigh, Pól, ‘Americanizing the Holocaust: The case of Jakob the Liar’, Modern Language Review, 101 (2006), pp. 456-471.
Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, ‘Roman vom Ghetto’, in Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, ed., Jurek Becker (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992), pp. 133-137.
Rock, David, Jurek Becker: A Jew who became a German? (Oxford: Berg, 2000).
Stoll, Andrea, ‘Das Lebensthema Jurek Beckers im Wechsel der Perspektiven’, in Irene Heidelberger-Leonard, ed., Jurek Becker (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992), pp. 332-347.

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