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From the "People" Archives:
by Brandon Judell Before December 2, 1979, the fact that thousands upon thousands of homosexuals were gathered up by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps was a well-guarded secret. Historians either didn't believe the subject merited their attention or they were afraid to tackle the matter. Then there were the other groups who'd been decimated by the Holocaust. The survivors felt that if homosexuals were said to have also been victimized by the Nazis, that would devalue the memory of their own loved ones who'd died. However, after that December 2, the cover-up was swept away by Martin Sherman's brilliant play "Bent". Starring Richard Gere as a gay man who tries to pass as a straight Jew in a camp, suddenly the truth burst forth. In the aftermath of that production, there are now a few books dealing with the matter, many articles, a forthcoming documentary, and even plaques at a few of the camps. But it has taken almost two decades to get the film version made. At one time Werner Fassbinder was to direct with Gere reprising his role. Now instead the director is the outrageous Sean Mathias. Mr. Mathias previously adapted David Leavitt's novel "The Lost Language of the Cranes" for BBC TV and the WNET Playhouse. He also helmed "Indiscretions" on Broadway -- Cocteau's "Les Parents Terribles" -- and it received nine Tony nominations. Mathias is currently preparing his second feature, "Quadrille." As for Sherman, he left us for London 16 years ago to write plays and screenplays in peace. His original screenplay for "Alive and Kicking" was released earlier this year, truly one of the best films about AIDS yet made, and his play, "A Madhouse in Goa," has just opened in New York. indieWIRE: Was there any factual basis for the mind games played by the Nazis in the concentration camp you depicted, and what about small events such as prisoners receiving mail? Sean Mathias: Yes, it's all true. iW: Wouldn't anything valuable sent to these people have been extracted beforehand by the Nazis? Sherman: The film takes place very early on in a detention camp. This was before the camps became extermination camps. In those days, you could receive mail some times. You could even be released some times. You mention the mind games. All of that information, the mind games and the mail, is based directly on Bruno Bettelheim's book "The Informed Heart." Reading that book educated me as to what went on in those days and in those camps, and what the Nazis did. Bruno Bettelheim himself was released after two years from such a camp. Mathias: Also at that point, the Nazis made the rules up as they went along, so they were formulating their tortures. They were learning, and they learned quite early on that terrorizing the prisoners on the trains broke them down, and that was a great way of controlling them when they got to the camps. The Nazis could take a carriage and pick just one victim in the carriage, and by that example, control the mass. What they had done would spread when the prisoners got to the camp. People would compare stories of what went on on those trains I'm sure later on. This was a way of controlling. All this the Nazis were experimenting with. Sherman: They were psychologically brilliant. It's absolutely astonishing to realize what they achieved. Mathias: Although it seems quite easy to be cruel when you start being cruel. You say "psychologically brilliant" which is true, but in a way, it's quite easy to perpetrate that kind of psychological cruelty. Once one starts, it takes hold very quickly on the victim. Sherman: What I think I meant by the "psychological brilliance" is that they found a way of controlling a great many people using very few resources. They didn't have many guards at the camp, and yet they managed to control all of those people brilliantly. Mathias: And the earlier camps were far less structured, the detention centers, and the structure grew as the numbers poured in. Therefore the need for structure. So one fed the other which is an irony if you like. iW: The actual setting of the movie, was that an actual concentration camp? Mathias: (Laughing) It felt like one. It was depressing. I, however, was not Adolf Hitler. More like Eva Braun. No, God! It was in a cement factory. When you asked about the research, my entire approach to the movie was that I didn't want to approach the story in a literal fashion or a naturalistic fashion. It doesn't mean that we didn't do research. Of course, we did because without some facts and some truth, one couldn't make the art. But it's impossible to compete with any of the realistic images of the Holocaust. The documentary footage that we've all seen is . . . I mean it so impinges upon the imagination and so terrified the psyche that it's impossible as an artist to compete with that kind of imagery. So it seemed to me essential to create an imagined world. To create a new world. A surreal one if you like. I think of the film more as a stylized version of the truth. Therefore, that gives me the ability as an artist to communicate the story to the audience. That's not just in my film. That's come from Martin's writing. Martin's play when I first read it in 1978 -- before it was first produced, and I was pretty young -- it seemed from my little knowledge of theater, that the play was breaking form. It was trying to do something different with theatrical form beyond its context. Beyond the fact that it was put into the genre of a gay play -- which was a fairly new genre which was completely exciting -- there was this playing with theatrical form. So the stylization was already in the first writing. I took my cue from that if you like.
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