February 25, 2013 | 5:58 pm

Oscar’s big Jewish joke

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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In what seems like an annual compulsion, the writers of The Oscars telecast routinely include jokes about Jews to remind everybody in the industry -- and everybody watching – that Jews indeed “rule” in Hollywood (whatever that imprecise measure of power means).

But for some in the Jewish establishment, this is akin to a crime. Talk of Jewish power is asur, forbidden. If it exists, it should be secret. Therefore the historic and enduring Jewish presence in Hollywood is publicly regarded as “myth,” a “falsity,” a “stereotype,” and should not be construed as fact. It is dangerous -- much too dangerous – even to joke about.

Take for example, this year’s big Jewish Oscar joke which came courtesy of host Seth MacFarlane. It was delivered by the actor Mark Wahlberg and his snuggly-looking, smut-talking sidekick stuffed-bear, Ted, both of whom appeared in MacFarlane’s summer sleeper hit, “Ted” which grossed more than $500 million at the box office. Their whippy repartee not only mocked Jewish power in Hollywood, it provided a criterion for getting into the club: a Jewish-sounding name (duh) and a philanthropic commitment to Israel.

Here is a partial transcript of their conversation:

Ted: Look at all this talent, all this talent in one spot. There’s Daniel Day-Lewis… there’s Alan Arkin… there’s Joaquin Phoenix. And you know what’s interesting? All those actors I just named are part-Jewish.

Mark Wahlberg: Oh. Ok.

Ted: What about you? You got a ‘berg’ at the end of your name. Are you Jewish?

Wahlberg: Am I Jewish? No, actually, I’m Catholic.

Ted: (whispering) Wrong Answer. Try again.

Wahlberg: What?

Ted: (still whispering) Do you want to work in this town or dontcha? (to audience) That’s interesting, Mark, because I am Jewish.

Wahlberg: No you’re not.

Ted: I am. I am. I was born Theodore Shapiro and I would like to donate money to Israel and continue to work in Hollywood forever. Thank you, I’m Jewish.

Wahlberg: You’re an idiot.

Ted: Yeah, well, we’ll see who the idiot is when they give me a private plane at the next secret synagogue meeting.

On the surface, this exchange seems entirely unoriginal. Quips about Jewish last names, support for Israel, "secret synagogue meetings" and the like are hardly new to the canon of comedy drawn from anti-Semitic tropes. But the sketch nonetheless elicited the usual defensive outcries.

Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (and self-appointed tribal arbiter of Jewish humor) condemned the sketch as "not remotely funny." “It only reinforces stereotypes which legitimize anti-Semitism,” he wrote in a statement. “For the insiders at the Oscars this kind of joke is obviously not taken seriously.  But when one considers the global audience of the Oscars of upwards of two billion people… there’s a much higher potential for the ‘Jews control Hollywood’ myth to be accepted as fact.”

Dear me, what a horrible blight that would be on the perception of Jews worldwide. Especially since most people consider the Jewish reputation so pristine!

As Foxman pointed out, this is not the first time MacFarlane has poked fun at Jewish power. Last Fall, MacFarlane placed a “For Your Consideration” ad in Deadline.com’s Emmy Awards print supplement, Awardsline. “Come on you bloated, over-privileged Brentwood Jews. Let us into your little club,” it read, just above an image of Peter Griffin, the character voiced by MacFarlane on “Family Guy.”

It was a plea, not a provocation. But apparently it can be quite confusing to discern between diverting and disdainful. Though there must be some value in distinction; not all contexts are created equal.

 Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, sees little difference between joking about Jewish power or simply stating it. “When Marlon Brando said [something about Jewish power in Hollywood] on the Larry King Show several years ago, there was widespread criticism throughout Hollywood for those remarks, for which Brando profusely apologized,” Hier said in a statement released on Monday. 

“But the Oscars are not Larry King,” he added. No, indeed they are not; the Oscars are an entertainment centered around movies, and Larry King at least presented his show as a serious news enterprise. 

“Every comedian is entitled to wide latitude, but no one should get a free pass for helping to promote anti-Semitism,” Hier argued.

He’s not actually all wrong. For those inclined to dislike Jews, the idea that they are powerful in Hollywood – meaning, I guess, funny, creative, talented, successful, rich, populous, award-winning and in possession of top-jobs – will probably not prove endearing to their detractors. Haters, after all, are going to hate. Should Hollywood’s Jews deflect negative attention by pretending they are powerless? Does AIPAC feign weakness in Washington?

A deeper read of MacFarlane’s Jewish joke underscores other, worthier reasons for public fascination. Its unoriginality for one, was actually striking this year: The Oscars are nothing if not traditional, so even though it was utterly in character for the show to play to redundant, conventional tropes (“Jews control Hollywood: Surprise!”), it seemed to ignore a shift happening elsewhere with erstwhile sacred cows.

Take Israel, for example. The assumption of industry-wide support for Israel intimated in MacFarlane’s sketch is perhaps unsurprising. It even seems obvious considering Hollywood’s founding, its history and current Academy demography – which, according to a 2012 study conducted by the L.A. Times consists mostly of white men at a median age of 62, many of whom are presumed to be Jewish though, oddly, the Times did not account for ethnicity or religion. Still, it is an interesting choice, in 2013, to kid about support for Israel at a time when Hollywood’s presumed liberal values appear in conflict with Israeli behavior.

Of the two Israel-focused documentaries nominated for Oscars this year, itself a considerable feat, neither paints a pretty portrait. The Israeli-Palestinian co-production “5 Broken Cameras” is one Palestinian man’s account of life in a West Bank village, where he is both witness to and victim of horrors at Israeli hands. In “The Gatekeepers” each of the living former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, unanimously regret and condemn Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank.

Neither film won the Oscar, of course. But the very same Jewish academy members who “donate money to Israel,” as Ted so illustratively put it, also voted this dual nomination onto the ballot. With their irrefutably provocative positions towards Israel, the impulse to recognize these particular movies evinces a deepening awareness (and an implicit acknowledgment) of Israel’s faults and flaws.

The inconvenient truth for traditionalists is that many of today’s Hollywood Jews are feeling far more comfortable in their Jewish skins than ever before. There is far more freedom and nuance in expressing Jewish characters, talking about Israel, and embracing the legacy of profuse Jewish power than in years past. It’s even become a bit of a joke.

Jews in Hollywood understand this; so do the industry’s non-Jews, like MacFarlane. It is simply a minority of old-time Jews with the loudest mics who see offense where most find humor. Seth MacFarlane isn’t poking fun at Jews because he’s anti-Semitic. He’s poking fun at Jews out of the seriously comic irony that in Hollywood, he is the outsider. If MacFarlane has no trouble owning the truth of Jewish accomplishment, why can’t we?

February 23, 2013 | 11:28 am

Academy’s doc night focuses on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Posted by Danielle Berrin

When did Michael Moore anoint himself the broker of Middle East peace?

I wondered this as I sat in the audience during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Oscar Celebrates Docs” night on Feb. 20, as an evening that began with laudatory reverence for “nonfiction cinema” devolved into Israel-Palestine couples therapy with Moore as shrink.

It would not surprise anyone that knows of Mr. Moore to learn that he was hardly impartial. A real couple would have divorced.

Among the five documentaries nominated -- including “The Invisible War” about rape in the military, “How To Survive a Plague” about the AIDS crisis and “Searching for Sugarman” about a musician resurrected from obscurity -- Moore mostly wanted to talk about the two indictments of Israel.

“The Gatekeepers” which features a compilation of interviews with former heads of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency has been called “a damning censure of Israel's occupation of the West Bank,” as my former colleague Amy Klein described it in the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Maybe so, but it is nonetheless eye-opening and brutally honest and does not deserve censure for being censorious.

“5 Broken Cameras” is one Palestinian man’s account of life in the West Bank village Bil’in where he has both witnessed and experienced horrors at the hands of Israeli soldiers. Emad Burnat, who is both the subject and the chronicler of this film would pass his footage “over the wall” to his Israeli collaborator, Guy Davidi, for editing.

