Today the films of Fred Zinnemann are seen as 'safe'. Staid almost, afraid to take chances even when the material itself can be seen as dangerous. Despite twice winning the Oscar as Best Director Zinnemann has now fallen out of critical favor, thought as more a director of tasteful, well-made entertainments rather than of anything more worthy of note.
He made "Julia" late in his career, in 1977, and it is in its way a kind of biopic, (of the writer Lillian Hellman), as well as a fairly suspenseful thriller set in the Europe of the Nazis and the rise of Fascism and it's a beautiful piece of work, made with all the skill of a great director. It was a considerable success at the time, winning three Oscars and the BAFTA for Best Film.
Based on a story by Hellman it tells of how in the 1930's she smuggled money into Germany, at great risk to herself, in order to help the anti-fascist movement. As Hellman, Jane Fonda is superb, capturing both her vanity and her vulnerability while both Vanessa Redgrave as her friend Julia, the woman who supplies the money and who is fighting on the ground in Germany and Jason Robards as the writer Dashiell Hammett won Oscars for their work.
Of course, there has been an ongoing debate as to how much of the film, if any, is fact and how much is fiction and this may be one of the reasons why it has fallen out of favor, that and the decline in Zinnemann's reputation and yet it is a sterling piece of work, one of the director's best, in fact and the kind of intelligent entertainment we often don't see in the cinema these days.
