Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0120
Eran Kaplan
On Pick-Hemo's Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema Michal Plck-Hemo, Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema [(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)]. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2016 [Hebrew]. 340 pp., ISBN 011050736 (pb), 76 NIS.In Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema, Michal Pick-Hemo has set out to explore how Israeli cinema has reflected the relationship between the post-traumatic experiences of individuals and the prevailing psycho-ideological cultural conditions that have defined different periods in Israeli history. In doing so Pick-Hemo has made a valuable contribution to the study of Israeli films.Wounded Homeland is divided into two parts. The first is a historical overview of the history of Israeli cinema. Pick-Hemo follows the film scholars' rather accepted periodization of the history of Israeli cinema into the early period ofheroic films; the emergence of the personal cinema and the commercial-minded ethnic and class comedies; and the rise of political cinema in the late 1970s and 1980s. By focusing on a select number of films, Pick-Hemo underlines the important place of trauma, both collective and personal, on the Israeli screen. The second, and much more condensed part, deals with the Israeli films that won the Ophir Prize (the Israeli Oscars) between 2000 and 2006, a group Pick-Hemo identifies as dissociative cinema, wherein the individual as victim takes center stage while being disassociated from the broader social and political context.Throughout her analysis Pick-Hemo explores the relationship between certain developments in Israeli cinema (like the transition from national heroic movies to personal films) against what she describes as the prevailing psycho-ideological conditions of the time. Since, as Pick-Hemo shows throughout the book, Israeli films are ultimately rooted in and engage with ha-matzav ("the situation," in Hebrew; a term that denotes the Israeli preoccupation with current events), this approach is theoretically and historically justified; it also transforms Wounded Homeland into a broader argument about Israeli culture.To my mind the most successful aspect of the book's first part is the manner by which Pick-Hemo challenges the inclination of some film scholars, most notably Ella Shohat, to offer a one-dimensional (positing a simple binary opposition as the basis of most Israeli films) account of Israeli films. Pick-Hemo's exploration of the role of trauma in shaping Israeli films reveals a kind of emotional as well as thematic complexity that transcends simple ideological oppositions (namely the silencing of the Oriental other). Pick-Hemo's discussion of films such as They Were Ten (Baruch Dienar, Israel, 1961), He Walked through the Fields (Yosef Millo, Israel, 1967), Siege (Gilberto Tofano, Israel, 1969), Paratroopers (Masa Alunkot, Judd Ne'eman, Israel, 1977), where the role of trauma is rather
{"title":"On Pick-Hemo's Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema","authors":"Eran Kaplan","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0120","url":null,"abstract":"On Pick-Hemo's Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema Michal Plck-Hemo, Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema [(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)]. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2016 [Hebrew]. 340 pp., ISBN 011050736 (pb), 76 NIS.In Wounded Homeland: The Changing Representation of Trauma in Israeli Cinema, Michal Pick-Hemo has set out to explore how Israeli cinema has reflected the relationship between the post-traumatic experiences of individuals and the prevailing psycho-ideological cultural conditions that have defined different periods in Israeli history. In doing so Pick-Hemo has made a valuable contribution to the study of Israeli films.Wounded Homeland is divided into two parts. The first is a historical overview of the history of Israeli cinema. Pick-Hemo follows the film scholars' rather accepted periodization of the history of Israeli cinema into the early period ofheroic films; the emergence of the personal cinema and the commercial-minded ethnic and class comedies; and the rise of political cinema in the late 1970s and 1980s. By focusing on a select number of films, Pick-Hemo underlines the important place of trauma, both collective and personal, on the Israeli screen. The second, and much more condensed part, deals with the Israeli films that won the Ophir Prize (the Israeli Oscars) between 2000 and 2006, a group Pick-Hemo identifies as dissociative cinema, wherein the individual as victim takes center stage while being disassociated from the broader social and political context.Throughout her analysis Pick-Hemo explores the relationship between certain