ADAM RESURRECTED

Indeed, the task of adapting the story, and its challenging themes, to a screen experience
reminded Schrader in some ways of a previous experience with another controversial screenplay:
Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
“As with THE LAST TEMPTATION, the big challenge was to emphasize that this is a fictional
approach to historical events,” he explains.
Of course, other acclaimed fictional films have been set against the backdrop of the Nazi
concentration camps from SOPHIE’S CHOICE to LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL,– but the sheer dark comedy
of Adam Stein’s wartime experience and what he goes through afterward, set it apart. Adam’s story is
psychological and spiritual journey asks a larger question that still reverberates today: how do people
go on when they’ve witnessed the unspeakable, when they seem to have randomly survived where
others have perished?
For Schrader, the heart of the story was always Adam. “He’s a great character, and more
than that, he is a character who transcends period and nationality, who has a universality to him,” he
says.
Schrader immediately thought the role of Adam belonged to one person: Jeff Goldblum.
“Casting is destiny,” the director says. “I thought Jeff was born to play this role and he lived up to all
my expectations. The role is the culmination of everything he’s done in his career and all he has
learned as an actor to this point.”
RESURRECTING ADAM:
JEFF GOLDBLUM TAKES ON THE FILM’S HIGH-WIRE LEAD ROLE
Paul Schrader may have intuited Jeff Goldblum would be an exceptional match for the
demanding role of Adam Stein, but many who know the actor best from his more typically comic roles
in blockbuster action films will be surprised by the sheer breadth and depth of his performance in
ADAM RESURRECTED. Adam Stein the character is alternately masterful and defenseless,
mischievous and lost, sexy and untouchable, violent and compassionate, brilliant and out of control,
intellectual and primal. Steeped in the literary tradition of the Wise Fool, he is, in essence, a man in
search of self – a search made perilous in the wake of modern human catastrophes.
The powerful themes of ADAM RESURRECTED – themes of memory, history, the nature of
human yearning – as well as the story’s dark, complex humor were irresistible to Goldblum, who has
always been an actor of contradictory impulses. He has starred in some of the highest grossing films
of all time, including Steven Spielberg’s JURASSIC PARK and INDEPENDENCE DAY; yet he has
also created unforgettable characters in such films as Lawrence Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL to David
Cronenberg’s THE FLY and, more recently, Wes Anderson’s THE LIFE AQUATIC. This role, the
driving heartbeat of the movie, would take him places he had never gone before.
remarkable.”
Sums up Ehud Bleiberg: “Jeff’s seriousness and dedication to this role were truly
Schrader, too, quickly saw the extent of Goldblum’s commitment. “We knew we weren’t
going to shoot for a year, but Jeff and I decided to do an early reading,” the director recalls. “ He
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