May 23, 2013 | 5:48 pm

The Great Gatsby’s Jew

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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F. Scott Fitzgerald plainly proclaimed his distaste for the Jews with a cliched portrait of the gangster Meyer Wolfsheim in his Jazz Age opus “The Great Gatsby.” The integral but peripheral character is never described in detail, save for an upfront declaration that he is a Jew: “A small, flat-nosed Jew” with “tiny eyes” and “two fine growths of hair” luxuriating in his deeply enchanting nostril (which apparently mystified Fitzgerald since he mentions it several times); indeed, for Fitzgerald, the Jew’s most salient and significant feature is his protean nose, at once “expressive” and “tragic” and which possesses the artful ability to “flash...indignantly” (how I wish mine could do that).

Published in 1925, Fitzgerald’s novel has long been criticized for its portrayal of Wolfsheim as more of a Jewish caricature than character. In the book, “AntiSemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution” Richard Levy notes that Fitzgerald’s Wolfsheim memorably and “pointedly connected Jewishness and crookedness” (this one, not of the nose variety). In 1947, Milton Hindus, assistant humanities professor at the University of Chicago published an article about “Gatsby” in Commentary Magazine that declared “the novel reads very much like an anti-Semitic document.” In it, Hindus argued that although on the whole he considered “Gatsby” to be an “excellent” novel, he found the story and the characters “general and representative rather than particular and confined.” “The Jew who appears in The Great Gatsby,” he wrote, “is easily its most obnoxious character.”

Hindus attributed this to the prevailing anti-Semitism of the age. This was, after all, the American avant-garde of the 1920s in which a rapidly rising middle class was radically redefining notions of privilege and access. The power shift in social class was destabilizing, and as the uncultured masses began to mix with the wealthy elite (much like at Gatsby’s legendary parties) those who disapproved sought comfort in “an allegiance to tradition and hatred of the contemporary bourgeoisie.” All of which, Hindus argued, lent itself nicely to a general cultural wariness of the Jew.

And as if party crashing wasn’t distasteful enough, other prevailing traditions of the time -- namely, religious and literary -- also found ways to scapegoat the Jew as the cause of contemporary ills. Melding both, Hindus observed that, “The New Testament can be regarded as a drama in which the Jews play the role of villain,” a narrative trope that greatly influenced the avant-garde writers of the time -- Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Fitzgerald, among them. Equally incensed by the ascendance of the middle class whose social and economic gains effectively denied the literary class -- with their superior education and cultural erudition -- their rightful place in the American social strata, the Jew then became the stand-in for the despised bourgeoisie. And in circles whose standards for social decorum did not permit open anti-Semitism, the writers were thus given license to “flaunt” in their work the anti-Semitic seething that was otherwise “concealed by the rest of polite society.” 



But this was not your grandmother’s European anti-Semitism. Hindus eventually concluded that Fitzgerald’s dislike of the Jews “was a superficial, merely ‘fashionable’ thing” -- by which he meant, that as an observer and chronicler of culture Fitzgerald’s understanding of Jews would have been of the “habitual, customary, ‘harmless,’ unpolitical variety” and not the insidious kind which resulted in the pogroms, expulsions and inquisitions of Jewish history.

This brand of temperate anti-Semitism has lately been tempered even further by the latest film incarnation of Fitzgerald's classic novel. Director Baz Luhrmann has said he quite purposively cast the non-Jewish Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan in the role of Meyer Wolfsheim. In an interview with Yahoo’s Wide Screen blogger Will Perkins, Luhrmann admitted to a non-controversial casting strategy. “I was trying to solve the issue of Meyer Wolfsheim because there’s a big question there,” Luhrmann said. “Fitzgerald draws the character in what some might say is a very broad, anti-Semitic manner.”