developments in Israeli cinema (like the transition from national heroic movies to personal films) against what she describes as the prevailing psycho-ideological conditions of the time. Since, as Pick-Hemo shows throughout the book, Israeli films are ultimately rooted in and engage with ha-matzav (\"the situation,\" in Hebrew; a term that denotes the Israeli preoccupation with current events), this approach is theoretically and historically justified; it also transforms Wounded Homeland into a broader argument about Israeli culture.To my mind the most successful aspect of the book's first part is the manner by which Pick-Hemo challenges the inclination of some film scholars, most notably Ella Shohat, to offer a one-dimensional (positing a simple binary opposition as the basis of most Israeli films) account of Israeli films. Pick-Hemo's exploration of the role of trauma in shaping Israeli films reveals a kind of emotional as well as thematic complexity that transcends simple ideological oppositions (namely the silencing of the Oriental other). Pick-Hemo's discussion of films such as They Were Ten (Baruch Dienar, Israel, 1961), He Walked through the Fields (Yosef Millo, Israel, 1967), Siege (Gilberto Tofano, Israel, 1969), Paratroopers (Masa Alunkot, Judd Ne'eman, Israel, 1977), where the role of trauma is rather","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"628 1","pages":"120 - 122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91131648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0024
Aya Yadlin‐Segal
By addressing the vernacular versus official memory dyad in collective memory studies, this article explores user comments on four Israeli news websites that covered the Iranian fi lm A Separation's (Asghar Farhadi, 2011) Academy Award win for best foreign language fi lm in 2012. Against the backdrop of Israeli-Iranian relations, this study focuses on the use of the Holocaust as an interpretive framework and new media users' construction of collective memory. Through qualitative analysis of user comments, I show how the memory of the Holocaust supports a circular narrative of Jewish history, intertwining past, present, and future events into a single metanarrative of persecution. The study also emphasizes how remembrance goes beyond intentionally commemorative practices, and questions the place of online platforms in enabling and constraining alternative and critical political discourses.
{"title":"\"It Happened Before and It Will Happen Again\": On line User Comments as a Noncommemorative Site of Holocaust Remembrance","authors":"Aya Yadlin‐Segal","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0024","url":null,"abstract":"By addressing the vernacular versus official memory dyad in collective memory studies, this article explores user comments on four Israeli news websites that covered the Iranian fi lm A Separation's (Asghar Farhadi, 2011) Academy Award win for best foreign language fi lm in 2012. Against the backdrop of Israeli-Iranian relations, this study focuses on the use of the Holocaust as an interpretive framework and new media users' construction of collective memory. Through qualitative analysis of user comments, I show how the memory of the Holocaust supports a circular narrative of Jewish history, intertwining past, present, and future events into a single metanarrative of persecution. The study also emphasizes how remembrance goes beyond intentionally commemorative practices, and questions the place of online platforms in enabling and constraining alternative and critical political discourses.","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"75 1","pages":"24 - 47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77296741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0048
C. Siegel
Examination of film depictions of the cultural role of Jewish sex counselors reveals ways ancient myths of Jewish conspiracy are maintained, or critiqued, in popular culture. Comparing David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method (UK, Germany, 2011) and Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (Denmark, Germany, 2013) elucidates the historical difference, crucial to sexual social justice movements, between imagining Jewish community and imagining Jewish conspiracy. In both films paternalistic characters who identify as secular Jews shape the film's narrative through sessions in which they question the perverse protagonist. Each of the two films presents us with a concept of Jewish identity that is developed through these interactions. This is a question not of negative or positive portrayal of Jewish characters but of how the films portray a worldwide community of Jews, the community that confers an identity on each individual Jew. Thus the two films serve as a case study of possibilities for representation of Jews in cinematic narratives about sexual perversity.
