Playing For Time (1980)

A French Jewish cabaret performer (Vanessa Redgrave) is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. Her musical abilities get her assigned to the camp's female orchestra which performs for Josef Mengele (Max Wright) and other Nazis in addition to playing music to accompany Jews to the gas chambers. Based on the autobiography by Fania Fenelon, THE MUSICIANS OF AUSCHWITZ, Arthur Miller (DEATH OF A SALESMAN) has fashioned a well constructed screenplay which concentrates on the struggle to retain one's humanity in the face of such horror and how the compromises to survive in such a situation comes at a terribly high price. Rather than try to encapsulate the abomination of the entire Holocaust in a 2 1/2 hour film, Miller concentrates on small moments and incidents which allows us to feel the conflict and humiliation. For example, there's a marvelous silent sequence lasting a couple of minutes with Redgrave, tired and hungry, attempting to resist a piece of sausage gained at too high a price but slowly giving in out of hunger but not without guilt. Directed by Daniel Mann (COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA). With superlative work by an excellent ensemble of actresses including Jane Alexander in an Emmy winning performance, Shirley Knight, Viveca Lindfors, Marisa Berenson, Christine Baranski, Maud Adams, Verna Bloom, Melanie Mayron, Anna Levine and Robin Bartlett (in the film's one weak performance).