Indeed, in his New York Times review of Luhrmann’s “Gatsby,” film critic A.O. Scott noted, “The gangster Meyer Wolfsheim is a bit less of a cringe-worthy anti-Semitic caricature than he was in 1925.” But the New Yorker’s David Denby found the choice misguided: “[T]he director, perhaps not wishing to be accused of anti-Semitism, cast the distinguished Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan as the Jewish gangster. This makes no sense, since the gangster’s name remains Wolfsheim and Tom [Buchanan] later refers to him as ‘that kike.’”

Which leads one to wonder: Was there no way to portray Fitzgerald’s Jew as a Jew without the seamy stereotypes? In casting an Indian actor, Luhrmann effectively usurped the Jewishness of the character and managed to avoid it entirely. Save for his name, Luhrmann’s Wolfsheim is not identifiable as a Jew in any meaningful way.

On some level, this constitutes a denial of historical truth on the part of the director, even as it ethnically (and perhaps creatively) reimagines the role. Is Luhrmann trying to tell us ethnicities are interchangeable? That because Fitzgerald’s character was portrayed in anti-Semitic strokes he should not be portrayed as a Jew? Perhaps some see in this betrayal of the character’s essence a triumph against stereotype. But it seems more accurate to suggest that it illustrates the director’s own confusion and lack of imagination (which is actually quite stunning considering how brilliantly fresh the rest of the film is).

Rather than truly explore what might make Wolfshiem a “less cringe-worthy anti-Semitic caricature” as Scott put it, Luhrmann cowered in the face of potential controversy, determined to avoid that, too. What would have happened, if say, he had cast the very talented and very conspicuously Jewish actor Adrien Brody to play Wolfsheim?

I'm willing to bet Brody would have played the role perfectly -- I mean, pointedly crooked -- without pandering.

May 21, 2013 | 9:43 am

Judd Apatow and Marc Maron bond as Jews and men

Posted by Danielle Berrin

They were just two Jewish boys kidding around.

“Not since Passover have there been so many people here,” writer/director/producer Judd Apatow announced to a full house at the Saban Theatre last week, there to see Apatow foist his comedy colleague Marc Maron into the hot seat for the popular Writers Bloc salon series.

Tribal affiliation notwithstanding, Apatow, 45, and Maron, 49, couldn’t be more different. Apatow is an uber-wealthy Hollywood hotshot, whose movies “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and, recently, “This Is 40” have made him one of American comedy’s household names. Maron, on the other hand, struggled as a gypsy stand-up comic for nearly three decades before coming into his own as the host of the popular podcast, “WTF With Marc Maron,” which he has been recording in his garage since 2009 and has recently parlayed into a book, “Attempting Normal” and a TV series on IFC, “Maron.”

Although the comedy gurus spent time admiring one another onstage, demonstrating an easy, funny, flowing rapport, their temperaments and comic sensibilities proved wildly divergent. Apatow identified himself as having the “classic Jewish neurotic people-pleasing personality,” while Maron described himself as a longtime “cynical, bitter -f---.” But for these two wielders of wit, hot-blooded though bearded and graying, having similar backgrounds propelled them into a shared profession, as each aimed to realize comic gifts sprung from alienation.

The first topic they tackled was fathers, the most primary of influences on their life and work. Maron is candid about his complicated feelings for his father, who is often the subject of raw and even brutal scrutiny on his podcast. Apatow’s parents divorced when he was 12, and he was subsequently split from his two siblings, who each lived with different guardians. The experience clearly wounded him, to the point where even after achieving uncommon success, Apatow said he is always on guard for something disruptive to happen. “I always feel like someone’s gonna punch me in the face,” he said. “I can’t shake that feeling.”

“Well, I get into bed and think someone’s gonna hit me with a bat in my sleep,” Maron countered, followed by an anecdote depicting a sort of clueless, rageful father. “You never knew whether or not we’d spend a weekend looking for a hat.” The unpredictability sparked in Maron a kind of rueful, anxious comedy through which his sadness and self-effacement became a creative asset. “When you have a charismatic, completely self-centered, erratic parent, and you work to adapt to that your whole life, it’s like, ‘You’re perfect for interviewing celebrities!’ ”

“Maybe with erratic parents, you feel unsafe,” Apatow said, offering a reason for artistic diligence as a stabilizing force.

