September 6, 2011 | 11:50 am

Straight from a Jewish psyche: The ‘Mad Men’ episode that could win an Emmy

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) escorts Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) from his office. Photo by Doug Hyun/AMC

In a scene by scene analysis of Season 4’s “The Suitcase” with commentary by “Mad Men” creator Matt Weiner and lead actor Jon Hamm, The Daily Beast’s Jace Lacob gives us insight into “a classic hour of TV” which has been nominated for an Emmy.

It is indicative of great art when a work can be dissected and analyzed from various angles to probe the deeper meaning presented on the surface. And while “Mad Men” may fit more squarely into the popular culture genre than the medium of great art, it is a testament to the show’s skill that it is layered enough for even the sharpest criticism, as Princeton scholar Daniel Mendelsohn demonstrated in his scathing takedown of the show last February.

If it seems an overindulgence to devote four internet pages to one “Mad Men” episode, the following is a choice excerpt. It struck me because it seems emblematic of a larger Hollywood Jewish theme which has to do with escaping identity. Weiner, of course, is Jewish and although his show is mostly about the most WASPy of gentiles, with some “casual anti-Semitism” (as he calls it) sprinkled in for good fun, there are underlying themes that seem to come straight from a Jewish psyche.

During one scene in “The Suitcase” Don Draper has the closest thing a macho, consummate womanizer can have to a breakdown. He is overwhelmed by the dissolution of his marriage, the breakdown of his family, the loss of a woman who knew his true identity and the corporate transformation of his professional life into something he feels less control over. Naturally he sobs. But what Hamm had to say about the scene, as told to Lacob and Weiner, strikes as insightful and prescient:

Hamm: [The breakdown] doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes out of watching the last five years of this guy’s life and how his family has imploded and his work has shifted so dramatically and his personal life is really in shambles. The one counterweight to all of that was California. Every time he went to California you could see that something changed in this guy. His hair was looser. His back wasn’t so rigid. It was just a completely different vibe when he was there. It was the one true connection to his past.

What happens when a person tries to suppress that which is integral to their identity? The sense of belonging that is deepest, truest, most ingrained. The answer Weiner is giving us is that one cannot really hide. Suppress what is true and it will percolate through your skin. Deny your identity and compromise your soul. Don is ashamed of where he comes from and thus reinvents himself as an American ideal in pursuit of an American dream. But no matter how successful he is, the further away he moves from what is true about himself, the more he crumbles.

Likewise, in the fictionalized biopic of French pop star Serge Gainsbourg, “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” the artist is haunted throughout his life by the apparition of a grotesque Jewish “mug”—an anti-Semitic rendering of the Jew in WWII France that becomes his alter-ego. Gainsbourg is taunted by this specter, and reminded in the grossest terms, what being a Jew represents. Judging by exteriors, only Gainsbourg’s name—and maybe his visage—would indicate his ethnicity, but on the inside, as the film depicts, he was tormented by the consequences of Jewish existence exacted by 1940s Europe.

The name Don Draper is less revealing than misleading, as Don is really Dick Whitman but adopts the name Draper as part of his transformation (another distinctly Hollywood Jewish trope). “What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asked; well apparently, everything.

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September 2, 2011 | 3:42 pm

Nazi secretary to newspaper: Joseph Goebbels was a horrible boss

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Here’s a striking secretary image: Brunhilde Pomsel typing away as Joseph Goebbels waxes poetic on a “Jew-free” Germany.

In a deliberately titillating story about “Nazi Secretaries” The Daily Beast reports some tidbits about the ladies who compromised their conscience for powerful men in uniform. Pomsel, for example, said she supported the Nazis because, well, it was trendy. “I joined the party in 1933—why not? Everyone did,” she told the German newspaper Gild in her first ever interview. Goebbels’s former secretary, now age 100, waited a long time before gabbing to the press. The shocking revelation of her story? Goebbels was apparently an awful guy. “You couldn’t get close to him,” Pomsel told the paper. “He never once asked me a personal question. Right up until the end I don’t think he knew my name.”

Hitler, on the other hand, was apparently a doll of an employer, according to The Daily Beast. His secretary, Traudl Junge, who transcribed his last will and testament before he killed himself in the Reich Chancellery bunker, described him as fascinating and amiable. “He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. I deliberately ignored all the warning voices inside me and enjoyed the time by his side almost until the bitter end. It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said things and how he did things,” she said.

That Hitler did have a way of doing things.

Another World War II leader, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was, according to his secretaries, no picnic. Writer Andrew Roberts notes that Churchill’s wife, Clementine, wrote him in June 1940 that he should be nicer to his staff: “There is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner.”

As Roberts notes, if history were written by the secretaries, “Churchill would be the villain and Hitler the hero.”

As if real history weren’t scary enough.

Read more at The Daily Beast

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September 2, 2011 | 11:30 am

Meet ‘Drop Dead Diva’s’ Adam Perlman: Writer on the rise [Q&A]

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Name: Adam Perlman
Age: 29
Years in Los Angeles: 1.5
Current gig: TV writer, “Drop Dead Diva”
Graduated: Harvard
Studied: Playwriting
Cool quirk: Knows Yiddish

Hollywood Jew: The first episode you’ve ever written for television will air this Sunday. Encapsulate your episode in one sentence.
Adam Perlman: It’s about learning how to make the best of your past.

HJ: How’d you get your break writing for TV?
AP:I’d been practicing law in New York and I was the only person in world who was lucky when Lehman Brothers and the entire market collapsed because I was able to sit and write scripts. Through very good luck, I got a meeting with Josh Berman, the creator of “Drop Dead Diva” and he hired me, so I quit my job and moved out to LA.

