FANIA: What audition?
ETALINA: For the orchestra—us. With some awe: Our conductor is Alma Rosé. Calls offscreen: Charlotte, come and meet Fania Fénelon! To Fania: She’s one of our best players, but she’s shy as a deer. She can do Bach solos. . . .
CHARLOTTE—enters shot. Almost a whisper as she curtsies: I’m honored to meet you.
FANIA: How do you do, Charlotte. To Etalina: Rosé?—there was a string quartet by that name. . . .
MICHOU: Alma is the first violinist’s daughter.
FANIA: Then her uncle must be Gustav Mahler . . . the composer. . . .
ELZVIETA: Yes; she has a fantastic talent.
ETALINA: But not a warm heart, be careful. . . .
Michou touches Etalina to shush her, looking offscreen.
Cut to Alma Rosé, as she makes her entrance—there is instant silence and respect. Now three Blockawas—Polish prisoners acting as police in effect, and all weighty types—appear and look on with belligerent curiosity. They don’t approve this coddling of Jews.
Alma comes toward the group. She is thin, extremely Germanic, scrubbed clean, her shabby clothes brushed. Her face shows her determination, even fanatical perfectionism—her only defense here.
ALMA: You are Mademoiselle Fénelon?
FANIA: Yes, Madame.
ALMA: You play the piano?
FANIA: Oh yes, Madame!
The fervor of her voice causes an excited giggle among some of the onlookers.
ALMA: Let me hear something from Madame Butterfly.
Alma goes to a chair, sits; others arrange themselves. Fania approaches the fabulous piano; it is all like a dream—she is slogging along in these immense men’s shoes, a fuzz of hair on her bald head, her face gaunt from the near-starvation diet—and she sits before the keys and can’t help bending over and kissing them. She starts to play “Un bel di” . . .
Cut to Fania’s hands. They are crusted with filth, nails broken. She is stiff and strikes a double note.
Cut to Fania, at the piano. She stops, blows on her fingers. Now she plays and sings. After two bars . . .
Cut to the group. All are glancing at Alma’s reaction—she is quickened, eager to claim Fania for her orchestra.
Cut to Fania. In her face and voice, confident now and warm, are the ironic longings for the music’s life-giving loveliness. The mood is shattered by the sounds of the scraping of chairs and people suddenly standing. Fania turns, stops playing.
Cut to Lagerführerin Mandel entering the dayroom; she is chief of the women’s section of the entire camp. About twenty-eight, tall, blond, shining with health, beautiful in her black uniform. Musicians, Blockawas, all are standing at rigid attention before her. Fania sees this, and attempts to do likewise—although only half successfully in her state of semi-shock.
MANDEL: At ease.
She comes and examines Fania, head to foot. And to Alma . . .
MANDEL: You will take her.
ALMA: Yes, Frau Mandel, certainly—she is very good.
MANDEL, facing Fania: She is wonderful.
There is something competitive in Alma’s face.
MANDEL: Do you know any German music?
FANIA—hesitates, her eyes lowered in trepidation: Yes . . .
MANDEL: I am Lagerführerin Maria Mandel, in command of all women in this camp.
FANIA—nods in deference: I . . . had forgotten to tell Madame Rosé . . . that I really can’t join the orchestra . . . unless my friend 346,991 is admitted also—she has a beautiful voice. Now she meets Mandel’s surprised look. She is in Barracks B. Mandel is silent; surprised actually. Without her, I . . . must refuse . . . I’m sorry.
Absolute astonishment strikes the expressions of the other musicians.
Cut to Mandel, who looks at Fania for an additional moment, her mind unreadable.
Cut to the kapos, furious, but more incredulous than anything else.
Cut to Fania and Tchaikowska, a kapo, hurrying down a camp “street” (a corridor between barracks buildings). Fania is urging Tchaikowska to go faster. . . . They turn the corner of a building and come upon about twenty women who are being driven by club-wielding Blockawas. Many of these women are near death, falling down, crawling.
In the background, Mala comes to a halt; with her an SS officer. She is a tall, striking Jewess, wears the Star. But—oddly enough—there is no subservience in her manner but rather a seriousness and confidence. She carries a thick notebook.