“I got into comedy to be OK with myself,” Maron said. “I have to explore who I am on stage.”

Sexual swagger (Maron) — or lack thereof (Apatow) — was another subject in which the comics were at odds. In his book, Maron boastfully declares his skill and virility in the bedroom, whereas on stage Apatow admitted to “awkward” experiences, in which casual sex proved empty and unwieldy and climaxes came prematurely. Apatow has, of course, long been married to the actress Leslie Mann and is the father of two daughters, Maude, 15, and Iris, 10. Maron is twice divorced and, according to his memoir, currently in a committed relationship with a woman who is eager to have children.

Apatow seized on the opportunity to nudge Maron toward fatherhood: “Don’t be a p---y,” he said. “Have a kid! You don’t want to be that guy.”  

“I’m almost 50!” Maron exclaimed. 

“So?” Apatow answered.

Maron explained that since publishing the book, the conversation about having children with his girlfriend had “leveled off.”

“How can it level off?” Apatow wondered. “It has to resolve …”

“I was a given a deadline,” Maron said.

“When?”

“July. I have to put a baby in her by July.”

“That’s what you should tell your child,” Apatow quipped. “You were the result of a lost argument.”

For all their mutual mishegoss, they have both led wildly colorful lives. But whereas Maron regaled the crowd with tales from his early stand-up career apprenticing at The Comedy Store with stars like Sam Kinison whom he called “mad men” who liked to drink and dope, Apatow said he considers himself of a cleaner comic breed. “I was more of a Seinfeld guy. I wanted to have roast-beef sandwiches with Jerry Seinfeld. I didn’t want to stay up all night doing coke.”

“You did the right thing, Judd,” Maron said, alluding to Apatow’s first-class career, but admonished, “I have better stories.”

As Apatow pointed out, Maron’s desperation led him to a “pure-of-heart creativity” that reflects his self-doubt and self-loathing, his anger and cynicism, but also offers a raw, real honesty that the public has found endearing. What happens, though, Apatow wondered, when a person who has staked his comic career on the bitterness of life eventually achieves many of its pleasures — fame, money, maybe even love? 

“I don’t know if I can completely identify with happiness,” Maron said. The feat, he said, is that “I don’t feel bitter anymore.” 

Apatow said that several years ago he realized he had reached the pinnacle of his personal experience of happiness; because of his personal and professional successes, he’d gotten the chance to be “as happy as I can get.” Eventually though, he confessed, it goes away, dissolving into a kind of homeostatic contentedness. “You can’t make your life about chasing peak joy experiences,” he told Maron, this time sounding a bit like a parent. 

“I didn’t think any of this was going to happen,” Maron said. “Three years ago, I thought, ‘I just have to make this podcast work so I can get health insurance.’ ” He said his podcast enabled him to work through his disappointment and anger by “talking to guys who made me laugh.” The garage as confessional — or even therapist’s couch — proved psychologically salutary.  

“I got my heart back,” Maron said. “I was in search of being myself; that was my journey.”

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May 20, 2013 | 12:02 pm

Barbra Streisand expected to perform publicly in Israel for the first time

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Babs is heading to the Holy Land next month for two major events in her long and legendary career: On June 17, she will receive an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University and, during the same visit, she is expected to perform publicly in Israel for the very first time.  

According to a press release, the university will present Streisand with the award in recognition of her humanitarianism and dedication to Israel and the Jewish people. In a statement, Hebrew University president Menahem Ben-Sasson commended Streisand's "transcendent talent," "passionate concern for equality" and "love of Israel and her Jewish heritage."