考察电影中对犹太性顾问的文化角色的描绘,揭示了犹太阴谋的古老神话在流行文化中被维持或批评的方式。比较David Cronenberg的《A Dangerous Method》(英国,德国,2011)和Lars von Trier的《nyphomaniac》(丹麦,德国,2013)阐明了想象犹太社区和想象犹太阴谋之间的历史差异,这对性社会正义运动至关重要。在这两部电影中,自认是世俗犹太人的家长式角色,通过质疑乖张的主角,塑造了电影的叙事。两部电影中的每一部都向我们展示了通过这些互动发展起来的犹太人身份的概念。这不是一个对犹太人角色正面或负面刻画的问题,而是电影如何描绘一个世界范围内的犹太人社区,这个社区赋予每个犹太人一个身份。因此,这两部电影作为一个案例研究的可能性,代表犹太人在电影叙事的性变态。
{"title":"Talking Cures?: Jews and Sex Therapy in Nymphomaniac and A Dangerous Method","authors":"C. Siegel","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0048","url":null,"abstract":"Examination of film depictions of the cultural role of Jewish sex counselors reveals ways ancient myths of Jewish conspiracy are maintained, or critiqued, in popular culture. Comparing David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method (UK, Germany, 2011) and Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (Denmark, Germany, 2013) elucidates the historical difference, crucial to sexual social justice movements, between imagining Jewish community and imagining Jewish conspiracy. In both films paternalistic characters who identify as secular Jews shape the film's narrative through sessions in which they question the perverse protagonist. Each of the two films presents us with a concept of Jewish identity that is developed through these interactions. This is a question not of negative or positive portrayal of Jewish characters but of how the films portray a worldwide community of Jews, the community that confers an identity on each individual Jew. Thus the two films serve as a case study of possibilities for representation of Jews in cinematic narratives about sexual perversity.","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"141 1","pages":"48 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76176941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0001
Helene Meyers
Rob Epstein's The Times of Harvey Milk (USA, 1984) and Gus Van Sant's Milk (USA, 2008), the two major films that narrate the life and tragically dramatic death of gay politician and activist Harvey Milk (1930–1978), are widely recognized as part of the queer cinematic canon but are less often categorized as Jewish films. While Epstein's film adroitly presents a "Kosher-style" Milk, the Jewishness of Van Sant's Milk is less certain; however, a well-established pattern of gay and lesbian Jews citing Milk as one of their own—what I term "Jewqhooing"—enabled a Jewish reception of Milk. Querying and queerying the Jewishness of Milk (the man as well as the movies that purport to represent his life and times) illuminate the complex ways Jewishness continues to be cinematically conveyed or whitewashed as well as the intersections between queer and Jewish film history.
{"title":"Got Jewish Milk?: Screening Epstein and Van Sant for Intersectional Film History","authors":"Helene Meyers","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Rob Epstein's The Times of Harvey Milk (USA, 1984) and Gus Van Sant's Milk (USA, 2008), the two major films that narrate the life and tragically dramatic death of gay politician and activist Harvey Milk (1930–1978), are widely recognized as part of the queer cinematic canon but are less often categorized as Jewish films. While Epstein's film adroitly presents a \"Kosher-style\" Milk, the Jewishness of Van Sant's Milk is less certain; however, a well-established pattern of gay and lesbian Jews citing Milk as one of their own—what I term \"Jewqhooing\"—enabled a Jewish reception of Milk. Querying and queerying the Jewishness of Milk (the man as well as the movies that purport to represent his life and times) illuminate the complex ways Jewishness continues to be cinematically conveyed or whitewashed as well as the intersections between queer and Jewish film history.","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"9 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84318798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0102
A. Spicer
{"title":"On Capua's Anatole Litvak: The Life and Films","authors":"A. Spicer","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0102","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"102 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75403747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0109
C. Portuges
{"title":"On Pozner and Laurent's Kinojudaica","authors":"C. Portuges","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0109","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"24 1","pages":"109 - 112"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77867903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0075
Roberta Rosenberg
This essay explores the presence of Jewish ritual in the lives of otherwise nonobservant Jews, the Pfeffermans, in the Amazon original television series Transparent (Jill Soloway, USA, 2014–). The secular Pfeffermans must confront all the tragedies and challenges of any contemporary American family—divorce, miscarriage, promiscuity, death, sexual confusion, and illness—but without an established moral or religious compass that might provide them with guidance and comfort in overcoming or at least accepting these adversities. The Pfeffermans therefore represent the ambivalence and confusion of many assimilated contemporary American Jews as they seek a meaningful spirituality to help traverse a contemporary landscape replete with circumstances that test their courage, faith, and resilience. Transparent thus offers a window into a world where secular Jews (and even their rabbi) struggle—sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing—to create a spiritual world of Jewish ritual living that will provide them with an opportunity to lech lecha, to go forth as courageous adults into a challenging world.
