Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig, centre) becomes a resistance fighter and helps Polish Jews oppose German occupation in the Second World War thriller Defiance. (Karen Ballard/Paramount Vantage)

Where would the movie industry be without the Second World War? Over the years, the epic conflict has spawned countless dramas. It experienced a mini-revival in the last month, with Tom Cruise trying to kill Hitler (Valkyrie) and Kate Winslet as a defendant in a war-crimes trial (The Reader). Now, Ed Zwick’s Holocaust drama, Defiance, lands in theatres. It’s based on the real-life exploits of the Bielski brothers, four Polish Jews who spearheaded a vigorous resistance against the Nazis.

“The depiction of Jews in World War II films seemed uniquely to focus on passivity. It seemed to not even acknowledge the impulse toward resistance.”

-- Ed Zwick, director of Defiance

Sitting in a Toronto hotel room during a recent press junket, the director of Glory, Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai seems confident that his film tells a different kind of war tale. “I was astonished that I had never heard of this story,” Zwick notes. “If I felt that way, I figured many others would feel the same.”

He’s right. The Bielskis’ experience was so unlikely, so epic in scale that its obscurity is shocking. After their parents were killed by Germans in 1941, the brothers decamped to the Belarusian forest. For three years, they staged stealth attacks on Nazis, collaborated with Soviet partisans and rescued fellow Jews. During that time, they endured incomprehensible hardship and subzero temperatures. Remarkably, they established a mini-village in the forest, ultimately building a mill, shoe workshop and bakery. It’s estimated that the Bielskis saved 1,200 lives.

With source material like that, Defiance offers a radically different depiction of the Holocaust. Here, the Jews get to fight back. It’s a far cry from Schindler’s List.

Director Ed Zwick. (Mark Mainz/Getty Images)

“It’s been essential to memorialize the six million dead, but to add complexity to that portrait was equally important for me. The depiction of Jews in World War II films seemed uniquely to focus on passivity. It seemed to not even acknowledge the impulse toward resistance,” Zwick says. “I knew that couldn’t have been true. Through the research, I learned that whenever there was a possibility of resistance, it took place. It was often futile or thwarted, but when the natural world offered some escape, they took it. Cities became a kind of trap for them.”

Throughout his career, Zwick has made big movies with big stars. Think of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, Leonard DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis in The Siege. For Defiance, he snagged Bond-du-jour Daniel Craig to play Tuvia Bielski, the brother who was focused on village-building in the forest and rescuing people rather than revenge. At one point in the film, Tuvia says, “I would rather save one old Jewish woman than kill 10 Nazi soldiers.” This puts him in direct conflict with his sibling Zus (played by Liev Schreiber), who craves retribution against the Germans.

“Daniel was compelled by the story and the presence of a character who, without any experience of leadership, would presume to lead others and take responsibility for those lives,” Zwick explains. “Liev was interested in playing a character who finds a release in violence, whose violence was latent within him.”

Zwick is in a unique position among Hollywood directors. He attracts marquee stars like Craig to his brand of thoughtful, issue-driven action movies, but has also carved out a significant career as an executive producer in television. The driving force behind this intense war drama is also the guy who brought you the yuppie antics of thirtysomething and My So-Called Life’s note-perfect depiction of teenage angst. Zwick continues to alternate between big and small-screen projects.

“TV is more like playwriting than screenwriting. It’s a factor of money; behaviour is revealed in the word on TV, not action,” he says. “With TV, the size of the screen produces intimacy. It has always interested me: observing human behaviour in its nuances, to go deeply into what is universal through the personal. In film, the image, with its size and strength, takes precedence over the word. Movies tend to produce a more muscular kind of narrative.”

Tuvia (Daniel Craig, right) and Zus Bielski (Liev Schreiber) vow to avenge the deaths of their families by Nazi forces in the film Defiance. (Karen Ballard/Paramount Vantage)

Craig and Schreiber’s physical performances crank up the muscle in Defiance; the fraternal fireworks are a definite highlight. However, early reviews have been decidedly mixed. The cinematography is marvellous — winter has rarely looked this miserable. But the sprawling nature of the story occasionally overwhelms the film, and in some sections, the pacing is quite leaden.

Defiance has been shut out of the current awards season. Although his work regularly receives Oscar nominations, Zwick argues that awards and box office receipts don’t define success. “When you’re in popular culture, you want the film to appeal to an audience, but I think it’s a triumph just getting this film made. I think Defiance might find its way onto a curriculum. I hear so many times from people, ‘I’m an associate professor of history because I saw Glory when I was 14.’ There’s only one real measure of success: a film’s impact over time.”

When Zwick describes the impact of a Defiance screening that took place last year, it’s clear that this project is more personal than most. “I showed the film in New York to a few of the people who lived in the [Belarusian] forest, along with their children and grandchildren. It was very moving and gratifying. They were fulfilled. They said, ‘We never thought our story would be told.’ ”

Defiance opens across Canada on Jan. 16.

Greig Dymond writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.