Streisand has had a longstanding relationship with the university. In 1984, she created the Emanuel Streisand Building for Jewish Studies on Hebrew U's Mount Scopus campus, in honor of her father. During the dedication, she described her father as “a teacher, scholar and religious man who devoted himself to education.” He died of complications from an epileptic seizure when Streisand was barely a year old.  

But perhaps even bigger news is that Streisand finally plans to perform for the Israeli public for the first time -- twice during her visit. It's stunning to think that the 71-year-old songstress who has staked so much of her identity on her Jewish heritage is so late in a line of illustrious entertainers -- including Madonna, Elton John and Rihanna -- to perform in Israel, though she has performed in Los Angeles at the fundraising gala for Friends of the Israel Defense Forces Western Region.

In addition, according to the Associated Press, Streisand is also expected to perform for a private group at a June conference honoring Israeli President Shimon Peres on the occasion of his 90th birthday. This will not be the first time that Streisand has performed before Israel's leaders; at the December 2011 FIDF gala, she told the audience that in 1978 she had performed at a 30th anniversary celebration for the State and had the opportunity to speak ("via satellite of course") with then-Prime Minister Golda Meir, which she said was "very special" to her.

Streisand closed her performance before the star-studded FIDF crowd by singing the High Holy Days prayer Avinu Malkeinu.

"I know we all hope and pray we will one day have a world where there is peace and security for Israel and all its neighbors," she said. 

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May 19, 2013 | 2:45 pm

A German reporter walks into Cannes… and asks an arcane question about Jewish humor

Posted by Danielle Berrin

On Sunday morning, I was baited by an email from TheWrap.com that began: “Cannes; What is Jewish Humor?..."

Intrigued, I clicked, and up came the strangest article: It was about a press conference held in Cannes yesterday about Joel and Ethan Coen’s new movie, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” which premiered at the film festival this past weekend. The movie stars the 33-year-old actor Oscar Isaac in an apparently breakthrough role, and the actress Carey Mulligan, who is currently making Leonardo DiCaprio swoon in Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby.” According to reports, it tells the story of a struggling musician set against the backdrop of New York’s 1960s folk music scene. Actor/musician Justin Timberlake, who was present at the Cannes press conference, also plays a supporting role.

But that’s not what I write. This is:

TheWrap.com’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman had this to report on the much-publicized press conference:

Justin Timberlake stepped in to save an awkward situation when directors Joel and Ethan Coen were asked at the Cannes Film Festival about Jewish humor by a German reporter on Sunday.

“I smell a trap,” quipped Timberlake at a news conference for Joel and Ethan Coen’s sardonic drama about a folk singer, “Inside Llewyn Davis,” where a German reporter asked about the nature of “Jewish humor.”

I haven’t seen the film, since it premiered in Cannes and I am stuck in a far corner of the other Riviera known as the California coast -- so I don’t know if the question about Jewish humor was related to the content of the film itself or was just a random culture-specific question put to the Coens about their work. But I’m a little confused as to why it was “awkward.” It seems a perfectly reasonable and genuine question, one, I might add, I’ve asked of countless Jewish artists, in some form or another in order to ferret out the way Jewishness has informed their work.

But when the German reporter tried to explain himself, he was shut down yet again. This is what Waxman reports happened next:

“The Germans are not really known for humor,” said the reporter, who suggested that the Second World War and the Holocaust might have robbed the German people of their humor and, perhaps, Jewish wit.

He then asked: “Jewish humor, does it exist? If so what does it consist of?”

For some reason, Waxman (who is Jewish and should know better) reports the scene with a weird gloating complicity that makes it seem as if the question was preposterous -- or weirder, preposterous because it came from a German.

She writes:

After Timberlake stepped in to deflect the question for the (presumably Jewish) Coens, and music supervisor T. Bone Burnett interjected a few remarks to make the question go away, Joel Coen stepped up.

