Pierre Goldman was a throwback to the past, a fervent left-wing Jewish revolutionary who sought to upend the existing social and political order and who was prepared to accept the consequences.
Accused of armed robbery and murder, he attempted to prove his innocence through two sensational trials in the mid-1970s that touched on issues such as identity and antisemitism. The trials riveted France and transformed Goldman into an icon of dissent.
Cedric Kahn’s absorbing courtroom drama, The Goldman Case, which opens in U.S. and Canadian theaters on September 6 and September 13, delves into his unusual life.
Goldman was born in the French city of Lyon in 1944. His parents, Alter and Janka, were dyed-in-the-wool communists who had immigrated to France from Poland. Janka returned to Poland after the war, but Alter remained in France.
As for Pierre, he was a militant and ideologue from early on. At university, he joined the communist student union. Enamored of Fidel Castro and caught up by the political ferment in Latin America, he visited Cuba and then Venezuela as a “Jewish warrior.”
Returning to France, he turned to crime to finance his bohemian lifestyle. Imprisoned after his first trial, he wrote his first book in jail. Published in 1975, Obscure Memories Of A Polish Jew Born In France established him as an inconoclast.
Shortly afterward, an appeals court rescinded his sentence and transferred his case to a criminal court in Amiens. The film, set in the court and in his cell, gives Goldman every opportunity to express his views.
Goldman, played to perfection by Arieh Worthalter, is a free spirit who will not submit to authority. And his working relationship with his lawyer, Georges Kiejman (Arthur Harari), who hails from an identical background, is strained and difficult.
He admits he was a thief and a gangster, but insists he never shot anyone. His father, in his testimony, says his son is not a violent person.
At another point, much to Kiejman’s visible chagrin, he claims that all police are racists.
In an attempt to garner sympathy for his unruly client, Kiejman argues that he represents the tragedy of East European Jews during the Holocaust.
Goldman, in his abrupt interjections, discusses his Jewish identity and his response to antisemitism.
While the movie focuses on his political beliefs, it skims over his persona, leaving a viewer with only a partial view of Goldman Nevertheless, The Goldman Case is a serious movie about serious issues.