Neither paints a pretty portrait of Israel, because, like every other country or nation-state in the history of the world, it is flawed. But collapsed into the space of one evening with only these two films as reference points, any talk of the Israeli Palestinian conflict becomes sorely misguided. And disturbingly lacking in context.

But for Mr. Moore it was an opportunity to congratulate the Israeli filmmakers for being so very, very “brave” in daring to portray their country in its realness, and accept complicity in its crimes. “This has been a painful process,” Davidi, the co-director of “Cameras” said of receiving the nomination. “The image you get of having an [Oscar] nomination, you think it will be a moment of joy, but moments of joy and moments of destruction are all tied up.”

Moore was also inclined to grant “Cameras’” Emad Burnat, who was unceremoniously detained at Los Angeles International Airport the evening prior, a soapbox with which to vent his prolix grievances about Israeli occupation: “For me to go through this,” he began about his LAX ordeal, “they stop me for questions [and] this moment reminds me of where I live, where I come from. I live under occupation. I live under Israeli control. For me it’s become a normal life.”

Moore referred to a scene in the film where an “Israeli soldier purposely shoots a Palestinian civilian.” “What makes this film so powerful,” he added, “is that it shows non-violent resistance is the way to do this. And I think that’s what [the Israeli government] is so scared of -- because non-violence will work.” He suggested that “the day 5,000 or 10,000 Palestinians sit in the road and don’t get up” might just do the trick.

Moore’s strutting, stunning lack of sense about the depth and scope of this conflict was discomfiting to watch. If one didn’t know better, it was as if the troubles between a powerful Israel and a powerless Palestine began with the 2010 Gaza Flotilla raid. “I think if every American watched these two movies, there’d be a sea change,” Moore naively suggested. “That’s what makes [these films] so dangerous.”

That’s it! If only Americans would watch two documentaries, the ancient conflict over the Holy Land would be resolved. Moore’s calls for peace now were absurdly oblivious to the travails of history -- God forbid he ask Burnat what he felt when PLO President Yasser Arafat rejected Israel’s offer of 95% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip during the Camp David Summit in 2000, for instance, or of any of the other numerous occasions when Israel was indeed ready to End The Occupation but came up against Palestinian intransigence.

Moore would do well to learn more about that for which he so vociferously advocates. But the sort of nuances that history requires would hardly serve the Hollywood penchant for clear-cut villains and vagabonds.

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February 19, 2013 | 8:04 am

Hollywood’s history lesson: What counts when truth gets in the way

Posted by Danielle Berrin

The year is 2063. In a Los Angeles classroom, a group of history students awaits the day’s lesson on the Civil War period. The teacher announces that instead of reading from a textbook, the class will watch the movie “Lincoln,” by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner. The lights dim, a calm descends and a 13-inch transparent, retractable screen emerges from each student’s desk. With one touch, the ancient myth of a president who lived two centuries prior comes streaming to vivid life.  

Over in an adjacent, upper-school building, 10th-graders are studying the more recent history of the United States’ War on Terror. The teacher announces that to supplement their reading of “The 9/11 Commission Report,” they are going to watch the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” by Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

Or is it? What sense might the students get of the time in which these films were set, or of when they were made? What social or political values will they glean from those narratives? In choosing to show “Lincoln,” certainly the first history teacher had more in mind than a basic lesson on the voting records of a 19th century Congress. Surely Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who, way back in 2013, called on Spielberg to correct an error that put his state on the wrong side of the slavery vote, would agree with that. Well, one can only hope.

Although opinions will inevitably vary as to the historical value of these films — or any film, for that matter — there is little doubt that the popularity of Hollywood movies can leave an indelible imprint on our understanding of history. It is probably already true that more Americans have seen Spielberg’s fictionalized “Lincoln” than read the Doris Kearns Goodwin biography upon which it is based. If this indicates the impoverishment of our culture, it is still a truth. But it is the  “truth” in fiction that has prompted a wave of persnickety bickering around many of this year’s Oscar contenders. It’s an anxiety that is no doubt tied to the power of the historical film. 

During a year in which the only shared theme among Oscar contenders is a concern with the attributes of history — both distant and contemporary, and the individuals (“Lincoln”), events (“Argo”), settings (“Django Unchained”) and issues of our time (“Zero Dark Thirty”) — parsing how Hollywood marks the historical record seems a worthy exercise. Over the past few months, an Oscar-campaign drama has played out among filmmakers and politicians, artists and philosophers over the historical value of this season’s spate of movies. Public consternation has focused on an almost neurotic obsession with factual accuracy, which, at least for some, seems like the silliest debate.

“Using movies to learn your history is a disastrous course,” New Republic film critic and historian David Thomson told me during an interview. “But we’ve all done it.” 

Historian Robert Rosenstone has called learning history from movies a sign of a “postliterate” age, a time when “people can read, but won’t.” In an essay for Harvard University Press published in 1995, Rosenstone explained why historians distrust the historical film: “Films are inaccurate,” he wrote. “They distort the past. They fictionalize, trivialize, and romanticize people, events, and movements. They falsify history.”  

But academics’ discomfort with Hollywood’s hold on the popular imagination likely stems from anxiety about their own lack of control. Who are the real custodians and transmitters of history? In our time, that privilege seems to rest with the greatest storytellers, the ones who can hold our spirits captive through the sheer power of their gifts. This is as true of Hollywood writers and directors as it is of a biographer like Robert Caro, whose much-lauded biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson provide both a fount of data and an abundance of drama. The problem with Hollywood, of course, is that it is bound by a different set of formal and practical constraints than written history. 

For one, “they’re there to make entertainment; they’re there to make money,” Thomson said. “And most of the time, they will use what they think are the facts and turn them into the best dramatic advantage they can think of.” 

When Courtney accused playwright and “Lincoln” scribe Tony Kushner of botching Connecticut’s voting record on the 13th Amendment, Kushner took to the Wall Street Journal to admit his error but defend his decision. “These alterations were made to clarify to the audience the historical reality that the Thirteenth Amendment passed by a very narrow margin that wasn’t determined until the end of the vote,” Kushner explained. “The closeness of that vote and the means by which it came about was the story we wanted to tell.” 

Kushner went on to justify his position by revealing his personal writing criteria, one that distinguishes between history and historical drama.

“Here’s my rule,” Kushner wrote. “Ask yourself, ‘Did this thing happen?’ If the answer is yes, then it’s historical. Then ask, ‘Did this thing happen precisely this way?’ If the answer is yes, then it’s history; if the answer is no, not precisely this way, then it’s historical drama.”

That facts often get kicked to the curb for the sake of a sexier story was best expressed in John Ford’s 1962 film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” In one of its final scenes, a newspaper publisher and editor famously insists, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!” An apt mantra for Hollywood, it suggests a discomfiting reality: that the public has a larger appetite for myth and fantasy than for truth. Truth, after all, is stranger than fiction — and proof that even a false version of events can gain ready acceptance.

It is somewhat peculiar, though, to say nothing of a minor hypocrisy, that the same artists who so easily enjoy the stature a historical movie affords will not hesitate to cherry-pick history. As Patrick Goldstein, former entertainment columnist for the Los Angeles Times put it to me: “The same filmmakers who will go to such exquisite lengths to have the costumes correct, the production design accurate, the cars and clothes and everything else historically perfect, when it comes to story, they go ‘Oh, well, I had to condense it because the Connecticut lawmakers didn’t fit the story.’ ” 

Filmmakers try to have it both ways, Goldstein complained. They want the credibility of facts and the license for legend. “They do all this enormous research to make sure that the movie is accurate, then they go ahead and say, ‘Oh yeah, but’ when somebody calls them on it. That’s when I part company. Lots of filmmakers tell great stories and use history as a launching pad the same way Philip Roth does in his novels, but Roth would never dream of saying, ‘My novels would stand up to any historian’s criticisms.’ He’s a novelist.”