“There’s nothing like the Holocaust to put the stake in a certain kind of humor,” he deadpanned, before moving on […]

The whole scene comes off as odd and frankly, a little bit disappointing. Though I give Timberlake credit for his ready sensitivity. Still, it is mystifying to me why this exchange was portrayed with such suspicion and cynicism. I don’t see anything wrong with asking about the qualities that comprise “Jewish humor” and if the ethnic specificity of this question offended Waxman as well as the Coen brothers, they could use a little brushing up on the long, colorful and very real history of Jewish humor.

Though I don’t typically recommend trusting the word of Wikipedia, it does seem significant that it contains an entry (and a massive one) devoted entirely to the subject of -- you guessed it -- Jewish humour. (That’s exactly what it’s called -- but with an elegant British “u”.)

For brief edification, here’s the first paragraph:

Jewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and theMidrash from the ancient mid-east, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal,self-deprecating, crude, and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United States over the last hundred years. Beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up comedy, film, and television, a disproportionately high percentage of American and Russian comedians have been Jewish

Several years ago, I watched a comedy special about American comedians, which I wrote about for this blog. It is admittedly a task to elucidate what exactly “Jewish” humor might be – that’s a job for a scholar who might study the work of Jewish humorists closely and could then dare to draw some general conclusions. But at the very least, anyone who has watched their fair share of Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Joan Rivers, Nora Ephron, even Judd Apatow and on and one -- might be able to hazard a guess at a definition, or at least a simple theory as to why Jews have had a devoted historical and cultural penchant for comedy (see, for example, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book “Jewish Humor”).

Borrowing from a 2009 HJ blog post, here’s a smattering of what some prominent Jewish comedians have had to say about the inscrutable subject:

“Ethnic groups are attracted to comedy. When the Jews were in the ghetto, they became the comedians because they were outsiders,” said comedian/director David Steinberg.

“It’s how everyone got out of the tenements by doing their special brand of humor, because if you talk about it out loud, it can take away the curse of it all,” added producer Bernie Brillstein.

Roseanne Barr, whose portrayal of an unglamorous suburban housewife won her awards and a 9-year series run, said: “If you make fun of your own in front of the dominant culture here, you can live next door to them.” In other words, if you self-deprecate you can assimilate.

But Mel Brooks never tried to belong. He has famously said, “My comedy comes from the feeling that as a Jew, even though you’re better and smarter, you’ll never belong.” Brooks, who was never religious, took Judaism seriously. So seriously in fact, that he regards his Jewishness as a primary motivating factor in his most important life choices. “One of my lifelong jobs has been to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler, because how do you get even? There’s only one way to get even: you have to bring him down with ridicule,” Brooks said.

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May 2, 2013 | 12:21 pm

Railing against good wives

Posted by Danielle Berrin

When the New York Times Magazine put former congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin on the cover a few weeks ago, the intention was to provoke. In the introduction to "the post scandal playbook," a portrait of life after Weiner's torrid trainwreck tweet, a plaintive announcement about his potential mayoral run. And in the denouement, a treacly appeal for forgiveness.

But among the obvious reasons for feeling a little awkward about the piece, strangest of all was the following letter that the Times snagged from Cosmopolitan.com and ran in print:

Although Huma Abedin appears to be the hero of this piece, not Weiner (who comes off overly emotional and uses therapy-speak), we continue to focus primarily on her role as, well, “the good wife.” It’s totally reductive to put Abedin on a pedestal as Weiner’s forgiving, “graceful” spouse. Doing this saddles her with a stereotype that’s entirely based on her husband and his transgressions, and undermines her own professional accomplishments. We should let her stand on her own. Yes, she should totally be the one running for mayor. But on her own merit, which is obvious enough. Not for being a forgiving, “ideal” wife. ANNA BRESLAW on cosmopolitan.com

At first, you might appreciate the comment for its astute and angular view. For in the piece, it’s true that Abedin figures as a supporting role in her husband's sordid story -- her character only really matters precisely because she’s his wife (and not because she also happens to be one of Hillary Clinton's top aides). In this, Breslaw was right to note the limited portrayal of a real-life prodigy.

