Out the Movies is a bi-weekly newsletter about queer film for AF+ subscribers written by Drew Burnett Gregory. This week’s topic: Fred Zinnemann’s Julia based on Pentimento by Lillian Hellman.
In Julia (1977), queerness is a metaphor.
Based on a section of playwright Lillian Hellman’s memoir, the real-life relationship the film portrays between Hellman and her titular childhood friend was more literal. As the bisexual responsible for the groundbreaking lesbian play The Children’s Hour, Hellman’s queerness lived alongside her politics, rather than as a signifier.
But fifty years ago this still would have been controversial to portray — especially with Hellman still alive — so Fred Zinnemann’s film limits the sexual nature of their connection to subtext and a moment of gossip. “The story of two women whose friendship suddenly became a matter of life and death,” the tagline reads. (Italicization mine.)
For the fictional Lillian, as played by Jane Fonda, Julia, as played by Vanessa Redgrave, is a representation of political conviction and raw courage. While trying to finish The Children’s Hour, it’s Julia who Lillian seeks out to solve her artistic dilemma rather than her mentor/lover Dashiell Hammett. After The Children’s Hour is a success, it’s Julia she looks to for how to use her newfound power and money and fame. With dreamy flashbacks of youth, adolescence, and young adulthood, their “friendship” is undeniably romantic even if it’s not shown to be sexual. But, more than anything, Julia is a symbol for Lillian and the film, an idealized hero whose otherness is placed on a gay socialist pedestal.
The two hour film is meandering and rather old-fashioned. It feels austere in comparison to other films from a late 70s Hollywood filled with renegade experimentation. And yet it’s the film’s commitment to normalcy that ends up feeling radical.
The primary plot begins when Lillian is tasked by Julia to transport $50,000 into Nazi Germany on her way to see theatre in Moscow. It’s a true story — if you believe Hellman’s memoir — ready-made for a Hollywood treatment. A glamorous writer suddenly becomes a spy! Heroism! Intrigue! Suspense! Instead, the film turns again and again toward mundane terror.
Lillian is terrible at espionage. In order for her to successfully smuggle this money — which pretty much just requires her to know when to put on and take off a hat — she needs half a dozen members of the resistance guiding her. She’s shaky and forgetful and has to be reminded of her instructions many times. She’s not a spy. She’s a relatively normal woman trying to do the right thing. She’s a Jewish woman in 1930s Germany terrified that a wrong move even in this simple task could end her life and the lives of those she could assist.
Since Trump’s second term began, a frequent message on Twitter and Bluesky and whatever other half-functional social media site people are using has been: If you’ve ever wondered how you’d act in Nazi Germany, now you know. This line of thinking is both evocative and limited. People — especially white Americans — tend to fetishize WWII as a seemingly uncomplicated representation of fascism and genocide, one in which Americans get to feel like the undeniable good guys. But there were genocides before and there have been genocides since. Every one of the United States’ two and a half centuries has seen our country carrying out mass violence that has given its citizens opportunities to stand up and do the right thing.
But if we’re going to look to WWII as our example of antifascist resistance, Julia provides an interesting test case. The difference between Lillian and Julia is resistance finds Lillian. Due to her fame, wealth, appearance, and connection to Julia, she is asked to take this risk. In some ways, it’s a fantasy of political action. Will you carry this money? Will you house these people? Will you step in when injustice is dropped at your feet? This isn’t to diminish Hellman’s actions. Plenty of people have said no, plenty of people have turned away when presented with the opportunity to do the right thing. But there’s still a difference between Lillian and Julia. Julia has sought out resistance. She’s committed to the work and long term risk of organizing. Even after losing a leg, she did not use her wealth to flee, but instead chose to use her wealth to stay. The other people Lillian briefly encounters have made a similar and more difficult decision — the day-to-day actions of resistance without even the privilege of Julia’s wealth.
The other difference between Lillian and Julia is Lillian lives and Julia dies.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. A single risk like Lillian’s has led to death, and some who dedicate their lives to resistance have managed to survive. It’s just the odds get worse the longer you stick around to fight a powerful fascist regime.
The grounded nature of the film continues after Lillian succeeds in her mission. She’s shown to be traumatized. She witnessed so much less than most people in Nazi Germany and yet these brief moments of risk and the knowledge of her friend’s death are enough to give her years of nightmares. It’s a beautiful touch, an insistence that just because humans have been forced to experience a depth of horror doesn’t mean a fraction of that doesn’t leave its mark.
At the film’s end, Lillian has returned to her life as a playwright and to her longtime heterosexual lover. But decades later, she still thinks of Julia. I imagine this was true for the real-life Hellman as well — the bravery of her late friend encouraging her to remain principled herself. After all, her brush with Nazis wasn’t the only time Hellman was faced with the challenge of doing the right thing. In 1952, she was called to testify by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House of Unamerican Activities Committee, where she refused to name names in this communist witch hunt resulting in her being blacklisted in Hollywood. This act of courage may have not been as obviously life-threatening but it was threatening to her way of life — her ability to make art, her method of making money, her standing in the community.