{"title":"The Importance of Jewish Ritual in the Secular, Postmodern World of Transparent","authors":"Roberta Rosenberg","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0075","url":null,"abstract":"This essay explores the presence of Jewish ritual in the lives of otherwise nonobservant Jews, the Pfeffermans, in the Amazon original television series Transparent (Jill Soloway, USA, 2014–). The secular Pfeffermans must confront all the tragedies and challenges of any contemporary American family—divorce, miscarriage, promiscuity, death, sexual confusion, and illness—but without an established moral or religious compass that might provide them with guidance and comfort in overcoming or at least accepting these adversities. The Pfeffermans therefore represent the ambivalence and confusion of many assimilated contemporary American Jews as they seek a meaningful spirituality to help traverse a contemporary landscape replete with circumstances that test their courage, faith, and resilience. Transparent thus offers a window into a world where secular Jews (and even their rabbi) struggle—sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing—to create a spiritual world of Jewish ritual living that will provide them with an opportunity to lech lecha, to go forth as courageous adults into a challenging world.","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"101 - 75"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82628893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-04-01DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0113
K. Fermaglich
On Case's Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece. By George Case. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2014. 212 pp., ISBN 978-0-7864-9449-1 (pb); ISBN 978-1-4766-1848-7 (e-book); US $40 (both editions).In Calling Dr. Strangelove George Case offers a useful and entertaining tour through the iconic 1964 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Case explores thoroughly the making of the film, from its initial origins as a pulp novel authored by Peter George (under the pen name Peter Bryant), through its legacies in contemporary American culture. As Case does so, he provides the reader with valuable connections between the black comedy and the equally absurd reality it parodied.The book looks closely at the novel's plot, highlighting its foundation in the real structures of American and British nuclear policy in the 1950s and early 1960s. Case describes the British, Soviet, and American bomber forces charged with constantly patrolling the air so that they could retaliate at any moment if any of those nations came under attack. Of course these plans for retaliation were only defensive and could be put into action only under the command of the nations' leaders-until President Dwight Eisenhower introduced a loophole allowing junior staff to launch missiles in case communication was disrupted. It was this precarious structure that animated the George novel, as well as the Kubrick film's satire, although by the time of the film's release, that loophole had been closed.After tracing the book's origins to this frightening reality, Case describes Stanley Kubrick's gradual decision to bring out the absurd humor in the political situation. Although Kubrick initially intended to play the novel straight, within the first few weeks ofwriting the screenplay, the outrageous and ridiculous nature of the subject matter indicated to him the direction the film needed to take. According to Kubrick, "I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes more fully . . . one had to keep leaving things out which were either absurd or paradoxical in order to keep it from being funny, and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question" (23). Case describes Kubrick's intense research into the subject of nuclear warfare, and his close work with George and writer Terry Southern to transform that subject into comedy.Case then moves into a discussion of the production, researching the experiences of the film's bit actors as well as major stars. One of the strengths of this book is that it addresses Kubrick's reputation as a dictatorial auteur but also highlights the experiences, input, and participation of a host of other people involved in the film. He describes the challenges of working with Peter Sellers, for example, as well as the competition between the release of this film and the very similar, very non-funny Sidney Lum
{"title":"On Case's Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece","authors":"K. Fermaglich","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.5.1.0113","url":null,"abstract":"On Case's Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece Calling Dr. Strangelove: The Anatomy and Influence of the Kubrick Masterpiece. By George Case. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2014. 