This year, criticism has been lobbed primarily at “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” both of which are proudly presented historical movies. It was only after public discussion began that they sought to cover their tracks with caveats. In the case of “Zero Dark Thirty,” which opens with a long, unsparing torture scene, the implication is that torture played a role in intelligence gathering during the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden. Whether or not this is really true (the veracity of this claim is still being debated among members of the CIA, the Senate Intelligence Committee, senior White House officials and outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta), the filmmakers have coolly demurred from confirming the film’s basic premise. “The film doesn’t have an agenda, and it doesn’t judge,” director Kathryn Bigelow told the New Yorker last December. “I wanted a boots-on-the-ground experience.” 

“That’s absolute nonsense,” Thomson told me. “They want to use torture in the film for its dramatic values and, equally, they want to sit on the fence and say, ‘Well, no, no, no; we weren’t saying that the CIA really used torture — it’s all fabricated.’ ”

According to Rosenstone, a California Institute of Technology emeritus history professor, a historical film must present a moral argument. In crafting a history-based narrative, “You’re faced with an infinity of details, and at some point you have to cut them off and say these are the ones that I think are important. Well, how are you making that choice? You’re making a choice to give a certain set of political, philosophical and moral beliefs about what’s important.” 

Even the most rigorously researched histories are vulnerable to dispute. “All history is debatable, the books as well,” he told me. “You have to choose. And filmmakers have to do the same thing.”

“Argo,” a story of the rescue of American hostages during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, has suffered far fewer indictments over its reliability than “Lincoln” or “Zero Dark.” “It was an entertainment from the minute it started to the minute it ended,” Goldstein said. “There was nothing about the tone or style of filmmaking that led me to believe it was a serious historical tract. It allowed me as a viewer to say ‘I’m on a ride.’ ” 

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in “Argo.”  Photo by Claire Folger/© 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

But where its history is concerned, “Argo” has been bolstered by a vigorous speaking campaign undertaken by retired CIA operative Tony Mendez, the inspiration for the character played by Ben Affleck, which has provided the film with a certain authenticity (and likely added to its acclaim). At the same time, critics and historians agree that there can be a distinction between factual accuracy and truth: Take “Argo’s” climactic, final airport scene. As the hostages make their escape, they encounter a series of hair-raising attempts to thwart their passage, which climaxes with a heart-pounding chase sequence as their plane is pursued down the runway — none of which actually occurred. 

“The end is apparently completely preposterous,” Goldstein said. Yet the dramatic tension of the final scenes serve a deeper truth: that a daring agent with a dumb plan actually did rescue six American hostages  from behind enemy lines.

Even the most devoted historians acknowledge that history concerns more than the accumulation of data. “The accuracy, the individual details and facts of history are not what history is about,” Rosenstone said. “One of the greatest works of history, ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ ” — the 18th century work by English historian Edward Gibbon — “is riddled with errors. The issue we should be talking about is the overall portrait these films give of a period, even though particular details may be wrong.” “Lincoln,” then, finds historical value in its “fascinating portrait of political maneuvering; and how, behind our idealistic visions [of democracy] also lies this system that we have to work through.”

The application of “Lincoln’s” themes to our present experience bespeaks the notion that all film is essentially a time capsule. As Thomson put it, “If you want to know what 1939 felt like, the movies of 1939 are valuable.” The “history” films of our day may tell us more about the time in which they were made than the time they seek to explore. 

“In a general sense, it is always true that history serves the present,” Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman said during an interview. “The historian is choosing and arranging and interpreting from the perspective of the time in which [their work is] written. ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Django,’ to a degree, are movies that clearly come out of Obama’s first term, and that’s how they’ll be seen ultimately; as certain things which came to the fore during Obama’s presidency that the American people had to chew on — issues of race and the history of race as well as presidential power and greatness are sort of rehearsed in these movies. 

“Our Lincoln” – the one played by Daniel Day-Lewis — Hoberman added, “is not the same Lincoln of 1940, when [Raymond Massey] played him.”

Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty.” Photo by Jonathan Olley/©2012 Zero Dark Thirty

Retelling the most contemporary history, however, may be laden with the most challenges. “Zero Dark Thirty” relays a sequence of events so eerily recent and familiar that the film itself seems to function as a quasi-documentary. For most audiences, the film conveys an amount of reported detail that for most Americans was previously unknown. The writer, Boal, who is also a journalist, has said countless times that his telling is based on real reporting. “I think he thought this movie would be kind of a scoop,” Hoberman said. 

But the public was deeply disturbed by the revelation of its contents. “Sometimes filmmakers raise what we call an uncomfortable truth,” Hoberman said. The film’s disclosures and its implications struck raw nerves and open wounds. Osama Bin Laden’s death is too recent for the critical distance that understanding his place in history requires. And the confrontation with our country’s use of torture is still unfolding. “Zero Dark Thirty” has helped uncloak dark chapters in our nation’s history, but the response to it suggests that history is better understood when it’s over. 

The problem with historical movies is the problem with all histories: They are approximations, interpretations or imaginings of what happened. “Even professional historians, when they come to write, begin to do the things that movies do,” Thomson said. “Not as crudely, but you select and present; you tell a story.” 

If written history is considered more reliable, explained Gary Gutting, endowed chair of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, it is because it presents “the reasoning behind things, the evidence for it, how certain positions are established.” It provides footnotes, arguments and counter-arguments. It presents facts as evidence for certain historical conclusions. “A movie has the problem of its very vividness; it’s always going to be presenting more than we can possibly know.”  

Movies can at best probe elements of history and evoke them with the tools of its trade: color, character, scene, drama, emotion.

“When you’re writing about history you have to consider what the audience already knows and then use that to your advantage,” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin explained of his craft. Sorkin has won much acclaim for his highly detailed renderings of “real” life — from the White House television drama “The West Wing” to his Oscar-winning portrayal of the creation of Facebook with “The Social Network” to his latest study on modern media with HBO’s “Newsroom.” Needless to say, he knows a thing or two about translating reality into fiction without compromising verisimilitude. “It can be exhilarating when the audience knows more than the characters do. In ‘All the President’s Men,’ Robert Redford is woken up by a call to go cover a petty burglary. We know his life and the country are about to change forever. We also know how it ends. The movie is going to live in the places where the things we know meet the things we didn’t.

“Tony Kushner had to make Abraham Lincoln talk,” Sorkin added admiringly. “He humanized a guy most of us only know from the penny.”

Feature films, in the end, are about the magic of invention. Realistic, but constrained by the need to entertain and the impulse to inspire. Sorkin, for one, often describes his work as “idealistic,” and history is anything but. But he is right that movies are better understood as dreams and fantasies, illusions and ideals, mysteries and beliefs. As Hoberman exquisitely put it: “I don’t think that there can be absolute history. When you have a dream, you create a narrative when you remember it.”

Like the Bible, movies are not diminished if devoid of literalism. On the contrary, their stories gain relevance and meaning through the prism of interpretation.  

“I think we owe it to those whose stories we tell to be as accurate as possible,” the Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis wrote to me in an e-mail. “[But] we are dramatists, not documentarians. We shape the truth not only in what we write, but what we don’t. We need to tell the truth as we see it, through our characters’ eyes. And if we do our job well, we will reveal the truth of our subject and characters, even if those truths are uncomfortable, and perhaps not what our subjects would have liked to have seen, should they be sitting in the audience.”

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February 19, 2013 | 2:20 am

Jack Paley: Celebrity chef

Posted by Danielle Berrin

When Hollywood wants to throw a dinner party, Jack Paley often gets the call. The veteran chef, who primarily works solo, is known to have cooked for a vast array of entertainment titans and Internet tycoons, including Oprah Winfrey, Google co-founder Larry Page and actress Gwyneth Paltrow (requests for confirmation were declined). Chef Jack, as he is known among clients, prefers individual dinners-for-hire where he can employ the full breadth of his creativity without being beholden to the finicky lifestyle demands that sometimes come with long-term employment (though, there was that six-month stint cooking full time for one of Hollywood’s best-known Scientologists). Nondisclosure agreements, for one, can be such a pain. 

