Universal Truths and “Fugitive Pieces”

There are movies you embrace because they are ravishing or artful, others you remember because they entertain. Then there are those that are memorable for another reason entirely. They stick with you because they move you in a particular way. They make you aware of the brotherhood of man, of the communal interests we all share, irrespective of nationality, culture or gender. They are about universal truths - about the sorrows and joys of living. And, very often, they recall what is best in all of us: the capacity for love, for devotion to causes, for self-sacrifice.

There are not a lot of movies like this being made in this day and age. One could argue that these are more cynical times, that contemporary audiences approach with suspicion anything that has a whiff of self-importance or moral judgment. And, indeed, there are reasons to be wary. Not everything that sets out to speak to a higher calling in us achieves such a lofty aim. Aesthetic minefields abound. Good intentions and good taste do not always go hand in hand.

But there was a time not so long ago when filmmakers took on this risk more regularly, when it was not considered jejeune to speak of such things, to make films that actually set out to bring us closer to our humanity. And the rewards were often substantial. Think of films like Rome, Open City (which movingly depicted both the dignity and tragedy of political resistance). More recently, in the 1970s, American filmmakers consistently grappled with issues of morality and social consciousness.

When I read Anne Michael's devastating novel Fugitive Pieces about 10 years ago, I was struck by its utter lack of cynicism, its compassion for its characters and, yes, its insistence on personal and collective morality. The pivotal, inciting incident of the novel is the murder of a young Polish-Jewish boy's family in WWII and then the salvation of that same boy by a Greek man who, at risk of great personal danger, smuggles the orphaned child out of Poland and hides him in occupied Greece throughout the war. The Greek man ultimately becomes a surrogate father to this child, with whom he shares no common language, culture or personal history. It's an act of pure self-sacrifice that has great resonance, and its repercussions ripple through time.

I should add that Fugitive Pieces is also a book about love and loss, about history and memory, and about living with and transcending the past. It's about a lot of things, but all of them are connected to the complexity (the greatness and tragedy) of human existence.

I didn't know, when I first read this novel, that I would one day adapt it into a film, but I was keenly aware of its power. I knew that, like all great works of art, it tapped into an essential humanity in the reader/ spectator. What does any truly great work of art do (whether a painting, a poem, a song, a novel or a film) but make us feel that, through experiencing it, we develop a better understanding of ourselves and our fellow man? We learn more about what brings us together and what tears us apart. And on some level, we come to understand what underlies the unspoken human contract - and that is our responsibilities to each other.

Making a film like Fugitive Pieces requires you to risk appearing old-fashioned: to declare a position on morality (the unequivocal kind, not attached to religion or contemporary mores) and to take a stand for communal responsibility (overriding the pursuit of personal gain). It's not a trendy or fashionable position to adopt as an artist. But it is an act of faith.

I come from a family of artists (grandfather, father, brother), and the sincere notion that art could be transformative, could actually change people's hearts and minds, was instilled in me from an early age. Over the years, I've argued this point over a lot of coffees, sometimes persuasively, sometimes falling on deaf ears. Was it naïve to think that any work of art could really fundamentally change someone?

My strongest argument was inspired by the art-house movies I grew up with, by filmmakers like Bergman, Antonioni,Truffaut and Fassbinder - moralists (and artists) all. If these movies didn't literally change lives, they at least made us feel like our secret thoughts and concerns were mirrored by a larger world, that we weren't alone. There is a great comfort in that. And more, it's easy to argue, the recognition of that fact (that we are all one, that our concerns are universal) is a first step to social responsibility.

After tackling issues of intimacy, sexuality and romantic relationships in my first two features (Eclipse and The Five Senses), I felt with my third film that it was time for me to broaden my perspective, to look at making something that had broader social implications. Fugitive Pieces offered that opportunity (while still dealing with many of my earlier preoccupations concerning personal relationship dynamics).

As a novel, Fugitve Pieces moved me in profound and unexpected ways. How often does this happen anymore, that one is shaken to the core by a work of art in any medium? It reminded me of the increasingly rare books and movies, plays and paintings that have profoundly impacted me. Now, I felt, the potential to harness that quality, to spread that gospel, was just too powerful to resist.

Photo courtesy of the filmmaker.

Fugitive Pieces was awarded Best Film at the 2008 Newport Beach Film Festival, and the film garnered Jeremy Podeswa the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards.The film also garnered Best Cinematographer award for Gregory Middleton.

Fugitive Pieces opens in theaters nationwide beginning May 2.