HJ: What was the inspiration for your episode?
AP: I was happy to introduce a preacher into the show because I was very interested in the idea of somebody who was willing to break the law to do what was right, and dealing with questions about ethics and morality and ‘How can you be the best person you can be?’ The thing I’ve always been most interested in are shows that are about using the power of television to teach as well as entertain. You can get inside people far more in this medium than through news or through essays. It’s a chance to hit people right in their funny bone and right in their gut.

HJ: “Drop Dead Diva” is a show about a former model who is reincarnated in the body of plus-sized lawyer, who is also deceased. Is this positing some alternate reality?
AP: The reality is present day Los Angeles. It’s half a body switch show, where the soul, the memory, the spirit of the dead model goes into the dead lawyer. But at its core, it’s about a person getting a chance to learn and grow in ways she never did and in ways she never thought she’d have to.

HJ: How does a guy write women well?
AP: I think you have to—and this is writing anyone—really think through a character and a character’s choices and not think of them as a device for your words or plots.

HJ: Why is a show that is created in L.A. filmed in Georgia? 
AP: More and more shows are being filmed outside of L.A. because it’s too expensive to produce here. In L.A. you have to chop the shooting schedule to five or five-and-a-half days and it’s really hard if you’re trying to produce an hour-long show. In Georgia, we’re able to stretch the budget to shoot in 8 days. It’s money.

HJ: What’s your dream job?
AP: This has been a phenomenal job so far; Josh Berman has put together an incredibly egalitarian [writers] room. If you didn’t know what peoples’ titles are, you’d have no idea of the pecking order; everyone has input. If you’re asking what other projects are out there, the new HBO/Aaron Sorkin journalism one seems like it could be a pretty amazing.

HJ: Who are the writers you most admire?
AP: David Kelley, Aaron Sorkin, early David Mamet; particularly the specificity of his language, the rhythms he catches. Sondheim is probably my all time favorite writer; there’s no one else who can make you laugh and cry within the same line.

HJ: Hardest lesson you’ve learned about Hollywood.
AP: How much of it really is up to luck. Talent is very important and effort is very important, but there’s a certain gigantic component of luck that people have to deny in order to enjoy their placement. You can see how much of it turns on the snip of a coin.

HJ: Best advice for aspiring writers?
AP: Write, write, write. And when your writing is strong enough, don’t be afraid to show it to people.

HJ: Biggest surprise about working in entertainment?
AP: How wonderfully grounded a lot of the people are. There are certain stereotypes about Hollywood that are true, but most people I’ve met are tremendously grounded, family-oriented, wonderful people. There is a bit of a community aspect that I’ve found and that was more than I was expecting.

HJ: Do you think that stems from the mythology of Hollywood being a Jewish place? 
AP: I’ve probably never lived outside of a predominantly Jewish community in my life. I’ve always lived in a Jewish culture and always been very aware of the values it breeds; but also a sensibility, and a sensibility that tends to be very ironic, very aware of itself and its place in the world. There’s nothing so Jewish to me as a sense of humor and a way of recognizing Jews and that Jewish sensibility whether it be in New York in theater or in Los Angeles in Hollywood.

HJ: How do you think that Jewish sensibility gets articulated in your own writing?
AP: My sense of humor comes very much from that sense of being able to laugh at oneself and the absurdities of life. I always expect joy and sorrow to be mixed or balanced; for example, personally, I found out I got this great job and before I move I’m certain I’m going to get fired. There’s always that neurosis, but there’s also something wonderful and healthy about it, knowing there’s something bigger than yourself and your own concerns.

HJ: What are you doing for the high holidays?
AP: The high holidays is definitely a good time to temple shop.

“Drop Dead Diva” airs Sunday nights at 9pm on Lifetime

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September 1, 2011 | 1:53 pm

Are Israel’s tax breaks failing to lure film production?

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Tired of Jerusalem-based stories getting filmed in Malta, the Israeli government passed a law in 2008 to permit tax breaks to foreign filmmakers.

Prodded by the Jerusalem Film Fund in an effort to attract international film production, Israel offered “tax breaks, terror attack insurance and handouts of up to $400,000,” according to Daniel Estrin’s report on the Huffington Post. But the attempt to attract more business hasn’t produced compelling results. According to Estrin, even with the tax breaks, Israel is competing with other Middle Eastern and North African countries who offer better incentives for film production. He cites the upcoming “World War Z” (penned by Mel Brooks progeny, Max Brooks), “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” and Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” as examples of films which contain scenes set in Jerusalem, though none of them were filmed there. Instead, producers opted for locations like Malta (Steven Spielberg’s “Munich”), Tunisia and Morocco.

Estrin writes:

According to conventional wisdom in Hollywood, Jerusalem is too volatile to ensure smooth filming on location. International insurance companies have traditionally refused to provide terrorism risk coverage, or offered it at exorbitant prices.

For a long time, it didn’t make financial sense for the producers. While Israel in the 1980s attracted such star-studded productions as Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo 3” and Chuck Norris’ “The Delta Force,” it later lost out to other countries that started giving big tax incentives to producers.

“If they think it’s expensive and dangerous, they won’t want to come,” [Yoram] Honig, [an Israeli filmmaker and head of the Jerusalem Film Fund], said.
...
Even Israeli producers have shied away from the city: Out of 600 some Israeli movies filmed since the country’s founding, only about 30 have been filmed in Jerusalem, Honig said. That has begun to change recently, with some of Israel’s most celebrated new films shot here with the fund’s financial support, including Joseph Cedar’s “Footnote,” which was awarded best screenplay at this year’s Cannes film festival.

Now the city is sweetening the pot for international filmmakers, offering cash incentives and a municipal department that will assist with filming permits and on-location logistics. Only four international productions are shot in Jerusalem each year, most of them European, Honig said.

Read the rest at the Huffington Post

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