Paley’s business card is as discrete as they come: just his first name, the title “private chef” and a phone number. He has no need for a Web site since clients come to him mostly via word of mouth, and though he has an e-mail address, he’s often too busy shopping and prepping and planning to check it. Keeping his distance from the public is helpful when he’s working inside the homes of the often-paranoid and privacy-deprived rich and famous, a vantage point that would make many a gossip columnist wish he were more venal. But his lack of pretension is part of why he’s indispensable: As a cook and food curator, Paley might be described as a naturalist, delivering the simplicity of fine ingredients, nutrition and tastes from the outside world into the seclusion of private kitchens. 

He worked for a year and a half for producer Janet Zucker and her husband, Jerry, and she now calls him, “my perfect wife.” 

“He’s neat, he’s clean, his food is amazingly delicious and healthy,” Zucker said.  “My husband wishes I could cook the way he does.”

On a recent Wednesday morning trek to the Santa Monica Farmers Market, Paley was shopping for a “little gathering” the following Saturday night, “industry related” of course, you know, “a cocktail hour sort of thing” for probably 20 or so people, at which he planned to serve hors d’oeuvres, “little finger foods, little pickled things, some crudités and maybe dip.” It was all to take place at the Malibu residence of two popular musicians. His first buy was mangos.

“These mangos are off-the-chain,” Paley said as he picked up a plump, tender fruit. “Zero carbon footprint,” he added, which is very important to him. “Compared to stuff from South America, the Pacific Rim, which is usually irradiated, nutritionally, that just makes it void. They do all this horrible s--- to food to bring it into the country. The great thing about getting it here is that none of that is done, so you’re eating food that is actually sustaining you rather than poisoning you — that’s what I love about this stuff. I get all excited.”

As a kid, Paley suffered from asthma and allergies, which he claims were cured by a healthier diet (though his allergy to cats stubbornly persists). His mother, whom he described as “a hippie naturalist,” taught him the value of natural nutrition. His father, on the other hand, a prominent Beverly Hills otolaryngologist, preferred to treat ailments and illnesses with antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. 

“When I realized as a young adult that food was the medicine and the medicine was the food, it all clicked,” Paley said about his decision to become a chef. “This is what I want to do, and supporting this kind of food is more powerful nutritionally and medicinally than any Western medicine.”

He was “in and out” of West Valley Occupational Center, where he admitted to having been more of a stoner than a student. He also decided against culinary school in favor of apprenticing for local chefs. “Institutional education can be a gift, but can also be limiting, because it keeps you in the box. It keeps your mind really structured,” he said.

He began his career working his way up the ranks of several catering companies, some of which handled Hollywood movie premieres. It was then that he was introduced to a steady stream of people in entertainment, though he found the work unsatisfying; events were sometimes so large, Paley said, serving crowds in the thousands, he had to oversee a kitchen with dozens of chefs and stick to conventional, “ordinary restaurant-style food” for his menus. When he began receiving offers to cater private parties, he leapt at the chance to do things his way.

As a private chef, Paley gets free reign to craft colorful menus and an unlimited budget for prime ingredients. His rate varies, depending on the event, but he charges anywhere from $50 per person for appetizers and hors d’oeuvres to hundreds for each guest for a multicourse sit-down dinner (and that does not include ancillary help, such as a sous chef, server or dishwasher). 

“This is why I come here,” Paley said as we entered the stall for Windrose Farm, a small family-run outfit east of Paso Robles. Barbara Spencer, who farms the land with husband Bill, tells me that in addition to certified organic, they are transitioning to a biodynamic farming model, a sustainable approach to agriculture that prizes complete ecological harmony. “They’re totally devout farmers, and the result is gorgeous produce,” Paley said, picking up a tawny, pear-shaped spaghetti squash. “These are fairy-tale squashes. They’re perfect looking. What I like to do is use them in place of pasta; I’ll bake this off, scoop it out, put it in casserole dish, pour some red sauce on top, some Comte [cheese], and you have an incredibly nutrient-dense comfort food.” 

He was equally smitten with Windrose’s Corolla potatoes and purchased a bag for himself. “A lot of my clients don’t like potatoes,” he said. “They’re scared of potatoes”— ever since the Atkins diet sanctioned fear of carbohydrates — “but now, what’s happening is they’re starting to understand that they’re loaded with vitamin C, and it’s such a high-quality carbohydrate, it’s actually critical to eat these.” 

Paley could talk food philosophy for hours: the value of liquid minerals, sustaining an abundant gut flora and how he avoids restaurants because most of them overuse salt and sugar. “People’s taste buds are anesthetized,” Paley said. “Most people don’t understand the delicate natural flavors of delicious food because they associate delicious food with massive amounts of salt and sugar.” 

I ask if his clients care as much about nutrition as he does, or if they’re even aware of how he’s feeding them. “A lot of times, when you start getting into the billionaire guys, they don’t give a s---,” he said. “But I love them the most because I can actually teach them stuff that they have no clue about.” Still, he described one pop singer’s diet as “really unhealthy.” “Ugh,” he said, with thinly disguised repulsion. “She eats horrible food. All she wants is, like, Mexican food and Italian food and Moroccan food.” On occasions when he is brought in to private islands or foreign countries, he makes a point of connecting with local purveyors whose ingredients meet his standards. And he’ll occasionally pack some spices into his carry-on. 

“Chefs are control freaks,” he said, admitting occasional frustration at the unpredictable elements of his vocation, such as traveling or dealing with celebrity assistants. By now, though, he has learned to accommodate a variety of situations (or at least, if need be, turn his head). Although he declined to comment on any of the celebrities mentioned in this article, he described other famous households variously as “nightmares,” “freak shows” or “insane asylums.” And he told of one couple who hosts outrageous bacchanalian parties on a large ranch, referring to them as “swingers.” “You know, they like to eat, drink, party. And then no one’s got their clothes on after a certain point.”

The stories about the stars are endless. But by 8:30 a.m., the public has begun to flood the market, and the chefs, who are admitted earlier, had already snapped up the choicest produce. Paley still had tomatoes on his list. “Shim, sham, shame,” he said, approaching the Japanese heirlooms. “I wanted to get five times this amount. Feel how soft and gelatinous it is; it’s past its prime.”

On the way out, we passed a stand selling black-sage marshmallows. “I would get something like that for kids, like Apple, for instance” — Paltrow’s daughter — “she loves fun food.” Paltrow is a known chef herself, and the author of two published cookbooks. “She’s a major chef,” Paley affirmed. “When she calls me, I’m flattered.” 

Working for Hollywood does have its pluses.

“These people are in positions where they can help make change. People laugh and say, ‘Oh, you know, movies,’ but movies have a lot of political and sociological impact on culture — here and throughout the world. So I think it’s kind of a nice arena for me to be able to spread the gospel.”

OSCAR PARTY SUGGESTIONS

LEMON FETA DIP 

6 to 7 ounces sheep’s-milk feta, mashed with a fork

2 teaspoons organic virgin olive oil

1/2 organic red onion, chopped fine

Zest and juice of 1 organic Meyer lemon

1 teaspoon organic toasted cumin seeds

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and serve. (Optional: Garnish with chopped chives.) 

Makes about 1 cup.

 

CURRY CHICKEN PECAN SKEWERS

2 cups organic raw pecans

4 organic chicken breasts, skin off, bone out (let sit out of refrigerator for 25 minutes)

20 6-inch bamboo skewers 

1 1/4 cups Vegenaise (soy free) or organic mayonnaise

2 tablespoons raw honey

1 1/2 tablespoons organic curry powder

Bake pecans in oven at 325 F for 10 minutes, cool, then chop into smallest pieces using on-off pulsing action in a food processor, being careful not to make into butter; put onto a wide, flat plate.

Blanch chicken breasts in boiling water for 10 minutes or until cooked through.

Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until cold. Slice against grain into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Should get approximately 5 slices per breast. 

Skewer chicken slices to resemble a lollipop, then refrigerate, wrapped in paper towel to keep very dry.

Mix vegenaise, honey and curry powder thoroughly.

Roll chicken in mayonnaise mixture to coat chicken with thin veneer, making sure not to coat too heavily. Mixture should not be so heavily coated that it drips off.

