Jennifer Lawrence, nominated in the best actress category for her searing portrayal of an Ozarks teenager in “Winter’s Bone,” was indispensable to writer-director Debra Granik — and not just for her acting prowess. Lawrence, 20, who was raised in Kentucky, played an important role in helping the New York Jewish director bridge the culture gap to bring the gritty Bible Belt tale to the screen.
Writer-director Debra Granik is Jewish, upper middle class and a New Yorker. So it is all the more remarkable that her thriller, “Winter’s Bone,” is so accurate in its depiction of life in the Ozarks that, in the words of one critic, “You can almost taste the fried squirrel.” The film has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture and best adapted screenplay.
In a rehearsal room of the Ahmanson Theatre, Moises Kaufman recounts a story about Ludwig van Beethoven, a central figure in his new play, “33 Variations” — or, rather, a story about the composer’s hair. When Beethoven died in 1827, the custom was to trim the locks of famous decedents to sell as relics; eventually some of that hair came into the possession of a Jewish family, who traded it for their freedom from the Nazis.
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