But we cannot ask a story that is about one thing to be a story about something else; if this were a piece about Abedin's political eligibility and ambition, it would be another story entirely. But in this story about a marital trial, why is it wrong to depict the wife as a good one? Breslaw’s comment suggests distaste for "good wives" (as if a wife should aspire to anything else) and makes it sound insulting. Would Breslaw prefer Abedin to be a bitter wife? A vengeful wife? An unforgiving wife?

That Human Abedin is, quite clearly, a Good Wife, is another line on her long list of merits that makes her more than this specific piece allows her to be, but that in any event should ever add to her heroism and not distort it. Because of all the roles one plays in life, how many are of greater import than being someone's steadfast partner?

Imagine the alternative to Anthony Weiner's fate had he performed better as the Good Husband.

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April 24, 2013 | 5:45 pm

Marianne Williamson’s religious revolution

Posted by Danielle Berrin

I was supposed to be in the middle of a very deep, earthly, heavenly, kabbalistically guided meditation last Shabbat when the Kingslayer from “Game of Thrones” invaded my higher consciousness.

It was an odd, even disturbing connection to make in the middle of the second annual “Seeds of Peace” conference, a multifaith meditation and social justice event held at the All Saints Church in Pasadena, where nearly 500 fellow spiritualists had gathered to eat gluten-free paprika brownies and let the tenacious and timeless (and ageless) best-selling spiritual guru Marianne Williamson stir their sensitive souls. So why, exactly, the nefarious warrior played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on “Thrones” felt invited to this silky setting was perhaps best explained by my meditation guide, the Israeli mystic Gilla Nissan, who said, “We are here to reconcile contradictions.” 

When I first entered the event through the church courtyard, it was almost too easy to be fooled by its frou-frou fripperies: men and women roaming about in full religious regalia; booths touting exotic, energetic jewelry and spiritual journey books of every stripe; Zen-like healers performing what looked like public exorcisms while a group of drummers banged out beats for a blissed-out crowd. There were a stunning 19 options for morning meditation, including Japanese Shumei philosophy, Lotus Sutra chanting, Raja yoga and color science. But while cosmic consciousness is a venerated ideal, this multifaith mash-up wasn’t only about pathways to private heaven; it was about fusing piety and politics and bringing heaven down to earth. This was no place for “Om, blah blah blah blah …” as Williamson put it, but rather, a more defiant “Om, really?”

Battle-ready in her spear-like red stilettoes, Williamson served as the bridge between meditative rapture and political outrage. She urged the crowd to crusade against corruptive forces, naming corporate special interests as the most odious. She decried empire, aristocracy and the average American citizen’s lack of legal proficiency, oft quoting Franklin, Lincoln and Kennedy to prove her own political pomps. “Too many are undisturbed,” she said, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the suspected perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings, “was not read his Miranda rights” upon arrest. “That is not just for him, it’s about all of us,” she declaimed to uproarious applause. 

A fiery, didactic orator, Williamson did not disguise her disdain for the spiritually self-centered. “An enlightened state of consciousness is not the endgame of the spiritual journey,” she said. “The whole point is not to dwell in some light and let darkness fend for itself. We’re here to be a light,” she said, transparently channeling her inner Jew.

“We cannot ignore the political realities that confront us now,” she railed. “We need to be politically savvy if we’re serious about transforming the country.”

Enter the Kingslayer, and a bold and bitter truth that HBO’s “Game of Thrones” expresses so entertainingly: In the pursuit of power — and power is necessary in politics — the ruthless and unscrupulous tend to rule the roost, and the nice and the noble get their heads chopped off. The Kingslayer didn’t usher his family dynasty to the throne armed with holy dispensation; he won it with the sword he used to slay the reigning king. It’s a troubling truth. But the vortex of history, like the kabbalistic view of the Tree of Life, is fraught with the tension of opposites: good and evil, light and dark, love and indifference, boundlessness and boundaries. All are forever in conflict in the world and in the soul.

