The Believer (film)

The Believer is a 2001 film written by Henry Bean and Mark Jacobson, and directed by Bean. It stars Ryan Gosling as Daniel Balint, an Orthodox Jew who becomes a Neo-Nazi.Henry Bean, The Believer: Confronting Jewish Self-Hatred. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002. ISBN 1-56025-372-X. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.
The film is loosely based on the true story of Dan Burros, a Ku Klux Klan member in the 1960s who committed suicide after being exposed by a New York Times reporter to be Jewish.http://www.reelingreviews.com/thebeliever.htmhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247199/
==Plot==
The film follows the story of Daniel Balint, a brilliant but troublesome student at a Jewish Yeshiva who has become a fanatically violent Neo-Nazi in New York by his early 20s. The film plots his rise through the ranks of a fictional American Neo-Nazi party while he attempts to reconcile his religious past and ethnic heritage with his anti-Semitism.
==Cast==
* Ryan Gosling as Daniel "Danny" Balint
* Garret Dillahunt as Billings
* Billy Zane as Curtis Zampf
* Theresa Russell as Lina Moebius
* Summer Phoenix as Carla Moebius
* Ronald Guttman as Danny's Father
* Heather Goldenhersh as Linda
* A. D. Miles as Guy Danielsen
==Reception==
The film was well-received by critics;
"awe-inspiring...a late contender for one of the best films of the year - an intellectually breathtaking, profoundly moving film." Jamie Russell, BBC filmsThe Believer (movie review) BBC, 4 December 2001 
"It's naturally thrilling...The Believer is astonishing" Charlotte O'Sullivan, The IndependentThe Big Picture: The Believers (review) The Independent, 7 December 2001 
"the film is driven by Gosling's revelatory performance... arresting, prickly, vaguely funny, even - 'difficult' in the best sense." Time OutThe Believer (review) Time Out New York
==See also==
* Self-hating Jew
==References==
==External links==
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Category:Antisemitism