Marianne is being pulled and struck by a Blockawa whose pressure she is resisting, as she tries to get back into the barracks building.
FANIA, to Tchaikowska, pointing: That’s her! Quick! Marianne . . . !
Fania drops behind the kapo Tchaikowska—who has the authority here and who walks up to the Blockawa.
TCHAIKOWSKA: Mandel wants this one.
Marianne nearly faints into Fania’s arms as they start to move away from the surprised Blockawa and the deadened, staggering group of women.
Cut to Marianne, her face still smudged with dirt, deep scratches on her neck. Incredibly enough she is singing to Fania’s piano accompaniment in the musicians’ barracks.
Cut to Mandel, legs sheathed in silk, her cap off, letting her blond hair fall to her shoulders. She listens. Alma stands a deferential few paces behind her. And in the background, the musicians, all listening.
Fania is playing encouragingly, glancing from time to time up at Marianne to urge her on. Marianne has a fevered look in her eyes, she is singing for her life. The song ends. Silence.
MANDEL, to Alma: Get them dressed.
Cut to Marianne, who starts to sway but is held up by Fania.
Cut to a counter; behind it from floor to ceiling the clothing of the dead.
Blockawas, and the Chief here—Frau Schmidt—stand rigidly at attention. Mandel is holding up a brassiere which she places over Marianne’s large breasts. Then she gives it to Marianne. Now she takes a pair of fine silk panties, holds them up for Fania, who accepts them.
MANDEL, to Frau Schmidt: Find shoes that fit her.
FRAU SCHMIDT: Of course. To Fania: They look very small, what size are they?
FANIA: Four.
FRAU SCHMIDT, to Mandel: I doubt very much that we have . . .
MANDEL: Feet must be warm and comfortable or the voice is affected. Find them for my little singer.
Frau Schmidt is irritated but obedient.
Fania and Marianne are thankful to Mandel, but what is the meaning of this incredible insistence?
Mandel exits, leaving Frau Schmidt rummaging in the bin full of women’s shoes.
A Blockawa sweeps a woolen coat off the counter and furiously throws it at Fania, who blocks it with her arm.
While Frau Schmidt continues to search, Fania’s eye transforms the pile of shoes.
Dissolve to women’s legs walking on a railroad station platform. In effect, the shoes come alive on the wearers’ feet and move about on a sidewalk.
Cut to Alma, tapping on her podium with her baton, raising her arms to begin a number; the orchestra is ready. Suddenly eyes catch something off-camera and all spring to their feet and at attention.
Mandel enters, followed by her orderly. Mandel is carrying a box full of shoes, four or five pair.
Cut to Mandel. Her eyes are happy, somehow softened.
MANDEL: Sit down here, Fania.
Fania comes to her from the piano bench, sits before her at her gestured command. Mandel sets the box of shoes down, takes out a pair of fur-lined boots—and kneels before Fania!
Fania is now torn; she dares not turn back these incredible gifts, but at the same time she fears what accepting them may imply for her future. She looks down at the fur boot in Mandel’s hand. . . .
Cut to a close shot of the boot. The camera either vivifies this b
oot, gives it the life of its deceased owner—or actually fills it with a leg, and we see the pair of boots on living legs . . . perhaps walking on a city street.
Cut to Mandel, rising to her feet as Fania stands in the fur boots. She looks up from them to Mandel’s pleased face and can’t help resolving her conflict by saying . . .
FANIA: Danke schön, Frau Lagerführerin.
Cut to Mandel. Her pleasure flows onto her face; there is an element of masterly dominance in her expression, and some sort of affection, in fact.
Cut to the entire orchestra, rehearsing. Fania has hands poised over the keyboard; Alma, baton raised, starts the piece—an orchestral number of von Suppé. The sound is not quite horrible, but very nearly. The forty-odd players, apart from some of them being totally inadequate, are distressed by hunger and fear and never quite keep the music together.
Cut to the orchestra. The camera introduces us to the main supporting characters:
Elzvieta, a very good violinist, a rather aristocratic Pole who, as a non-Jew, still has her hair.
