The Believer (film)

The Believer is a 2001 film about a young Jewish man who develops a fiercely anti-Semitic worldview. It is based on the true story of Dan Burros, a member of the American Nazi Party and the New York branch of the United Klans of America in the 1960s who was revealed to be Jewish by a New York Times reporter.
 * Directed by Henry Bean. Written by Henry Bean and Mark Jacobson.

Daniel Balint

 * Let me put it this way. Do we hate them because they push their way in where they don't belong? Or do we hate them because they're clannish and keep to themselves? Because they're tight with money, or because they flash it around? Because they're Bolsheviks, or because they're capitalists? Because they have the highest IQs, or because they have the most active sex lives? Do you want to know the real reason we hate them? Because we hate them. Because they exist. Because it's an axiom of nature that just as man longs for woman, loves his children, and fears death, he hates Jews. There's no reason. If there were, some smartass kike would try to come up with an argument, try to prove us wrong. And of course that would only make us hate them more. You wanna know the real reason why we hate them? Because they exist. We have all the reasons we need in three simple letters. J-E-W... Jew! You say it a million times, it's the one word that never loses its meaning.


 * You print that in the New York Times, Guy, and I'm gonna kill myself.


 * Let me put it this way: Who wants to destroy the Jews? Who wants to grind their bones into the dust? And who wants to see them rise again? Wealthier, more successful, powerful, cultured, more intelligent than ever? Then you know what we have to do? We have to love 'em. What? Did he say Love the Jews? It's strange, I know. But with these people, nothing is simple. The Jew says all he wants is to be left alone to study his Torah... do a little business... fornicate with his oversexed wife,but it's not true. He wants to be hated. He longs for our scorn. He clings to it, as if it were the very core of his being. If Hitler had not existed, the Jews would've invented him. For without such hatred, the so-called Chosen People would vanish from the earth. And this reveals a terrible truth and the crux of our problem as Nazis. The worse the Jews are treated, the stronger they become. Egyptian slavery made them a nation. The pogroms hardened them. Auschwitz gave birth to the state of Israel. Suffering, it seems, is the very crucible of their genius. So, if the Jews are,as one of their own has said... a people who will not take yes for an answer... let us say yes to them. They thrive on opposition. Let us cease to oppose them. The only way to annihilate this insidious people once and for all... is to open our arms, invite them into our homes... and embrace them. Only then will they vanish into assimilation, normality and love.


 * But we cannot pretend. The Jew is nothing if not clever. He will see through hypocrisy and condescension. To destroy him, we must love him sincerely. If the Jews are strengthened by hate, wouldn't this... destruction that you speak of, whether it's by love or any other means... wouldn't that make them more powerful than they are already? Yes. infinitely more. They would become as God. It's the Jews' destiny to be annihilated so they can be deified. Jesus understood this perfectly. And look what was accomplished there with the death of just one enlightened Jew. Imagine what would happen if we killed them all.

Young Danny

 * I'm the only one who does believe. I see him for the power-drunk madman he is. And we're supposed to worship such a deity? I say never.

Dialogue

 *  Guy Danielson: People hate Jews, do you agree?
 * Daniel Balint: The very word makes their skin crawl. ... They undermine traditional life, and they deracinate society. Deracinate. Tear out the roots. ... Just take a look at the greatest Jewish minds ever. Marx, Freud, Einstein. What have they given us? Communism, infantile sexuality, and the atom bomb. In the mere three centuries it's taken these people to emerge from the ghettos of Europe they've ripped us out of a world of order and reason, they've thrown us into a chaos of class warfare, irrational urges, relativity, into a world where now the very existence of matter and meaning is in question... Why? 'Cause it's the deepest impulse of a Jewish soul to pull at the very fabric of life 'till there's nothing left but a thread. They want nothing but nothingness. Nothingness without end.
 * Guy Danielson: Danny, this is great. But how can you believe all of this... when you're a Jew yourself?


 * Rav Zingesser: And you, had you come out of Egypt you would have been destroyed in the desert with all of those who worshiped the Golden Calf!
 * Young Danny: Then let him destroy me now. Let him crush me like the conceited bully he is. [looks up] Go ahead.


 * Daniel Balint: Billings, if Hitler didn't kill six million, why is he your hero?... Concentration camps all over Europe, and he only gets rid of a measly two hundred thousand... He's a putz.
 * Ancient Jew: Hitler was not a putz. Hitler was real. God created him to punish the Jews for abandoning God. It is you who are putzes. Little pishas with your dreams of hatred and killing...
 * [Danny scoffs, gets up to leave]
 * Hate Counselor: Where do you think you're going?
 * Daniel Balint: We have nothing to learn from these people. They should learn from us.
 * Ancient Jew: And what should we learn from you, Daniel?
 * Daniel Balint: Kill your enemy.

Cast

 * Ryan Gosling - Daniel "Danny" Balint
 * Garret Dillahunt - Billings
 * Billy Zane - Curtis Zampf
 * Theresa Russell - Lina Moebius
 * Summer Phoenix - Carla Moebius
 * Ronald Guttman - Mr. Balint
 * Heather Goldenhersh - Linda
 * A. D. Miles - Guy Danielsen
 * Henry Bean - Ilio Manzetti
 * Joshua Harto - Kyle
 * Elizabeth Reaser - Miriam
 * Jacob Green - Young Danny
 * Roberto Gari - Ancient Jew