Roll chicken in pecan mixture to coat thoroughly. Place on serving platter and enjoy.

Serves 4 to 5 people. 

Snapshot of Chef Paley's dishes

Organic Dark Chocolate Laced Berry Cookies

Heirloom Tomato Candy

Grapefruit Supremes

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February 7, 2013 | 4:12 pm

The film projectionist you wish you knew

Posted by Danielle Berrin

The most famous man in Hollywood whom you’ve probably never heard of is 97-year-old Charles Aidikoff.

For nearly 50 years, Aidikoff has been operating a private screening room where filmmakers, Academy members and even studios can show their work to small, invitation-only audiences. There was the time, for example, when Denzel Washington wanted to see the final cut of one of his movies, alone, without distraction. Or the many occasions when directors, like Judd Apatow, want feedback from friends before handing a film over to a studio. But lately Aidikoff’s tiny theater has been filled with Academy voters scrambling to see all the nominated films before final voting begins on Feb. 8. With 57 luxe-leather seats, a red carpet, a curtain and the latest screening technology available, The Charles Aidikoff Screening Room beats the heck out of the living room couch.

On a late afternoon earlier this winter, a small group of Aidikoff’s friends were invited to a screening of the Oscar-nominated film Les Misérables. One perk of being a theater operator is the ability to screen current releases for friends, which Aidikoff does most Sundays, publishing his weekly selection on a private hotline. As is his routine, the moment Les Mis ended, Aidikoff leapt to the door to poll  his guests as they made their way out.  

“So whatdidya think?” he asked, looking playful and relaxed in a bulky Dodgers jacket and his signature black-rimmed eyeglasses. He spoke with the excited impatience of a boy outside a candy store.

“That was quite a production,” said Roger Small. “What’d you think?”

“The only complaint I have about the film is the songs and the music kept getting in the way of the story line!” Aidikoff exclaimed. Then he chuckled at the absurdity of his critique (the film, of course, is a musical).

A bonafide movie buff with an encyclopedic frame of reference, Aidikoff estimates that he’s screened-and-seen approximately 50,000 films. His favorite director, whom he’s met, is Orson Welles (“better than Spielberg!”); he prefers good old-fashioned drama to any other genre (tops are “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca” and “Gone With the Wind”); and he is not particularly fond of movie critics (“Don’t listen to ’em!”). He is, however, a bit star-crazy, judging by the walls of his theater, which are covered head to toe with snapshots of himself with all the famous faces who have dropped by over the years -- from Welles to Harvey Weinstein, Anne Margaret to Paris Hilton, from Uma to Scarlett to Penn and Pacino, and seemingly everyone in between. It would hardly be a stretch to say that if you work in Hollywood and you’re not on Aidikoff’s wall, you should work harder. Or as his friend Small put it, “You’re not anybody in Hollywood until you’ve had your picture taken with Charlie Aidikoff!”

But ask the nonagenarian if he still goes gaga meeting movie stars, and he plays demure. “Oh no,” he said, cracking a smile. “They all come to see me.”

Aidikoff will turn 98 the weekend of the Academy Awards. But even more remarkable than his age or the company he keeps is his storybook life. He has lived the American dream the way most people only experience it at the movies.

A child of the Great Depression, Aidikoff grew up in a solidly middle-class Brooklyn Jewish family. His father was a projectionist at a Coney Island movie theater and taught him how to run the projectors in the booth by the time he was 9. His dad later got the boy his first job as an usher in that same theater, and before long, encouraged him to join the family business – the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) -- to broaden his prospects.

“My dad said to me, ‘Charles, look, you are working 50 hours a week. I’m working 28 hours a week and making 25 dollars more than you’re making. Don’t be a schmuck. Become a projectionist.’”

Since steady jobs were hard to come by, however, eventually that wasn’t even enough, so Aidikoff and his wife decided to move to California, where there would be more demand. After a short stint running projectors at local theaters – and, this being California, at the drive-in movie -- Aidikoff decided to open his own business. At the time, there were only a handful of private screening rooms in existence, so he paid a visit to one near Sunset and Doheny and asked the owner if he could buy it. He cobbled together the $45,000 asking price through a bank loan and some money from his mother-in-law, but when he returned with a check, the owner raised his price by ten grand.

“I told the guy, ‘I’m gonna put you out of business,” Aidikoff said.

Aidikoff went down the street to 9255 Sunset Boulevard where the American Broadcasting Company had offices, along with the reputable Ashley-Famous talent agency. He asked the building manager for a space, and the manager offered what no one else wanted: 850 square feet off the main lobby with no windows. “Great,” Aidikoff said, “I don’t need any windows.” There was another catch: an obligatory 10-year-lease for $550 per month. Aidikoff signed, set his rate at $12 per hour, and on Dec. 12, 1964, opened The Charles Aidikoff screening room.

Then, like out of a Hollywood movie, he got his big break: Elton Rule, the president of ABC, asked if he could rent Aidikoff’s screening room all day, every weekday, leaving Aidikoff nights and weekends and any other time ABC didn’t need it. Aidikoff repaid both his loans within two years and bought a house in Studio City.

For 26 years, the screening room on Sunset was the setting for legends: young Steven Spielberg screened his first short films there hoping to land a studio job; George Lucas screened “Star Wars” for the very first time there; in the 70s, the Beatles stopped by. In fact, Aidikoff was so successful that in 1991 he upgraded to a Rodeo Drive location (a strategy centered on proximity to the big talent agencies), doubling his capacity. Today Aidikoff charges between $300 and $900 per hour, depending on the time of day and technology required. Sometimes, the room is used without a screening at all, as when earlier this month sportscaster Bob Costas rented it to conduct a series of interviews with Hollywood celebrities.

For those who work in the movie business, though, Aidikoff is his own brand of celebrity. In 2008, he became a member of the Academy – an unusual and rare honor for a projectionist – and he has been invited several times to attend the Oscars ceremony. “If you have some money you want to throw away, I’ll be happy to take you,” he said with a wry smile. Even with the coveted invitation, to attend – in style -- can still be expensive: “You don’t go to the Academy Awards in a car, you take a limo,” he said. But he promises that he gets good seats (“Front row, Mezzanine, where you can see everybody”), and his pal and client Harvey Weinstein has been known to invite him to the afterparties. 

Onscreen and off, Aidikoff has truly seen it all. From silent film to the digital age, he is an emblem of Hollywood history and a bastion of a bygone American age in which skilled labor was highly regarded, and contained the promise of entrepreneurship and enterprise. Are there still projectionists at Coney Island? There are hardly even any more projectors.

But Aidikoff doesn’t lament the past. And he doesn’t give a hoot about Hollywood’s obsession with youth. He’s worked hard for nearly nine decades and isn’t looking for do-overs. So how has he stayed so vital?

“You wanna know my real secret?” he asked. “When people ask I tell ’em: ‘Fast horses and slow women.’ If it would have been the other way around, I would’ve been dead 50 years ago.”

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February 6, 2013 | 12:53 pm

Amy Ziering’s visible war against military rape

Posted by Danielle Berrin

On a rainy Saturday night in January, a small group of leaders from the worlds of entertainment, media and philanthropy gathered at the home of billionaire businessman Ron Burkle to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Invisible War.”

For 97 minutes, the room was still. There was no coughing, no bathroom break, no popcorn. Once or twice, the unruly reflex of nervous laughter was heard, if only to relieve the tension of the movie’s subject. Mostly though, the 20 or so guests sat transfixed and uneasy as on screen U.S. military veterans — most of them women — told of their experiences of rape, sexual assault and physical abuse while serving their country. And if that was not disturbing enough, the audience learned, their woes did not end with those crimes against their bodies, but were compounded when they sought justice against the perpetrators. 