Two and a half decades later, the year Julia was released, Lillian Hellman was a presenter at the Academy Awards. “I was, once upon a time, a respectable member of this community,” she said in her introduction. “Respectable didn’t necessarily mean more than I took a daily bath when I was sober, didn’t spit except when I meant to, and mispronounced a few words of fancy French. Then, suddenly, even before Senator Joseph McCarthy reached for that rusty and poisoned axe, I and many others were no longer acceptable to the owners of this industry. Possibly they were men who had been too busy to define personal honor or national honor. Possibly. But certainly they confronted the wild charges of Joe McCarthy with the force and courage of a bowl of mashed potatoes. I have no regrets for that period — maybe you never do when you survive — but I have a mischievous pleasure in being restored to respectability, understanding full well that a younger generation that asked me here tonight meant more by that invitation than my name or my history. I thank them for that because I never thought it would happen.”
It was a triumphant moment — in true Hollywood fashion, a celebration in lieu of an apology. The crowd laughed and applauded, filled with pride at the easy wisdom of hindsight. I’m not saying there isn’t value in making amends while a person is still alive or solidifying the end of a misguided era of conservative oppression. But it is easier to invite Lillian Hellman to the Oscars in 1977 than to be Lillian Hellman in 1952. It’s easier to do the right thing when the mainstream has finally deemed the right thing popular.
It’s fitting for Hellman’s story and this Oscar moment that arguably the most interesting aspect of Julia isn’t the film itself but the story of its two lead actresses. Jane Fonda is now celebrated — at least among liberals and the left — for her political activism. Whether she’s getting arrested to protest climate change or (jokingly) calling for righteous violence to defend abortion on The View, she’s become a heroic voice, proof of principle among an older generation. But her attempts to use the fame granted to her from birth for good have also led to controversy. To be ethical in the spotlight is to leave oneself open to constant critique. From the infamous 1970 photo of her on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun to her stand against the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival’s “focus on Tel Aviv” Fonda was often accused of going too far in her political commitments or being a stupid actress who didn’t understand the issues she took on.
Similar critiques were leveled at Vanessa Redgrave in the lead up to the 1978 Academy Awards where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Julia. That past year she had also produced and appeared in a documentary called The Palestinian about the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Her unequivocal support of Palestine made her nomination controversial. Members of the Jewish Defense League protested outside the ceremony, burning effigies of Redgrave.
Despite these protests Redgrave won, a collective decision far braver than letting Hellman present an award decades too late. During her speech she said that she and Fonda had done the best work of their careers because of their belief in the film’s anti-fascist message and its story of two people doing the right thing. She then continued, “I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you have stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and to their great and heroic record against fascism and oppression. And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witchhunt against those who tried to express in their lives and in their work a truth that they believed in.”
Unlike Hellman’s speech filled with cheers and laughs, Redgrave’s speech was met with a far more mixed reaction. After using the phrase “Zionist hoodlums” boos erupted in the crowd. Later in the ceremony, screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky took time before introducing a category to say that he was “sick and tired of people exploiting the occasion of the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own political propaganda.” (This was met with so much applause he had to pause mid-sentence.) And, while not quite backlisted to the extent of Hellman and the others during McCarthyism, Redgrave’s career opportunities were impacted after this moment and its controversy would follow her for decades to come.
Every day people are faced with ethical decisions, most of which do not take place on the stage of the Academy Awards. And yet the seeming frivolity of a Hollywood ceremony has the benefit of being televised. The account of an award-winning playwright’s dalliance in espionage has the benefit of being published. The messages of celebrities not only reach more people, their actions do too. And we can look to Hellman and Fonda and Redgrave as we make our own political and ethical commitments.
Queerness can be literal. It can be the consummation of a childhood crush or the passionate love affair between two women. But the way Lillian looks to her friend in Julia is also how I look to queer history. To me, queerness isn’t just my sexuality and gender but a commitment to those who made my life possible, a commitment to continue their fight, a commitment to do the right thing.
While you may never be asked to smuggle $50,000 into Nazi Germany, you will be asked to make other decisions. Will you stand up for a colleague being fired for their identity or beliefs? Will you refuse to comply with immigration and law enforcement officers? Will you choose the lives of others over your own perception of safety?
Few people have the bravery to be Julia, but will you, at least, be Lillian?
This was absolutely fantastic, and I didn’t know that about Vanessa Redgrave at all! The speech from Hellman is also magnificent. Lined up the movie to watch, and I really like how you examine the movies production and actors and history, not just the piece itself
Thank you!! I hope you like the film!