212 pp., ISBN 978-0-7864-9449-1 (pb); ISBN 978-1-4766-1848-7 (e-book); US $40 (both editions).In Calling Dr. Strangelove George Case offers a useful and entertaining tour through the iconic 1964 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Case explores thoroughly the making of the film, from its initial origins as a pulp novel authored by Peter George (under the pen name Peter Bryant), through its legacies in contemporary American culture. As Case does so, he provides the reader with valuable connections between the black comedy and the equally absurd reality it parodied.The book looks closely at the novel's plot, highlighting its foundation in the real structures of American and British nuclear policy in the 1950s and early 1960s. Case describes the British, Soviet, and American bomber forces charged with constantly patrolling the air so that they could retaliate at any moment if any of those nations came under attack. Of course these plans for retaliation were only defensive and could be put into action only under the command of the nations' leaders-until President Dwight Eisenhower introduced a loophole allowing junior staff to launch missiles in case communication was disrupted. It was this precarious structure that animated the George novel, as well as the Kubrick film's satire, although by the time of the film's release, that loophole had been closed.After tracing the book's origins to this frightening reality, Case describes Stanley Kubrick's gradual decision to bring out the absurd humor in the political situation. Although Kubrick initially intended to play the novel straight, within the first few weeks ofwriting the screenplay, the outrageous and ridiculous nature of the subject matter indicated to him the direction the film needed to take. According to Kubrick, \"I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes more fully . . . one had to keep leaving things out which were either absurd or paradoxical in order to keep it from being funny, and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question\" (23). Case describes Kubrick's intense research into the subject of nuclear warfare, and his close work with George and writer Terry Southern to transform that subject into comedy.Case then moves into a discussion of the production, researching the experiences of the film's bit actors as well as major stars. One of the strengths of this book is that it addresses Kubrick's reputation as a dictatorial auteur but also highlights the experiences, input, and participation of a host of other people involved in the film. He describes the challenges of working with Peter Sellers, for example, as well as the competition between the release of this film and the very similar, very non-funny Sidney Lum","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"5 1","pages":"113 - 115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72511147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-20DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0161
R. Yosef
The article explores the relationships between diaspora and nationalism, heterosexuality and queerness in two Israeli films: Three Mothers (Dina Zvi-Riklis, 2006) and Late Marriage (Dover Koshashvili, 2001). These films reconfigure home as both nation and diaspora outside the heteronormative logics of the family, kinship, and hetero-patriarchal inheritance and genealogy. Although the films are about heterosexual romances, I argue that they offer a radical critique of both national and diasporic narratives that rely on a patrilineal family tree structured by heterosexual marriage and reproduction, and which therefore exclude non-heteronormative sexuality and desire. They expose and challenge the politics of the Oedipal organization and normative kinship systems by deploying modes of melancholia to reimagine and reassemble new forms of desire, identification, pleasure, and belonging to spaces such as home and family, diaspora and nation, which have traditionally denied anti-heteronormative existence. The films link ethnic to heterosexual melancholia and show that the loss of the diasporic past conceals the even deeper and more hidden loss of queer familial sexual ties.
{"title":"Resisting Genealogy: Diasporic Grief and Heterosexual Melancholia in the Israeli Films Three Mothers and Late Marriage","authors":"R. Yosef","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0161","url":null,"abstract":"The article explores the relationships between diaspora and nationalism, heterosexuality and queerness in two Israeli films: Three Mothers (Dina Zvi-Riklis, 2006) and Late Marriage (Dover Koshashvili, 2001). These films reconfigure home as both nation and diaspora outside the heteronormative logics of the family, kinship, and hetero-patriarchal inheritance and genealogy. Although the films are about heterosexual romances, I argue that they offer a radical critique of both national and diasporic narratives that rely on a patrilineal family tree structured by heterosexual marriage and reproduction, and which therefore exclude non-heteronormative sexuality and desire. They expose and challenge the politics of the Oedipal organization and normative kinship systems by deploying modes of melancholia to reimagine and reassemble new forms of desire, identification, pleasure, and belonging to spaces such as home and family, diaspora and nation, which have traditionally denied anti-heteronormative existence. The films link ethnic to heterosexual melancholia and show that the loss of the diasporic past conceals the even deeper and more hidden loss of queer familial sexual ties.","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"51 1","pages":"161 - 185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79388357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-20DOI: 10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0201
J. Tanny
{"title":"On Kanter’s Lunch: Old Jews Slurping Soup and the Fate of Jewish Humor","authors":"J. Tanny","doi":"10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13110/JEWIFILMNEWMEDI.4.2.0201","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40351,"journal":{"name":"Jewish Film & New Media-An International Journal","volume":"26 1","pages":"201 - 206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76732071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}