The obituaries of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas uniformly recount some of Douglas’s — and Hollywood’s — greatest films: “Spartacus,” “Paths Of Glory,” “Out Of the Past,” “Ace In the Hole,” “Lust For Life. Yet, when I think of a quintessential Kirk Douglas film it is not of any of those, but his now largely forgotten…
We meet the killer as he’s cleaning tombstones. While he scrapes and sponges, his radio broadcasts Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s historic Rose Garden speech announcing the signing of the first Oslo Accord. When his work is done, he leaves to join protests against the peace plan in Tel Aviv. It’s 1993. In two years, this…
A radical Zionist Chicago newspaperman, a Belfast-born translator and a literary adapter par excellence. These were the first Jews who won Oscars at the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929. The three men — writers Ben Hecht and Benjamin Glazer and director Lewis Milestone — were connected by more than heritage. Working in the still-new world…
Editor’s note: Today is Neil Diamond’s 79th birthday. To mark the occasion, we’re revisiting this essay about the part the singer-songwriter played in one of Jewish cinema’s most peculiar moments. On October 6th 1927, the original film production of “The Jazz Singer” made its world premiere at the Warners’ Theatre in midtown Manhattan. (I know,…
Editor’s Note: A.A. Milne, the creator of the “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories was born on this day in 1882. To commemorate his birthday, we look back at the Jewish elements in his work. A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories have delighted youngsters for over 90 years, as have their numerous spinoffs as TV shows, cartoons, holiday specials, movies and,…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The first episode of the third season of the hit Israeli drama “Fauda” was viewed by Israelis about 1 million times in the 48 hours after it first aired. The Israeli drama, in Hebrew and Arabic, received a 12.6 percent share of viewers during its debut on Thursday night, according to a…
In honor of Kirk Douglas’s 103rd birthday, we reprint this tribute to the movie legend who was born Issur Danielovich to immigrant parents. Kirk Douglas, who turns 100 on December 9, is both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while a first-magnitude star,…
“Motherless Brooklyn” is the “La La Land” of noir, a work of exacting, exhausting competence that tries to summon the spirit of midcentury Hollywood films by recreating them shot for shot and trope for trope. Some things you’ll find in it: raincoated sleuths silhouetted by streetlights; garish neon mirrored in murky puddles; a pinstriped powerbroker…
Editor’s note: Filmmaker Chantal Akerman passed away on this date in 2015. To commemorate her life and work, we are revisiting this essay by Arun Chaudhary that speaks to Akerman’s wide-ranging impact. When I met Chantal Akerman, the famed film director whose alleged suicide was reported on October 6, I told her I was going…
Editor’s Note: Buster Keaton was born on this day in 1895. In honor of the 124th birthday of “The Great Stone Face, we look back on Keaton’s Jewish influences and collaborators. Had it not been for Erik Weisz, the Hungarian-born, Wisconsin-raised son of a rabbi, one of the most influential film artists of all time…
Even his face seemed as if could slouch. The bulbous nose, the folds of skin, the eyebrows always raised, the eternal smirk that seemed to call you a schmuck even if he never spoke that word. His voice brayed and drawled, Lower East Side schmatta salesman crossed with W.C. Fields. He was the dubious wise-ass,…
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