After the screening, California Sen. Barbara Boxer somberly walked to the front of the room. She wore a citrusy orange V-neck sweater and a thick strand of pearls. “Well,” she said, “you have seen a truth. It’s horrible. This is something we’d never want to know, because it’s so ugly.” Boxer, who serves as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and whose daughter Nicole is an executive producer of the film, appeared both outraged and embarrassed. The film presents a serious indictment — that rape and sexual assault are rampant in the U.S. military and, worse, that perpetrators benefit from systemic impunity while victims suffer unthinkably from institutional denial. “It’s a terrible secret the country needs to look at,” Boxer said, “and it’s as disturbing as anything I’ve ever seen.”

Since seeing the documentary at the Sundance Film Festival last year, Boxer has become one of its staunchest champions. Last November, she led the Senate to pass an amendment banning anyone convicted of a sexual assault felony from joining the armed forces. Its passage codified into law a policy initiated by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2009. Boxer explained to the group that enforcement of the policy had been lax in recent years as the demands of two wars forced the military to waive some of its requirements. “They were taking in requests from people who were kidnappers, arsonists,” Boxer said. “After this film, it was a no-brainer. No one dared stand up and say, ‘I’m not supporting this [bill].’ ”

U.S. Marine Corps First Lt. Ariana Klay in dress blues in “The Invisible War.”  Photo courtesy of Cinedigm/Docurama Films

 

“That’s a rare thing,” she added, “for a film to have so much power.”

“The Invisible War,” conceived and created by film partners Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick has provoked a ripple effect throughout Washington. After watching the film in April 2012, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta quickly moved to strengthen oversight regarding military policy on sexual assault. Last month, U.S. Air Force leaders were called before the House Armed Services Committee to testify on the conditions that led to widespread sexual assault of Air Force recruits by their instructors. A story in The New York Times credited the “The Invisible War” for putting this issue on the political map and reported that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III had gathered all of the Air Force’s wing commanders to watch the film in November.

Fans keep telling the filmmakers that they’ve created a tsunami. “A lot of people are upset that this film was made,” Boxer said at the screening. In the past, the issue had reared its head only when a scandal erupted, like the one at the Tailhook Association meetings in 1991 or at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1996, then retreated from the headlines. But now, with a highly visible Oscar nomination for best documentary, the cause of “The Invisible War” is becoming harder to ignore, and the public is demanding military and political officials be held accountable. Last week, Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel faced questions on the issue from Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who both grilled him on his position during confirmation hearings. “This issue bedevils the military,” Blumenthal said before asking Hagel if he had seen “The Invisible War.” Hearing that Hagel had, Blumenthal pressed for a promise to prosecute perpetrators of sexual assault as well as provide care for victims. “Absolutely, I’ll commit to that,” Hagel responded.

For producer Ziering, this was a major victory. “Did you hear?” she exclaimed during a break from a screening of the film at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. “Oh. My. God. And then, Lawrence O’Donnell” — anchor of MSNBC’s “The Last Word” — “for the first 15 minutes of his show tonight — my phone has been exploding, went crazy. He said the only issue that Hagel should be concerned with is rape in the military. And he showed clips from our movie, and he’s tweeting now. They said he’s blowing up Twitter, like ‘Hagel, what are you going to do about rape in the military?’ ” 

For Ziering, this project is more than a movie; it is a cause that has become a kind of second skin. Her interest was sparked in 2007, when she read Helen Benedict’s article in Salon, “The Private War of Women Soldiers,” based on interviews with 20 female Iraq veterans. “[E]very one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection,” Benedict wrote. When Ziering reached out to Benedict after reading her story, Benedict said she had simply intended to write a book about women in combat, but during the course of her research, stories of sexual assault kept pouring out. (A week later, the same topic appeared on the cover of the New York Times magazine.) Ziering, who had just completed the HBO documentary “Outrage,” about closeted politicians who legislate against gay causes, decided to pursue Benedict’s lead. 

She began by posting flyers at L.A. Veterans Affairs (VA) buildings seeking victims of military sexual assault. She also spoke with advocates, therapists and trolled through military chat rooms. She promised whoever came forward, that initial conversations would be kept off the record and offered options on how to share their stories — letters, e-mails, by phone or in person. Ziering also created a Facebook page providing background information about herself; partner Dick, who directed the film; and their film company. She received hundreds of responses.

The film’s director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering at the 65th annual Directors Guild of America Awards on Feb. 2. Photo by Michael Germana Star Max/Newscom

 

Over four months, Ziering interviewed more than 100 veterans by phone. From those, she whittled down her subjects to 21 people who fit a master criteria: the experiences had to be recent, the victims had to be geographically accessible, and they had to represent the diverse branches of the military. Perhaps most important, the stories had to be “unassailable,” Ziering said. 

“In many of these [sexual-assault] cases, a lot of the evidence has been destroyed or there are no records kept. We didn’t want any vulnerabilities or holes that could get [the film] attacked and discredited,” Ziering said. The film also couldn’t seem “anti-military.” Since a project of this scale on this topic was unprecedented, diplomacy mattered. “There’s no book on this,” Ziering said. “We are the story.”

“The Invisible War” opens with archival black-and-white footage depicting the glamour of the U.S. military and its decision to admit women into the service. In the ensuing montage, female veterans describe the reasons for their desire to serve — a passion for service, a sense of duty, family military history or a desire to see the world. “I could just always see the movies of the military, and I just knew: That was me. That’s what I wanted to do,” Kori Cioca, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, says. While serving, Cioca was raped several times by her superior. On one occasion he struck her across the face, severely damaging her jaw. The blow caused disc and nerve damage so severe that she has since been forced to eat a “soft diet.” Five years after the incident, the film relates, the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to deny her medical coverage for jaw surgery. 

Cioca’s story serves as the central thread of the documentary, though it also includes interviews with other veterans, lawyers, therapists, experts and political officials. As the filmmakers delve into Cioca’s private life, showing her at home with her husband, Rob McDonald (also a Coast Guard veteran, who resigned after his wife’s ordeal), and their young daughter, it becomes clear that her rape trauma affects the entire family — from the pained and fraught sex life that has darkened their marriage to their young daughter’s daily exposure to her mother’s physical limitations and emotional preoccupations. At one point, McDonald tells the camera that his most ardent hope for his daughter is that she never serve in the military. In this way, the film suggests rape is not just a women’s issue, but rather a societal one, affecting families and communities across generations. 

According to Department of Defense (DOD) statistics, 3,192 incidents of sexual assault were reported in 2011, but studies indicate the actual number is likely much higher — close to 19,000 per year — since 80 percent of sexual-assault cases are never reported. This means that as many as a half-million sexual assaults have occurred in the U.S. military since the early 1990s. And even when cases are reported, the film suggests, they often become tied up in bureaucratic never-land, and a pervasive culture of victim-blaming leaves many victims who come forward subject to professional retaliation. 

Ariana Klay, a Naval Academy graduate and Iraq War veteran, reported being gang raped while serving at Marine Barracks Washington, the elite Marine Corps unit that handles ceremonial duties for the president. Afterward, she claims, she was told that she had invited the harassment by wearing the regulation-length skirt that serves as her uniform. She was also accused of misconduct. “The thing that makes me the most angry is not the rape itself,” she tells the camera, “but the complicity in covering it up.”

The trauma of military sexual assault, according to experts in the film, is unusually damaging because of the armed forces’ familial culture, which makes the betrayal harder to bear. One therapist interviewed equates it with incest. 

“What is boot camp?” Ziering asked. “It’s all about stripping you down psychologically, making you believe that these are your brothers, and then suddenly someone’s assaulting you? And they say ‘suck it up’ or ‘it’s your fault’ or ‘it didn’t happen.’ It’s just completely profoundly damaging in a way you and I can’t comprehend. 

“Most of the women in our film were discharged for personality disorders,” she added. “There’s nothing wrong with them! And then their perpetrator gets accolades and honors and has a healthy career? I mean, what do you do with that?”

When I met Ziering a few weeks ago at a Brentwood cafe near her home, she was seated in a courtyard with her laptop, negotiating a potential CNN buyout of “The Invisible War” from PBS (the latter was an early contributor to the film’s $850,000 budget, which came with broadcast rights; the CNN deal subsequently collapsed). Ziering looked relaxed, casually dressed in khakis and a cotton tee with a cashmere sweater tied around her neck, her chestnut hair blown perfectly straight. Her soft, almost delicate appearance is a fitting counterpoint to her feistiness, and though she possesses the air of elegance that comes with having had a posh upbringing, it’s a topic she’d rather avoid. 

