|
|
May 24, 2013
Jewish life through the lens
Goldman’s book shares his encyclopedic film knowledge.
CURT LEVIANT
Some people live their lives in films – and their make-believe starts when they leave the movie theatre. In reality, when taken in a broader historical perspective, films are less about make-believe than about truth: they often reflect the truth about a society. This is what Eric Goldman has set out to do in his comprehensive The American Jewish Story Through Cinema (University of Texas Press, 2013).
The aim of this book, in which many photographs are included, is to portray the American Jewish experience as reflected in American films. This is a herculean task, for it needs not only a knowledge of films made over the decades, but a mastery of American Jewish history, sociology, politics and religion. Goldman, however, has an all-encompassing grasp to tell this story, both on a broad canvas and in fascinating, anecdotal, miniaturist portraits. He analyzes films, depicts details of productions, makes reference to autobiographies and biographies of participants, and even has interviews with some of the principals.
A professor of cinema at Yeshivah University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Goldman has already demonstrated his encyclopedic ken of films with his marvelous and useful book Visions, Images and Dreams: Yiddish Films Past and Present, with its almost book-length appendix, listing all the Yiddish films made, with the names of the director, actors, year made, length, and other pertinent details about these historic films.
Now, with a keen eye and perspicacious insights, Goldman probes American films from different decades, starting with the 1920s and ending with the beginning of this century. He begins with the first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson. Here, we have a thoroughly Jewish film, featuring the son of a cantor who has ambitions to become an entertainer, who eventually comes back home to substitute for his ailing father on Kol Nidrei, the evening of Yom Kippur. Ironically, this movie was also the last Jewish-themed film for many years. From that point on, the chiefs of Hollywood, almost all of them Jews, turned their backs on their heritage.
One reason for this, Goldman argues, is that these executives were part of an era where Jews did not want to call attention to themselves. They wanted to assimilate into the mainstream and, by so doing, refrained from portraying Jews or Jewishness on screen. Another strong pull for “silence” was the growing antisemitism in the United States and the rise of Hitlerism in Germany in the early 1930s.
It was not until after the Second World War, when America and its allies had defeated Germany, and knowledge of the Holocaust was widespread, that movie producers began to consider making Jewish films. The first of its kind was the iconic Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947), based on the novel by Laura Hobson, about a non-Jewish reporter (played by Gregory Peck) who pretends he is a Jew in order to learn about antisemitism in America.
Goldman shows the drama behind the scenes of the making of the film, which groups were against it, how a courageous Daryl Zanuck (the only non-Jew head of a major studio) valiantly resisted enormous pressures and finally succeeded to make the film – which won an Academy Award for best picture. In Goldman’s riveting narration we learn how long it took to make the film, how Zanuck got star playwright and screenwriter Moss Hart to write the screenplay, and many of the off-screen dramas that helped shape this memorable film. Strangely enough, some of the people who were vocally against the making of this important film were Jewish organizations and even a couple of famous Reform rabbis. Their message in brief: don’t rock the boat.
Goldman continues with The Young Lions (1958), based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, that has a Jewish hero, Noah Ackerman. Here, too, Goldman writes about the struggles and rivalries; in this instance, between Marlon Brando, who played an Austrian Nazi and who tried to tone down the man’s evil (which novelist Shaw accented), and co-star Montgomery Clift (who played Noah), who opposed Brandon’s whitewashing approach. In many instances, the reader feels he is in the producer’s boardroom or on the set, watching the actors during breaks, revealing their own attitudes to the films in which they are performing.
In other chapters, he highlights, among other filmmakers, Barbra Streisand’s contributions as a proud and knowledgeable Jew and one who can sing, act, direct and eventually produced films herself. By the end of the book, we realize that we have come full circle. At the turn of the 21st century, films about Jews are being made without the fear of alienating audiences, and without protest that it might not be “good for the Jews.”
Goldman not only gives us film history; he portrays the writers of the stories upon which the film is based, discusses the director’s approach, and shows how and why a script deviated from its original story or novel. Goldman has explored this theme with intelligence and verve and the result is a book that will delight all lovers of American film.
Curt Leviant is the author of the recently published Zix Zexy Ztories.
^TOP
|
|
