April 4, 2013 | 1:09 pm

Roger Ebert’s religion

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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Roger Ebert, the legendary film reviewer, has died at age 70 of cancer. His decade-long battle with papillary thyroid cancer began in 2002 and ultimately robbed him of his ability to speak, eat or drink.

Despite the life altering setback, Ebert worked tirelessly through the disease. He continued to write prolifically, regularly publishing his beloved and trusted movie reviews and even made high profile speaking appearances -- including a popular TED talk -- made possible through the use of cutting-edge voice technology. In 2010, he told Esquire magazine, “When I am writing, my problems become invisible, and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.”

But despite his dogged optimism, things had seemed especially ominous of late, as when earlier this week, he announced on his Website that because of declining health, he would be cutting back on movie reviewing. Even that admission of decline, though held a hint of promise, and included a business announcement that he had planned to purchase his website Rogerebert.com from the Sun-Times and relaunch it.

In his 2011 presentation at the TED conference, "Remaking my voice" Ebert described in painful detail the deprivations that resulted from his cancer battle and the astonishing technologies that had helped him cope. You can watch the video (which has nearly 400,000 views) here:

Ebert rose to prominence with his sidekick and sparring partner, fellow movie buff Gene Siskel, with whom he could make or break a movie's fortunes with the flex of a thumb. Their trademark "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" movie reviews were for many years a staple in the cultural lexicon. 

Though Ebert was Catholic, Siskel was Jewish, and just after Siskel died in 1999, Ebert eulogized him for the Chicago Sun-Times, recounting a conversation they had after a speaking appearance at the Harvard Law School Film Society:

That night we had dinner together in a hotel in Cambridge, and had our longest and deepest philosophical discussion. We talked about life and death, the cosmos, our place in the grand scheme of things, the meaning of it all. There was a reason Gene studied philosophy: He was a natural.
He spoke about his Judaism, which he took very seriously. His parents had started one of the early synagogues on the North Shore after World War II. "I had a lot of long talks with my father about our religion," Gene told me. "He said it wasn't necessary to think too much about an afterlife. What was important was this life, how we live it, what we contribute, our families, and the memories we leave." Gene said, "The importance of Judaism isn't simply theological, or, in the minds of some Jews, necessarily theological at all. It is that we have stayed together and respected these things for thousands of years, and so it is important that we continue." In a few words, this was one of the most touching descriptions of Judaism I had ever heard.

Ebert also wrote with great sensitivity about his Catholic school upbringing and his struggle with faith in God. Despite his skeptical beliefs, religion was an object of fascination for him, a class he considered a “favorite subject.”

In a personal essay for the Chicago Sun-Times, "How I Believe in God," he pontificated about his religious and spiritual beliefs, elucidating the moral code he adopted from the Church (and, really, the Hebrew Bible). "Catholicism made me a humanist before I knew the word," he wrote. 

[O]ur theology was often very practical: All men are created equal. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. The Ten Commandments, which we studied at length, except for adultery, "which you children don't have to worry about." A fair day's work for a fair day's wage. A good government should help make sure everyone has a roof over their head, a job, and three meals a day. The cardinal acts of mercy. Ethical behavior. The sisters didn't especially seem to think that a woman's place was in the home, as theirs certainly was not. You should "pray for your vocation." My mother prayed for mine; she wanted me to become a priest. "Every Catholic mother hopes she can give a son to the priesthood," she said, and spoke of one mother at St. Patrick's, who had given two, as if she were a lottery winner.

His so-called secular humanism -- though he eschewed labels -- made him comfortable with religious behavioral principles but not theological ones.  “I believed in the basic Church teachings because I thought they were correct, not because God wanted me to.” Throughout his life, he stubbornly struggled with the existence of God, explaining his personal theology in a way that lay plain his confusion: "If I were to say I don't believe God exists, that wouldn't mean I believe God doesn't exist. Nor does it mean I don't know, which implies that I could know."

Despite his identification with Catholic teachings, however, he resisted religious conformity and was honest about his contradictory impulses. He admitted to spending "hours and hours in churches all over the world" not to engage in prayer, of course, but to "nudge [his] thoughts toward wonder and awe."  The angels of his religious nature ultimately won out, since he clearly had a spiritual bent but he also felt a substantial degree of institutional disillusionment. "I have no interest in megachurches with jocular millionaire pastors,” he wrote. “I think what happens in them is socio-political, not spiritual." Still, when recounting a childhood tale of a priest who comforted a young Ebert by holding him in his lap, he reassured readers "no priest or nun ever treated me with other than love and care."

In the end, though, his ultimate spiritual principle strikes as deeply Jewish:

“I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how? I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer.”

