The Pawnbroker (1964)
(Sidney Lumet, US 1964, 116 min., 35mm)
Rod Steiger delivers an Oscar-nominated performance as Sol Nazerman, an emotionally numbed Holocaust survivor now a pawnbroker in New York's Spanish Harlem. Despite its cautiously hopeful ending, the film drew fire when released. Predominately Jewish and African-American groups objected to racial stereotyping, and the Legion of Decency condemned the film for a breast-baring scene—a first for a mainstream American film. The Pawnbroker has since come to be seen as a sensitive, probing study of loss and grief, and the score by Quincy Jones (his first for an American film) was marketed as “explosive” and introduced “Soul Bossa Nova” to the world.
Introduction by and post-screening Q&A with Charity Lofthouse, professor of music at Hobart and William Smith Colleges
The Art of Music in Movies is supported by the Rodney Hatch Family at the Rochester Area Community Foundation.