“I can’t talk about our family,” she said bluntly. “Whatever you want to say about us is fine. I feel stupid … I mean, just Google my mom.”

Ziering was raised in Beverly Hills, the daughter of philanthropists Marilyn and Sigi Ziering, major supporters of American Jewish University, Temple Beth Am, American Friends of the Israeli Philharmonic and LA Opera. Sigi, now deceased, was a Holocaust survivor who went on to found a multinational medical diagnostic corporation. But it was his Holocaust legacy that steered her course. “I was incredibly interested in trauma, being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and it’s actually sort of an unconscious thread in most of my films. There’s always a psychological dimension that deals with the nature of trauma.” 

Working in the entertainment industry was never her goal. She said she had “zero interest in films. Never watched them. I walked out of ‘Star Wars’ when I was 12.” She fell into documentary filmmaking as a graduate student at Yale when she decided to make a film about her professor, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. A rabid student of philosophy — she studied “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, Foucault” — a film on Derrida offered an opportunity to get close to the living legend. “It was really raising the bar in a bizarre way, like, how could I get even more crazy access and push myself?” she said. “And of course he said no, and of course I pursued him for like two years.” 

Ziering is marked by a spellbinding duality, a combination of deep sensitivity and outrageous chutzpah that she happily exploits to her advantage. During production of “The Invisible War,” she was compassionate and tender enough to elicit personal and painful stories from strangers; but outside that context, she displays an almost ruthless drive to get what she wants. Dick, with whom she collaborated on “Derrida,” “Outrage” and “The Invisible War,” described her this way: “When Amy decides that she wants to go after something, she will not take no for an answer. … And she has this skill at asking in a way that she expects the person to say yes.” 

Dick credits Ziering’s protective, maternal nature for her skill in conducting the interviews for “The Invisible War.” “They are really the soul of the film,” he said. Which is a tad ironic, since Ziering described her own mothering style as a little detached. Though her family life is full — she is married to filmmaker Gil Kofman, with whom she has three daughters, ages 14, 15 and 20, and described the family as “totally close” — she admitted that her kids don’t always come first. “I ignore them,” she said, only half-joking. “It’s amazing how resourceful [children] become when you pay no attention to them. My daughter’s soccer coach asked if she had parents, because I’ve never been to a game. I’m not gonna kid: something gives.” 

Ziering finds justification for her compromise in the idea that her work is altruistic in purpose. “I don’t care about myself,” she said. “I’m not much of a glamour-seeking or publicity-seeking person. I’m a workaholic; that’s all that interests me.” 

Ziering has applied her merciless resolve to getting “The Invisible War” seen in Washington. “We not only wanted to make a very powerful film for film audiences, we wanted to make a film that several hundred of the most powerful people in Washington, D.C., would see and hopefully be compelled to do something,” Dick said. “That’s when Amy undertook this very skillful, brilliantly strategized and calculated campaign to get this film in front of influencers and policy makers.” 

She started with Wikipedia, looking up the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and the leaders of all five branches — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard — and then sent an e-mail to her girlfriends asking if they knew “any of these guys’ wives, daughters, sisters.” “And if so, I need to talk to them,” she recalled writing. Within a week, one friend wrote that she was having lunch with the wife of a top general and would mention the film. A few weeks later, Ziering flew to D.C. to hold a private screening for the general and his wife (Ziering wouldn’t give their names). Afterward, the couple offered their help. “I need you to call Martin Dempsey” —  the decorated general and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ziering told them. “I need him to watch this film.”

“The Invisible War” had just enjoyed a splashy premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation and won the U.S. documentary audience award. (At Sundance, New York Jewish philanthropists Barbara and Eric Dobkin were so moved by the film they offered to pay for Kori Cioca’s jaw surgery.) Eager to capitalize on the press that followed, Ziering organized a screening on Capitol Hill that was attended by 16 senators and eight representatives.

“I did my homework,” Ziering told me. “Everybody said, you can grass-roots this thing till the cows come home, but the military is a top-down organization — the Joint Chiefs of our military need to see this; Obama needs to see it; Leon Panetta needs to see it — and until that happens, nothing is going to change.”

Several months later, Ziering got a text message from Jennifer Siebel Newsom, one of the film’s executive producers and the wife of Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor who is now California’s lieutenant governor. Newsom had been in Washington attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Congratulations Amy,” Newsom wrote. “You got it to Panetta.” 

Ziering’s endgame is and always has been policy change. After Panetta watched “The Invisible War,” he amended military protocol for reporting sexual assault by taking authority out of the hands of unit commanders — who, Defense Department statistics show, deter reporting because of their proximity to perpetrators or because they happen to be the perpetrator — and placed discretion instead in the hands of colonels or Navy captains. It was a promising start, but hardly a panacea: “Our ask is to take adjudication of these crimes outside the chain of command,” Ziering said, adding that Great Britain, Australia and Canada all have independent bodies to investigate and prosecute military sexual assault. When I requested an interview with the Department of Defense, the response was a statement from Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, which did not address policy but called the film “gut-wrenching” and stated his commitment to “eliminating” sexual assault from the U.S. military. 

“There has to be a system of checks and balances. Absolute authority corrupts,” Ziering said.

After becoming close with the subjects in her film, Ziering said she felt compelled to try to help them obtain treatment. Years after the assaults, Ziering said, almost every single person she interviewed still suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. “Survivors would describe the day the trauma happened as the day their life stopped. And from my knowledge of survivors of the Holocaust, not all, but a lot of them were able to compartmentalize and lead healthy productive lives. I didn’t see one person I talked to who had at all recovered in a way where they were high functioning or happy. It was this radical transformation that seemed irrecuperable.”

Another of the film’s producers, public relations executive Regina Kulik Scully, stepped forward with a half-million dollars (in addition to her contribution to the production) to pilot The Artemis Rising Invisible War Recovery Program, a two-week residential treatment program at The Bridge to Recovery in Santa Barbara. The pilot program began Feb. 3 with five of the women from the film. In addition to offering intensive individual and group therapy along with equine therapy, yoga and dance, a researcher from Stanford has attended the retreat to gather data for a scientific study, hoping to quantify the program’s results. If effective, Ziering and Scully suggest it could become a prototype for the VA, a model for future treatment. “Right now, the one-stop shop is pharmaceuticals,” Ziering said.

Despite this cause’s harsh realities and the uphill battle that remains, Ziering said she finds the work rewarding. “My dad, obviously, was first degree on profound despair, but he turned that pain into this incredible optimism and passion for helping others — and the older I get, the more I marvel at that,” she said, as tears welled in her eyes. “That, that was his takeaway.” 

Ziering regained her characteristic toughness when talk turned to the Oscars. After all, “The Invisible War,” is competing at the Oscars against two Israeli films — “5 Broken Cameras” and “The Gatekeepers.” So, she allowed herself to call in a favor from her well-connected mother. “I did finally say to my mom, ‘You’ve been supporting Israel all your life. You’re not. That’s over.’ ”

Eager to oblige, Marilyn Ziering called a few of her rabbi pals, as well as leaders from other Jewish organizations to spread the good word about her daughter’s film. 

“The fact that ‘The Invisible War’ has the misfortune of being up against two Israeli movies is just something we have to get over,” a very resolute Marilyn Ziering told me by phone. For her daughter, winning an Oscar is a means to a much bigger end, although its prestige could help her get there. In a flash of sarcasm, Amy Ziering described her mother’s task as “Operation Annihilate Shin Bet” — a joking reference to Israel’s internal security agency, the subject of “The Gatekeepers” — but she then quickly recanted for fear of Academy reprisal. Ziering said she felt bad about dissing the competition. But not too bad.

“I have a bigger mission, so screw it,” she said, throwing her head back in laughter. “I’m not much of a rules girl.” 