Paulette, a woman in her twenties, German-Jewish, an excellent cellist, who is presently pained by the bad playing of her compatriot beside her, who is . . .
Liesle, a bony, timid, near-hysterically frightened mandolin player, trying desperately to keep up with the beat. Belgian.
Charlotte, violinist, fine player, slim and noble-looking, Belgian, extremely intelligent, poetic face.
Etalina, a wisecracker, small, Rumanian, violinist, a tomboy.
Michou, French, plays the flute.
Further in the background of the story are . . .
Giselle, a freckled, very young French girl who can barely play drums at all, but is too young to despair, and thus beats away as loudly as possible.
Berta, a teacher.
Varya, cymbals. A Pole who has her hair.
Katrina, Polish, a very bad guitarist, stubborn, unteachable; has her hair.
Olga, Ukrainian accordionist, a dumbbell who will later take over the orchestra.
Greta, Dutch accordionist, country girl, naive and scared at all times; very poor player.
Esther, a taut, militant Zionist who bears in her intense eyes the vision of Palestine; accordionist.
Tchaikowska, leading kapo.
From time to time, one or more of the secondary characters will emerge on the foreground of this story in order to keep alive and vivid the sense that the “background group” is made of individuals. If this film is to approach even an indication of the vastness of the human disaster involved, the minor characters will have to be kept dramatically alive even in shots where they are only seen and don’t have lines.
Cut to Alma, tapping angrily on the podium. . . . the orchestra breaks off.
ALMA: Why is it so loud? This is not band music, we are not playing against the wind—why can you not obey my instructions! A note of futile and somehow dangerous anxiety on the verge of real anger. Music is the holiest activity of mankind, you must apply yourselves day and night, you must listen to yourselves, you must aspire to some improvement . . . ! You cannot simply repeat the same mistakes. . . .
She can’t go on, and simply walks hurriedly out of the room to recover herself. For a moment, the women keep an abashed silence.
ETALINA: At ease, Philharmonic.
The women set down their instruments and stand and stretch. . . . Etalina comes to Fania at the piano.
ETALINA: I think you’ve upset her—your being so good; she suddenly heard what we really sound like.
Paulette enters the shot and Liesle. Then Giselle.
FANIA: Well it was a bit loud. . . .
PAULETTE, of Liesle: She can’t learn that number—we’ve got to go loud or she’s had it.
LIESLE, defensively, a whine: I only studied less than six months in my whole life.
ETALINA: And that’s the smartest six months you ever spent. To Fania: It’s not her altogether—it’s the maestro herself who’s brought on this trouble.
FANIA: Why?
ETALINA: We were simply a marching band when we started—we’d play the prisoners out to their work assignments. But Alma got ambitious, and the first thing you know we’re doing these orchestral numbers, giving concerts for the high brass . . . playing Beethoven, for God’s sake. She’s a victim of her own pride and we’re in trouble now.
MARIANNE, entering the shot: Do we ever get dinner?
LIESLE—laughs: Listen to her . . . !
ETALINA: The slops’ll be here any time now, dear.
FANIA: Why trouble, Etalina?
ETALINA: Because once the big shots started coming to hear us they began getting bored hearing the same three numbers.
PAULETTE: We have no other orchestrations. . . .
ETALINA: And no composer ever wrote for this idiotic kind of instrumentation. I mean, piccolos, guitars, flutes, violins, no bass, no horns, no . . .
MICHOU, to Fania: You don’t orchestrate, do you?
Obviously Fania doesn’t, but her mouth opens and her eyes are inventing. . . .
PAULETTE: I’m really getting worried—we’ve done practically the same concert at least a dozen times. The Commandant sometimes doesn’t even stay to the end.
MARIANNE—her frightened eyes turn to Fania: But you do know how to orchestrate, Fania! Fania looks into her scared face. And then they could play all sorts of things!
FANIA: Actually—to the women—I can.
ETALINA AND PAULETTE: Orchestrate?
FANIA: Well, yes . . . not professionally, but I . . .
MICHOU: I knew it!
Paulette swerves about and yells to the women.
