For his directorial debut, veteran producer and writer James Schamus chose a Philip Roth novel set during a turning point in the Jewish-American experience.
“Indignation” unfolds in 1951, when opportunities and prospects for young Jewish professionals were just beginning to expand.
“You discover when you start to inhabit that world that there was a genuine sense of optimism, a genuine belief that belonging in this country was possible and real and happening,” Schamus, 57, said. “And on the other hand, you have all the traumas associated with the experiences of extended families in the Holocaust disappearing, and a political culture in this country that was bizarrely — especially if you’re of my age, and you didn’t experience it but you realize that your parents did — about as openly anti-Semitic as you can imagine.”
Schamus cited the covenants for real estate developments that excluded Jews and the quotas that limited the number of Jewish students at Ivy League universities.
So Marcus Messner, the protagonist of Schamus’ insightful and moving film adaptation of Roth’s 2008 autobiographical novel, is fortunate to receive a scholarship from a small college in Ohio. He has to travel some distance from his New Jersey home, but not as far as the young Americans fighting in Korea.
“Indignation” opens Aug. 5 at a small number of Bay Area theaters. It also will play that night at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael for its only showing in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, with Schamus scheduled to be there in person.
A model student, Marcus (Logan Lerman) believes that college — and the world — is a meritocracy, and his brains and hard work will push him forward. The individual who has the greatest potential impact on his future is Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), who engages Marcus in a fraught moral debate about principles, conformity and obedience — matters of importance in the ’50s, and today.
Meanwhile, Marcus’ parents worry that he has little margin for error regardless of his talent and dedication. They dread any disruption, such as Marcus’ involvement with an alluring blonde named Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gavon).
“One of the great crises as articulated by the characters in the book is, ‘Oh Lord, my son is dating a shiksa,’ ” Schamus said during an interview before his film played in the San Francisco International Film Festival in the spring. “The kind of psychic and carnal energy created by that dynamic drives a lot of [work by] Roth [and] a lot of the work of most major Jewish American male artists of mid-century America. It’s a bit of a trope.”
But Schamus, who does extensive research for all of his screenplays, found much more to plumb in “Indignation.” One thing he uncovered is that Roth wrote Olivia as a subtle parallel to Sylvia Plath.
“In this late novel, Roth is going back to a much earlier time than he often [does] … he’s connecting with a generation that we often don’t realize that he’s part of,” Schamus said. “While Roth is growing up in very, very Jewish Newark, New Jersey, up the road a few towns is Allen Ginsberg, who’s a few years older.
“So ‘Indignation,’ to me, is more than a tip of the hat to ‘I saw the best minds of my generation …’ It’s the same subject. These were those best minds who were destroyed by precisely the system that Roth rails against in the book.”
Schamus, who grew up Jewish in Los Angeles, wrote and produced most of Ang Lee’s films, from “Pushing Hands” through “Taking Woodstock.” He also headed Focus Features for many years, earning a reputation as a staunch and astute supporter of independent filmmakers (he financed and distributed the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man,” among other titles).
Well-versed in the etiquette of adaptation, Schamus reached out to Roth, 83, as “Indignation” was about to go into production.
“I grit my teeth and sent him the script before we started shooting,” Schamus said. “[That] was scary because if he’d had a violently negative reaction it would have put me in the pickle of probably not making the movie, to be honest.
“Philip did me one of the greatest favors anybody’s ever done a filmmaker — and that is he refused to read it.”
“Indignation” screens 6:30 p.m. Aug. 5 at the Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. $14-$15. www.sfjff.org. Also opens Aug. 5-6 at select Bay Area theaters. (Rated R, 110 minutes)