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film


<i>The Bible</i>: From One-Reeler to Docu-drama The Bible: From One-Reeler to Docu-drama
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The History Channel's The Bible is a small epic, with editorial choices that produce predictable results.  But some of this smallness yields unexpected insights.
Israel’s Gatekeepers Israel’s Gatekeepers
Thursday, April 11, 2013 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The Gatekeepers is not a history of Israel's security service, its operations and directors, but a political plea for the evacuation of the West Bank, the creation of a Palestinian state, and the suppression of Israeli’s religious settler movement.
The Fool and the Assassin The Fool and the Assassin
Monday, February 18, 2013 by Dan Kagan-Kans | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Most movie stars don’t act, they play themselves.  Danny Kaye, the biggest star of all in the 1940s and 1950s, who would have been 100 last month, was different. 
From Reparations to Atonement From Reparations to Atonement
Monday, January 28, 2013 by Ismar Schorsch | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Where recognition of the Holocaust was once restricted to the office of the Chancellor, there is a grassroots commitment in today's Germany to take ownership of the past.
Spielberg’s <i>Lincoln</i> and the Jews: An Untold Story Spielberg’s Lincoln and the Jews: An Untold Story
Monday, January 14, 2013 by Lance J. Sussman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Lincoln represents a missed opportunity to show that Jews didn’t just turn up in America in the wake of Russian pogroms. 
Justice in a Gray World Justice in a Gray World
Monday, December 31, 2012 by Robert Nicholson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The Law In These Parts, a new documentary that places the blame for Palestinian woes on Israel's military lawyers, exhibits scant awareness of history—and limited knowledge of law.
Through Night and Fog Through Night and Fog
Monday, August 20, 2012 by Eitan Kensky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

My father and I visited Auschwitz for the first time this summer.  It was toward the end of a long trip to Eastern Europe.  We had already gone to the killing fields and forests of Lithuania, and to Warsaw, where my father broke down . . . 
The Last Berber Jews The Last Berber Jews
Friday, August 10, 2012 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

As a child, the French filmmaker Kamal Hachkar learned the Berber language from his grandparents in Tinghir, a Berber oasis city east of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.  As an adult he discovered that the now exclusively Muslim town once had a substantial Jewish community.
Hollywood Goes to Auschwitz Hollywood Goes to Auschwitz
Friday, June 29, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Hollywood’s first encounter with the Holocaust came decades before Schindler’s List or any such dramatizations. The footage of genocide and its perpetrators, captured by three iconic American directors, shaped not only how we perceive the Holocaust, but also the subsequent development of American cinema—and the directors themselves.
The Yiddish Silver Screen The Yiddish Silver Screen
Thursday, October 27, 2011 by Nahma Sandrow | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Nobody is sure exactly how many movies were ever made in Yiddish. James Hoberman's exhaustive study Bridge of Light (2010) lists some hundred such films, made in the 20th century primarily in America, Germany, Austria, Romania, Poland, and Russia.
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Editors' Picks
Shalom Bollywood Emily Wax, Washington Post. With Hindu and Muslim actresses unwilling to appear onstage, producers turned to dancers from India's tiny Jewish community—and launched Bollywood in the process.
Gangs of Detroit Naomi Sandweiss, Tablet. What gangster Mickey Cohen was to Los Angeles, the Purple Gang was to Detroit—"a Jewish gang feared by even Al Capone’s Chicago mob."
The Faith Stays in the Picture Yair Raveh, Fathom. Israeli cinema used to be a reliably religion-free zone.  Not any more.
Broadway and the Jews Sarah Rodman, Boston Globe. As they say in Spamalot, "You won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews."  A new documentary film emphatically agrees.
Our Movies, Our Selves J. Hoberman, Nation. In 1947, the movies changed—partly because of Jewish critic Siegfried Kracauer, whose work showed the extent to which films reflect the mentality of a nation.
Lanzmann's Ladies Benjamin Balint, Weekly Standard. The memoir of filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, known for his achievement in Shoah, focuses on other "achievements": "I am the only man with whom Simone de Beauvoir lived a quasi-marital existence." 
Hollywood for Haredim Debra Kamin, New York Times. A recent spate of movies by female Haredi directors has exposed secular film-goers to the ultra-Orthodox world—but has also exposed Haredi women to the cinema.