Though the main protagonist of the film – Sol Nazerman – is Jewish and the story seems to mostly focus on how he deals with (or rather, refuses to deal with) life after the Holocaust, there are a number of other ethnic/racial groups represented in The Pawnbroker as well – Hispanic (Jesus Ortiz and his mother), black (Ortiz’s girlfriend and the talkative Mr. Smith), and non-Jewish white (the social worker Marilyn Birchfield). And whether it is Jesus Ortiz and his mother struggling to assimilate into a world known for making it difficult for immigrants to assimilate, Ortiz’s girlfriend turning tricks (and showing her breasts to anyone willing to watch) in order to earn a living, Mr. Smith searching for someone who will finally listen to what he has to say, or Sol Nazerman dealing with memories and emotions he does not want to deal with, all of the characters depicted (and the ethnic/racial groups they each represent) are suffering in some way. These individuals and these ethnic groups share this quality with each other.
The epicenter of all of this collective suffering is the “ghetto” in which all of these characters live in (or, rather, are trapped in) and in which the film takes place in for the most part – present day Harlem. The other “ghetto” that is represented in the film is the concentration camp Nazerman’s family (and numerous other Jews) are forced into by the Nazis during the Second World War – the ghetto of the past. And while some viewers may find it strange that Sidney Lumet chooses to relate one ghetto – and its collection of suffering people – to the other, it is important to consider that the director is not trying to equate the two ghettos (and, thus, the suffering of Jesus or Mr. Smith to the horrors experienced by the millions of Jews during the Holocaust). Sidney Lumet is simply trying to reveal the similarities between the two ghettos – the presence of suffering and the entrapment of individuals that is in both – and thus, the universality of the features that are common to both.
The director crafts this connection marvelously through the use of flashbacks at key points in the film. An example of this is when Ortiz’s girlfriend shows up at the pawnshop and flashes her breasts at Nazerman and the old man responds by flashing back to a memory of being pulled out of line by a Nazi soldier and being shown how his wife is being forced to prostitute herself out to other Nazi soldiers. This scene alternates between brief cuts of the topless black woman whispering, “Look” and increasingly longer cuts of the events that unfolded in the concentration camp – from the soldier asking, “Willst du was sehen?” and pulling Nazerman out of line to dragging him toward the shed and smashing his head through the window pane to a cut of Nazerman’s wife’s face as a Nazi soldier has his way with her. From this flashback, it is clear to the viewer that the wife is suffering because of what she is forced to do, but it is also clear that Ortiz’s girlfriend is suffering as well. She may freely show her breasts to Nazerman, but what is this small act in comparison to the things she is forced to do by her pimp?
The overall experience of the film is greatly enhanced for the viewer by this unique visual technique; and it is certain that the pace of the film, the emotions that are elicited in the viewer, and the final message that is received (that suffering is universal), would not have been the same had this daring – as it was considered at the time – flashback technique not been used.