“The Invisible War” will have a brief theatrical re-release this weekend in select cities -- it will screen in Los Angeles Thurs. Feb. 7 at 7pm at the Museum of Tolerance -- and will premier on PBS on Memorial Day, May 27. The film is currently available on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon. 

"The Invisible War" can be seen  Feb. 8-13 at the ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Pacific

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January 31, 2013 | 10:16 pm

L.A.‘s mayoral candidates court Jews and Hollywood

Posted by Danielle Berrin

In L.A.’s mayoral race there are two communities to which the candidates are eager to prove their closeness and connection: the Jewish community and Hollywood.

At their second synagogue debate earlier this week at Sinai Temple (the first took place at Beth Jacob on Jan. 3) the bulk of the five mayoral candidates were quick to address their Jewish connection in their opening remarks (watch the full debate here). The cozying up became so obvious, in fact, that when a colleague of mine conducted an interview at the end of the debate the first thing the woman complained about was how much certain candidates “played the Jewish card.”

Yesterday, an email from Eric Garcetti’s campaign boasted that more than 200 entertainment leaders have endorsed the City Councilman, including former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Showtime president David Nevins and Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. Other notable names include Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lions Gate Entertainment, Kevin Huvane, partner at CAA, entertainment entrepreneur Michael Ovitz and sibling showrunners David Kohan (“Will and Grace”) and Jenji Kohan (“Weeds”).

Hollywood seems to be split between the two frontrunners -- Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel, who likes to tout her industry cred as a former employee of the “iconic” Dreamworks SKG, the movie studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Greuel worked in corporate affairs for Dreamworks from 1997 to 2002 and easily won endorsements from her former bosses last summer, as well as from J.J. Abrams, Leonard Nimoy and Candy Spelling. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney Studios chief Alan Horn and WME superagent Ari Emanuel also gave early endorsements to Greuel.

The subject of Hollywood figured squarely into the debate Tuesday night when Rabbi David Wolpe, the evening’s moderator, asked the candidates what message they had for the entertainment industry.

Bill Boyarsky writes in L.A. Observed:

Wolpe said, “Let’s say you had in front of you the top 500 Hollywood executives. What is it you want to say to them about the movies they make, the city they live in and about the image they give our city and our country to the world? And is it the mayor’s job to monitor, lecture, to uplift, to help shape Los Angeles’ most important industry?”

City Councilman Eric Garcetti offered his usual pitch about giving the industry more tax breaks and other incentives to film in Los Angeles. Similar economic solutions were offered by Controller Wendy Greuel, attorney and former radio talk show host Kevin James and Obama administration transition official Emanuel Pleitez.

Councilwoman Perry seemed to understand that the rabbi had something deeper in mind. She said she had supported legislation to make it easier to make feature film in California, but she quickly moved on: “If we had a room full of executives…from the film industry, I would say this: I would encourage your creativity. I would encourage you to put people in Los Angeles back to work. We have unchecked potential here and I would encourage you to create more apprenticeships, more internships, more opportunities to reach out to young people who may not have the connections or the wherewithal to have a career in the industry and to pull them along with you.

“I’d also say this: ‘Let’s go to the schools, let’s talk to families about the portrayal of violence in movies and how it does desensitize younger people who spend too much time playing violent games on line and then go see it in the movies and remember how it does affect the growth of the next generation.” 

Boyarsky added that he found it “gutty” for Perry to speak so candidly to an industry that “brooks no criticism.” And although she won big on Tuesday night among her mayoral colleagues -- each of the four other candidates said that if they weren’t running, they’d vote Perry -- she has not managed to secure as many allies in the entertainment industry as Garcetti and Greuel. Perhaps that’s why she has chosen to play up her conversion to Judaism instead.

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January 30, 2013 | 5:23 pm

Aaron Swartz: martyr or mascot?

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Anyone just tuning in to the sensation created by Aaron Swartz’s death might easily think he’s the Internet’s Joan of Arc.

Last month, the 26-year-old prodigy programmer, activist and blogger hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment. He was a “wizardly” figure, according to The New York Times, a Stanford dropout and a Harvard University fellow, lauded foremost for his creation of the RSS feed, a Web syndication program that allows Internet users to subscribe to information.

Swartz’s passion and purpose was that everyone should have access to information and ideas — without having to pay for them. To that end, he once hid out in an M.I.T. utility closet, broke into the school’s computer network and downloaded millions of files from JSTOR, a nonprofit organization that sells subscriptions to scientific and literary journals. His act was born of principle, but nevertheless illegal: He was indicted on federal charges of wire fraud and computer fraud, which carried potential penalties of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

But Swartz’s stunt also provoked a big question that continues to resonate: Is knowledge a right or a privilege?

Story continues after the jump.

 

Since his suicide on Jan. 11, the Internet has erupted with outrage. Scores of passionate eulogies have portrayed Swartz as a gallant hero, some of which is justified: The world has lost “a prodigal mind,” “a brilliant programmer” and “a passionate advocate for social justice.” But much of it also seems misguided:  “Why Did the Justice System Target Aaron Swartz?” read a headline in Rolling Stone. According to that article, Swartz’s friends and family believe he was “driven to his death” by an unfair lawsuit and an uncompromising prosecutor.

“How the Legal System Failed Aaron Swartz — And Us,” echoed The New Yorker, whose writer Tim Wu went so far as to implicate the whole of American society in Swartz’s death: “We can rightly judge a society by how it treats its eccentrics and deviant geniuses — and by that measure, we have utterly failed,” he wrote.

What we have failed at, rather, is distinguishing between deviance and sedition. Like Julian Assange, Swartz was a steward of the free-information movement, a group of technology activists with anarchist ideas and methods who sought to make Web content freely available — copyrights be damned. Swartz even founded the online advocacy group Demand Progress, which led the charge against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a Hollywood-backed bill that would have restricted access to copyrighted content. This endeared him to the digital generation but made him a bane of Hollywood.

“I don’t understand it at all,” one industry heavyweight told me. “When has a suicide ever been attributed to anything other than a mental or emotional instability? The government prosecutes people all the time who don’t kill themselves — the Hollywood 10, to name one example. Or 10 examples.”

Unlike James Dean, Swartz was a rebel with a cause. He was no idling, addlepated teenager suffering from listlessness and moral confusion; he was a deeply engaged dissident with apparently few qualms about breaking the law. A victim of his own ideology, he is more mascot than martyr. A sweet-faced youth icon for a shadowy movement.

The looming criminal case may have cast a dark shadow over a delicate soul that suffered from serious depression. But was the government being too callous in mounting a case against him? Or are Swartz’s followers, aggrieved and naïve, unwilling to acknowledge that political dissent has its price?

Information activists should read up. Literature is filled with myths and tales about the dangers of pursuing knowledge. It melted Icarus’ wings. It drove Adam and Eve from Eden. It is no accident that the very first story in the Bible teaches that the human pursuit of knowledge is answered with punishment.

“For in much wisdom is much grief,” Ecclesiastes tells us. “He that increases knowledge increases sorrow.”

What Swartz knew, and which, perhaps, his supporters do not, is that knowledge is painful and consequential. The biblical Tree of Knowledge is referred to as the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There is no neutral knowledge; it always leads somewhere. Ignorance is the only true bliss.

In Swartz’s legacy is a tragic but powerful lesson. He loved knowledge; he sought knowledge; he suffered from knowledge. It is an unfortunate truth that the more you know, the more truth you seek, the more the world becomes strange in its lack. Swartz sought to fill that void with more and more information, more access. The government, with its mandate to protect, manages the unknown with laws of control.

Law and philosophy came into conflict within Swartz’s soul, and he suffered terribly. “Everything gets colored by the sadness,” he wrote in a blog post about his battle with depression. “At best, you tell yourself that your thinking is irrational, that it is simply a mood disorder, that you should get on with your life. But...[y]ou feel as if streaks of pain are running through your head, you thrash your body, you search for some escape but find none.”

Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel once taught that when faced with the choice between the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life, Adam and Eve chose wisdom over immortality.

In his way, Swartz made the same choice. May his soul be bound up in the bonds of eternal life.

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