As Nietzsche wrote, “Everything becomes and recurs eternally — escape is impossible! … The idea of recurrence as a selective principle [is] in the service of strength (and barbarism!).”

Good begets good, violence begets violence and so on. Even the Kingslayer had to confront his enduring attachment to the sword when comeuppance finally came and his hand was cut off. Despairing of his fate (“I was that hand,” he groans), a female companion derides his resignation: “You have a taste, one taste, of the real world where people have important things taken from them, and you whine and cry and quit.”

As Williamson likes to say, “Cynicism is just an excuse for not helping.”

I asked filmmaker and journalist Ruth Broyde-Sharone, the organizer of “Seeds of Peace” and a member of the Southern California Committee for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, how she found the will to unite so many differing, often divided groups in common purpose. “Well, it happened when I was in college” — at Northwestern, outside Chicago — “and I was asked to leave housing because I was Jewish,” Broyde-Sharone said. “I never quite got over that moment. I didn’t even walk when I graduated because I was hurt by what happened.”

But she didn’t whine or cry or quit; she became “a self-appointed peacemaker” and joined the campus human relations council. With “so many areas where injustice prevailed” Broyde-Sharone has spent the next three decades doing interfaith work. She even wrote the book, “Minefields and Miracles: Why God and Allah Need to Talk.”

For her, the spiritual and the political are inseparable, even if at times irreconcilable. She dares to imagine a world where no single religion rules but where common religious values are heirs to any throne. 

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April 23, 2013 | 5:06 pm

Stephen Chbosky: filmmaker of conscience

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Last week I attended a pretty wicked writers workshop at USC where the novelist and screenwriter Stephen Chbosky gave an unofficial two hour master class on writing for film and television. Much of it focused on Chbosky’s breakout hit, “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” a novel he conceived of at 21, began writing at 26 and turned into a movie three failed drafts later, at 42. (Chbosky also wrote the screenplay for the hit musical “Rent,” for which he was handsomely paid, explaining “This is why you want your movies to get made,” and co-created the short-lived but fiercely loved TV series “Jericho,” which upon cancellation, prompted fans to send nearly 40,000 pounds of peanuts -- 8 million individual nuts, according to ABC News -- to network executives in protest. The show was subsequently picked up for 7 more episodes.)

A fascinating speaker and thinker, Chbosky was exceedingly generous in dispensing advice to aspiring writers, from basic tips (“Write everyday; it doesn’t have to be so inspired, it just has to be”) to the more nuanced (“Don’t describe how people look; if you don’t, you’re inviting the reader to do it for you”). But of all the many pearls he unstrung in a short afternoon, what struck me the most had to do with a little choice he made in adapting “Perks” from page to screen. 

For the role of Patrick, one of the novel’s central characters, a vivacious and charming teenager who is also openly gay, he cast the equally vivacious and charming Ezra Miller, who is magnetic on screen. “If you’re gay in high school, that’s who you’d want to be,” Chbosky said of Miller. In the book, Patrick smokes constantly, but in the movie, not a cigarette in sight. But this seemingly small detail was considered with deep seriousness.

Chbosky confessed that as a teenager he had a smoking habit for several years. Fortunately, or so he thought, he quit. Then he went to the movies and saw Christian Slater smoking (in a film I can’t recall) and Slater “made it look so fucking good, I picked it up again and smoked another 17 years.”

A quiet but collective gasp could be heard when he said this. Chbosky is now a husband and a father, a role one can assume has matured his attitude towards health and life in general, but what’s even more remarkable is that his concern extends to every single eye that lands on his screen. Rather than cite artistic license, or necessary drama, or the absolute unbending coolness of character, he cut the cool in favor of conscience.