PAULETTE: She can orchestrate!
Etalina and Paulette instantly take off down the length of the room flanked by a dozen women all cheering and talking . . . and come to Alma’s door where Etalina knocks.
Cut to Alma’s room. Alma is sitting by a window, baton still in her grip. Etalina and Paulette step into the room.
ETALINA: We thought you’d want to know, Madame—Fania Fénelon knows how to orchestrate.
The importance of this news is evident in Alma’s expression. She stands. Fania is brought forward and into the room.
ALMA, to the others: Leave us. Leave us, please.
She shuts the door on the women. The last face we see is Marianne’s, imploring Fania to press on. Alma gestures to the bed where Fania sits as Alma sits on the chair facing her. Fania looks around at the clean, bare room.
ALMA: Tell me the truth, Fania.
FANIA: Yes, I can—I don’t see why not.
ALMA: And I suppose you . . . actually studied?
FANIA, plunging on: At the Paris Conservatory.
ALMA: Oh, Fania—what luck! What luck to have you! There’s been a terrible pressure on me for some weeks now . . . for something new. . . .
FANIA: So they tell me. . . .
ALMA: I’m so exhausted and rushed that I’ve simply been unable to, myself. Could you start with . . . ? She picks up piano music from a table. I have a piano score for Carmen. . . .
FANIA: Well, I suppose, yes, I could do Carmen. . . .
ALMA: Or something German . . . here’s another von Suppé. . . .
FANIA: I can’t bear von Suppé. . . .
ALMA: I know, but they adore anything by von Suppé and we must try to please them, Fania. Their eyes meet. Alma is a mite defensive, but it comes out with strength. Well that is elementary, it seems to me.
FANIA: I suppose. But I prefer to think that I am saving my life rather than trying to please the SS.
ALMA: And you think you can do one without the other?
Fania shuts up; clearly it is a dilemma, but she is also not trusting Alma. Now Alma relents.
ALMA: You’ll begin immediately.
FANIA: I’ll need
people to copy the parts . . . and music paper.
ALMA: We can’t possibly get music paper. . . .
FANIA: Couldn’t you request some?
ALMA: There is a war on, my dear!
Suddenly, in this exclamation is Alma’s own German indignation.
ALMA: Come—I’ll find paper, and you and the girls can draw the lines yourself. Fania rises, goes past her to the door. Fania? Fania turns to her, a slight smile. I can’t help striving for perfection; I was trained that way, I can’t change now.
FANIA: Madame, I’m hardly in a position to criticize you when I am also trying to please.
ALMA: Exactly—but we are artists, we can’t help that; you have nothing to be ashamed of. Alma now comes to Fania—and in a more confessing, intimate tone: Please try to hurry the work—they’re so very changeable toward us, you see? Something new and surprising would be—her fear is outright, open—a tremendous help. So you’ll be quick, Fania?
Cut to Fania. Her eyes are filling with terror and determination. . . .
Cut to the dayroom, that evening. A concert is in full swing, primarily for Commandant Kramer and Dr. Mengele, but other officers are here too, including Frau Schmidt and Lagerführerin Mandel, forming an audience of perhaps twenty.
Madame Alma Rosé, face aglow, is apprehensively conducting, pushing the stone uphill.
The camera detects the players’ abilities—the few good ones trying to overflow onto the sounds of the shaky ones.
Kramer, Dr. Mengele, and Mandel are naturally seated in the front “row.” Mandel is interested; Dr. Mengele, who knows music, is very attentive, also amused; Kramer, a bull-necked killer, is struggling to keep his eyes open.
The number is ending with a flashy run on the piano by Fania. There is applause, more or less perfunctory.
Alma turns and bows as though before a gigantic audience.
ALMA: And now, with your permission, meine Damen und Herren—a bit of popular music by our new member, Fania Fénelon.
Mandel alone eagerly applauds.
Fania accompanies herself, singing a smoky, very Parisian ballad. And as she sings . . .
Dissolve to Dr. Mengele, his face superimposed on Fania. Then we see him with finger raised, directing deportees emerging from a freight car to right and left, death or life. Flames reflect orange light on his face.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 105