April 1, 2013 | 2:32 pm

To be or not to be: The story behind Newsweek/Daily Beast’s top rabbis list

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Pardon the delay; I should have blogged this weeks ago when the Jewish Journal ran a cover story on the Newsweek/Daily Beast top rabbis list but at the time I was traveling and doing my darndest not to blog while on vacation. After that it was Passover and it seemed fine to let it pass altogether but then the radio host and Jewish Journal columnist Dennis Prager wrote about the list and it quickly became one of the most popular stories on our Website. So now I have an excuse to post for posterity's sake.

Without overstating its significance, I want to say two things about this story:

First, I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think it raised some important questions -- specifically, about the intersection of secular and religious values in American Jewish life and the way we perceive our spiritual leaders as well as our expectations for the rabbinate -- but I don't think I quite realized how sensitive a topic it would prove to be, both to the people related to the list and to the broader community that consumes it.

Moreover, irrespective of my opinion of the list or the fact that it exists, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for many of the rabbis who appear on it and I consider it a privilege and an honor that through this work I've had the opportunity to get to know many of them. 

Here it is:

One night some years ago, two powerful Jewish men in media, one from New York and one from Los Angeles, were walking together through the streets of Jerusalem when they hatched a little idea. 

Michael Lynton, then CEO and co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and his longtime friend Gary Ginsberg, who served as a lawyer in the Clinton White House before becoming a vice president of News Corp. (and, consequently, a close personal adviser to Rupert Murdoch), were strolling around outside the King David Hotel when they noticed all “these little plaques” on the various buildings identifying the institution inside. “I remember talking to Gary about the fact that in certain other religions — most notably the Roman Catholic Church — there’s a central authority that determines doctrine, theology and policy,” Lynton recalled. But Jewish religious authority in the United States, he realized, “It’s a little bit of a mystery. Who are the people who determine these things? And then we thought: Wouldn’t it be fun, and a little bit mischievous, to put together a list of who these people are and rank order them?”

Read the rest of the story here.

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March 28, 2013 | 8:49 am

Philip Roth — still (a)roused

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Pulitizer Prize- and National Book Award-winning novelist Philip Roth being interviewed in his Manhattan apartment. Photo courtesy of François Reumont

The camera opens on a frazzled Philip Roth.

He is futzing with the horseshoe of hair he has left, rubbing his face and furrowing his unruly brow as a look of supreme unease settles over his face. For a man who recently announced his retirement, he seems a bit stressed. And for a writer who has spent the better part of his life projecting outward, Roth, at first, squirms under the scrutiny of the camera’s gaze.

“In the coming years I have two great calamities to face,” he announces at the beginning of the documentary “Philip Roth: Unmasked” for the PBS “American Masters” series that will air on March 29. “Death and a biography. Let’s hope the first comes first.”

From the outset of his denouement, the newly minted octogenarian — Roth turned 80 on March 19 — has been in the news a lot lately. In November, he told a New York Times reporter, “The struggle with writing is over,” which sent shockwaves through the literary world and effectively commenced his retirement. And over the past few weeks, he made headlines yet again for the many birthday celebrations being held in his honor — in Newark, where he grew up, and New York, where he resides part time, there has been a literary conference, a museum toast, hometown bus tours and even a photography exhibit devoted to his life and oeuvre. Now comes the documentary, also timed to his birthday, which features a chatty and reflective Roth looking back on a life lived through words.

In it, he is as candid, open and charming as ever. Quoting the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, Roth observes the truth of his life: “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”

It follows then that Roth’s most faithful relationship has been to his work. Other than two brief and really disastrous marriages, he has remained at-least-legally unattached and has never fathered children. In 1983, he told People magazine: “I can’t talk casually about home and family, about good marriages and bad marriages and the relationship between men and women and children and parents. I’ve devoted a life to writing about these things. These are my subjects. I’ve spent years trying to get it right in fiction.”

As many presume is the case with his novels, Roth appears in the film as both narrator and narrative. He is entirely in his element as he recounts tales from his childhood and career trajectory for Italian journalist and French director Livia Manera, and expounds on his foremost passions and preoccupations, which, over eight decades, haven’t changed much: reading, writing, Jewishness and sex continue to ensorcell him. “God, I’m fond of adultery,” Roth says at one point, during a discussion of his 1995 book “Sabbath’s Theater” (his personal favorite). “Aren’t you?” 

The author of 31 books, among them at least a dozen bestsellers, is also the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, to name a few. But among writers of contemporary fiction, perhaps no one is more closely associated (or confused) with his characters as much as Roth. “People have always assumed his characters are him,” writer Nicole Krauss observes in the film. 

And Roth offers some delicious and illustrative anecdotes: In 1969, with the release of his career-making “Portnoy’s Complaint,” Roth recalls, “Everything people perceived in Portnoy, they then perceived in me.” One day as he walked near his home, a man shouted at him from across the street: “Philip Roth: Enemy of the Jews!”