More filmmakers like Chbosky, please. And for those who have seen “Perks,” more films from Chbosky.

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April 23, 2013 | 12:40 pm

Movie nostalgia for Lansing and Landau at Israel Film Festival’s opening night

Posted by Danielle Berrin

A coterie of strapping and stylish Israelis gathered at the Writers Guild of America Theatre on April 18 for the opening night of the 27th annual Israel Film Festival, which doled out honors to the former head of Paramount Pictures, Sherry Lansing, and the actor Martin Landau.

After cocktails and hors d’oeurves, festival attendees piled into the 540-seat theater for a screening of “The Ballad of the Weeping Spring” and a short ceremony emceed by Jewish L.A.’s go-to guy, comedian Elon Gold. Gold, who admittedly performed gratis, reprised his chockablock Jewish routine which by now is mostly recycled shtick. But he did manage to get a good laugh when discussing President Obama’s recent trip to Israel, and in particular, his introduction to the newly crowned, Ethiopian-born Miss Israel, Yityish Aynaw, who is roundly celebrated as “the first black Miss Israel.”

“Boy that worked out well,” Gold deadpanned.

After introducing the producer Avi Lerner, Chairman and founder of Nu Image and Millennium Films (the latter of which has since been put on the auction block) as a longtime supporter of the festival, Lerner’s extremely pithy remarks prompted a clean and clever retort: “That was the least amount of words ever spoken by an Israeli,” Gold said.

Lansing was more prolific with her prose, recounting major steps in a long, colorful career. She ultimately became the first female ever to head a major Hollywood studio before “rewiring” to run the non-profit Sherry Lansing Foundation. Lansing began her remarks with a generous acknowledgement of the Israeli entertainment industry.

“Israeli movies and TV shows are so original, we’re copying them,” she said, adding that what sets Israeli culture apart is its willingness to be self-critical. “That’s very unusual,” she said, citing films like the Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir,” “Lebanon,” and one of Israel’s two 2013 Oscar nominees, “The Gatekeepers.” She also said “Homeland” and “In Treatment” are “two of my favorite shows in my entire life.”

It was a reflective night for Lansing, who, at 67, was being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award though she shows no signs of slowing down. She is now a prolific philanthropist, focusing on education and healthcare as well as a Regent of the University of California, among other involvements. And although her moviemaking days are over, she celebrated their legacy in her life, films that inspired her growing up on the south side of Chicago to overseeing icons like “Titanic” and “Forrest Gump.”

“Through movies I learned about love, about social justice,” she said, naming “The Pawnbroker” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.” “I got lost in the magic of the movies, films so powerful they changed my life. And a lot has changed since I ‘rewired’ but one thing hasn’t changed,” she said, addressing the filmmakers in the audience: “You can think of anything and you can make it happen.”

So, “keep making films, make them better and more challenging. Make us think, make us feel,” Lansing said.

Landau, who was presented with a career achievement award for film and television work spanning six decades, including Oscar nominated roles in “Ed Wood” and Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” was eloquent and even poetic comparing his personal journey to that of Israel’s.

“Israel and I grew up together,” he said, noting he was 28 and working in the art department at the New York Daily News when Israel became a state. When he was struggling to make a living, “Israel too was struggling to survive… to convert a strip of arid land into a fertile farmland.” Landau also noted some of Israel’s progressive triumphs, such as electing a female Prime Minister at a time when it was “unheard of.”

He spoke of his abiding love of movies, old movie palaces and the still glamorous but seemingly ancient movie stars like Garbo, Gable and Lombard. “I longed to be a part of it all, part of the magic, and so I became an actor,” he said.

Now 85, Landau concluded a nostalgic night on an optimistic note: “Israel and I have aged together, witnessed and experienced massive change, but we’re still very much alive.”

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