Polonsky, Abraham (1910-1999): Jurist. Drehbuchautor. Romancier. Filmregisseur. Sohn eines jüdischen Einwanderers aus Russland. Kommunist. Regieführen, sagt er, ist eine Sache aus Ideen und Bildern, des ganz persönlichen Verhältnisses zur Welt, in der Währung von Imaginationen: First of all, directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is. Und eine Sache der Macht, im Scherz: Because we can't be Stalin, we become movie directors. Polonsky ist Mitglied der kommunistischen Partei der USA, er weigert sich, vor McCarthy eine Aussage zu machen, kommt auf die Schwarze Liste. Er verachtet Elia Kazan, der seine Freunde verraten hat: Did he do it to save his career? AP: No, I think he did it because he's a creep. Polonsky, im Jahr seines Todes, im Interview mit David Walsh von der World Socialist Website. Keine Altersmilde, auch keine Bitterkeit, die reine kämpferische Verachtung: I even had the honor of talking to Charlton Heston. Good old Chuck called. I was talking to some people on the air, I guess, and he called in. Chuck, I said to him, you're in charge of the guns in the United States, aren't you? I said, why don't you give this guy a gun, he commits suicide on the stage, and he goes down in history. So when he goes to hell he'll have to plenty of company. But he didn't understand it. He may have played Moses, but he didn't listen to what he said. It's awful. But I don't mind, after all, I'm 88. Even if I'm enjoying good health, I can't live too much longer. 1937 gründet er eine kommunistische Zeitschrift, "The Home Front", 1940 schreibt er seinen ersten Roman, einen Krimi "The Goose is Cooked", unter Pseudonym: Emmert Hogarth. Kämpft im Krieg. Schreibt das Drehbuch zum Boxerfilm "Body and Soul" (1947), Lilli Palmer spielt die weibliche Hauptrolle. Ich habe ihn nicht gesehen, aber zu lesen ist: Polonsky juxtaposed the world of money with friendship, and the boxing arena becomes not only a metaphor of entrapment but struggle for survival under the rules of capitalism. 1948 die erste Regie, "Force of Evil", danach geht Polonsky nach Europa, schreibt einen Roman. Er wird zwanzig Jahre lang keinen Film mehr machen können. Der Kongressabgeordnete Harold Velde aus Illinois nennt ihn "a very dangerous citizen". Polonsky schreibt das Drehbuch für den Robert-Wise-Film "Odds against tomorrow" (1959), wird aber nicht genannt. Seine erste Credit-Nennung dann in Don Siegels "Madigan" (1968), einem Polizeifilm, in dem es um Freundschaft geht und Verrat, Treue und Liebe. Ein paar Jahre später macht Siegel den Polizeifilm "Dirty Harry", den Pauline Kael für faschistisch halten wird. Zwei letzte Filme macht Polonsky als Regisseur in den 70ern. Willie Boy, the first film he directed after 17 years on the blacklist, uses a prototypical Western manhunt to create what Polonsky called "a pavane for an early American," a lament for the genocide of Native Americans and a searing exploration of its effect on the white American psyche. Aus seinem Projekt, Thomas Manns "Mario und der Zauberer" zu verfilmen, wird nie etwas. Ich habe keinen von Polonskys Romanen gelesen, aber "Sea of Fear" von 1956 steht seit ein paar Jahren bei mir im Regal. Das sagt der Klappentext: This is the story of Charles Hare, American. A man of goodwill and good background; successful in his work and marriage; socially acceptable; appreciated by those with whom he works and those for whom he works... One day he signs an oath of loyalty. This is demanded of employees in the United States... Yet, the ink is hardly dry on his signature when the whole of his life becomes affected. Subtly the changes set in: in his relationship to old friends and old loyalties, to his wife, to the woman he desires, to his job, to his neighbor. At first slow to make themselves felt, the changes mount in intensity and pace, propelling the story forward to a smashing climax. The story of Charley Hare is one that can happen to anybody who fails to realize his responsibility to his time and his world... Abraham Polonsky has made it a novel no one will put down until its final excitement-filled page has been read. Die Ausgabe, die ich besitze, ist in englischer Sprache beim Verlag "7 Seas Books" veröffentlicht. Als Verlagsadresse ist angegeben: Berlin W 8. Glinkastrasse 13-15. Manufactured in the German Democratic Republic. In den biografischen Informationen am Ende des Buches ist von McCarthy nicht die Rede. Der erste Satz des Buches: All day long the light had become hotter and more crystalline and now from the Water and Power building where the men had been sitting for hours the city moved into absolute focus under the blazing sun. Und der letzte: He could think of only one thing, to hold on with all his strength to where he was, to cling to this point beyond which he would not be pushed, admitting and knowing what had hapened because that was the beginning, to hold on while life changed again as change it must, and bending his head between his hands he sat there ina n unfathomable silence and waited. Ich habe vor kurzem Charles Willefords grandiosen Roman "Black Mass of Brother Springer" aus dem Jahr 1958 gelesen. Da lautet einer der letzten Sätze: 'Thank god', he said. 'For nothing'. Fester Vorsatz: "A Season of Fear" lesen. When fellow blacklisted writer John Sanford learned of Abe's death, he declared, "I never met a better man."

Links:
Interview mit Abraham Polonsky
Informationen bei books and writers
Nachruf bei WrittenBy