Roth admits his own life has served as fodder for his fiction, but he prefers to think of this journalistic element as “invent[ing] off of something.” He was influenced in this by another American (Jewish) writer, the incomparable Saul Bellow, who he says, inadvertently gave him permission to draw from his own experience. After reading “The Adventures of Augie March” as a college student, Roth felt free to plumb the depths of his background. 

But it wasn’t exactly an exercise in memoir: “I’d have to fight my way to the freedom of drawing upon what I knew,” Roth says. “Life isn’t good enough in some ways. If it was just a matter of putting things down that happened to you, or happened to your friend or happened to your wife, you wouldn’t be a novelist.”

But balancing between truth and fiction can be tricky. He isn’t fond of being called an American Jewish writer, for instance. “I don’t write in Jewish. I write in American,” he says. But that may be a defensive position taken after enduring years of public criticism. From the time “Defender of the Faith,” his first short story was published for The New Yorker, readers held Roth responsible for popularizing Jewish archetypes. “It caused a furor,” Roth remembers of the 1959 publication, “I was being assailed as an anti-Semite and a self-hating Jew. I didn’t even know what it meant.”

Even author Jonathan Franzen admits he had a “moralistic response” when he first read Roth. He thought, “Oh, you bad person, Philip Roth,” though he added, “I eventually came to feel as if that was coming out of envy. I wish I could be as liberated … as Roth is. Here’s a person who’s decided he does not care what the world thinks of him. He is not shame-able.”

The widespread perception of the wanton sexuality associated with many of Roth’s novels is a source of some frustration for the author, who spends some time on camera defending specific characters who have been charged with being “sex obsessed.” 

“In nine books,” Roth begins, outlining the plot of each one, “there is virtually no sexual experience.” And yet, the characters, he says, “are described repeatedly as sex-obsessed. Well, that’s because Roth is.”

In matters of sexual appetite, at least, his art imitates his life. To that end, he recounted his favorite line from James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which comes during a scene when the character Leopold Bloom walks to the waterfront to watch a girl and masturbate. “Joyce tells you what’s going on, but you don’t get it — until the next paragraph, Joyce goes: ‘At it again.’ I loved it. I think it should be on my tombstone.”

As Roth wrote in the 2001 novella, “The Dying Animal,” “Sex is all the enchantment required.”

Roth’s candid and sometimes contradictory take on himself, is given added context by friends and colleagues, from fellow writers like Franzen and Krauss to actress Mia Farrow. But the most intelligent and insightful comments come from his biographer, New Yorker critic Claudia Roth Pierpont (no relation), whose book “Roth Unbound” will be published in November.

It was Kafka, she points out, who said, “We should read only those books that bite and sting us,” adding that, for her, Roth is that perfect dose of painful pleasure. “If the book you’re reading does not rouse you with a blow to the head, then why read it? I think that Roth writes books that are meant to rouse you with a blow to the head.”

Roth’s pugnacious prose, however, is fueled by a rather ordinary and peaceful private life. He splits his time between New York City and a country home in Connecticut, where, when he is writing, he writes “every day,” standing up, with “lots of quiet … lots of hours … lots of regularity.” At night, surrounded by his books, the faint silhouette of trees swaying still visible through darkened windows, he likes to read for several hours and listen to music. Once or twice the camera intrudes upon him as he listens to opera or Mahler’s Third Symphony and listens intently, with his whole body, much the way he reads. And it is sheer delight when the camera invites us to watch and listen as Roth reads passages throughout from some of his best-loved works, adding new volume to the voice on the page.

His quieter moments are more frequent now, as Roth confronts his mortality. He says he is afraid of death, but not enraged by its coming. What is hard is that he suffers from chronic back pain, and, like other great writers before him — Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi — he admits he has contemplated suicide. “Writing turns out to be a dangerous job,” he says. But, “I don’t want to join them.”

Before he dies, though, he plans to reread the authors he admired growing up, among them Conrad, Hemingway, Faulkner and Kafka. And while he swears he’s through with writing himself, hardly any of his friends — or fans — believe him. 

Near the end of the film he tells of a recent walk he took near his Connecticut home when he happened upon a wooden sign in a tree that said: “BRING BACK PORTNOY.” 

“It was wonderful, hilarious moment,” Roth recalls. “I actually thought about it for rest of walk: Why don’t I do that?” 

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February 25, 2013 | 5:58 pm

Oscar’s big Jewish joke

Posted by Danielle Berrin

"Ted" and Mark Wahlberg present an award during the 85th Academy Awards

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?

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February 23, 2013 | 11:28 am

Academy’s doc night focuses on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Posted by Danielle Berrin

The documentary filmmaker Michael Moore

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

Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln.” Photo by David James, Courtesy of Walt Disney/20th Century Fox

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

Chef Jack Paley Photo courtesy of Jack Paley

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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