September 29, 2010

Film, TV and theater director Arthur Penn died last night in New York of congestive heart failure. He was 88.

Penn was a seminal figure in Hollywood, credited with transforming movies made in “good taste and moral clarity”, according to the NY Times obit, to an intense, stylized focus on sex and violence, thus paving the way for a new generation of contemporary filmmakers.

Penn was born in Philadelphia to Russian-Jewish parents; his brother was renowned photographer Irving Penn.

From the New York Times obituary:

Arthur Penn was born on Sept. 27, 1922 in Philadelphia to parents of Russian-Jewish heritage. His father, a watchmaker, and his mother, a nurse, divorced when he was three, and Arthur and his brother Irving (who would achieve fame as a photographer) went to live with their mother in New York and New Jersey, changing homes and schools frequently as she struggled to make a living.

….

But it was as a film director that Mr. Penn left his mark on American culture, most indelibly with “Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Arthur Penn brought the sensibility of ’60s European art films to American movies,” the writer-director Paul Schrader said. “He paved the way for the new generation of American directors who came out of film schools.”

Many of the now-classic films of what was branded the “New American Cinema” of the 1970s — including “Taxi Driver,” directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Mr. Schrader, and “The Godfather,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola — would have been unthinkable without “Bonnie and Clyde” to point the way.

Loosely based on the story of two minor gangsters of the 1930s, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, “Bonnie and Clyde” had been conceived by its two novice screenwriters, Robert Benton and David Newman, as an homage to the rebellious sensibility and disruptive style of French New Wave films like François Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.”

In Mr. Penn’s hands, it became something even more dangerous and innovative — a sympathetic portrait of two barely articulate criminals, played by Mr. Beatty and a newcomer, Faye Dunaway, that disconcertingly mixed sex, violence and hayseed comedy, set to a bouncy bluegrass score by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Not only was the film sexually explicit in ways unseen in Hollywood since the imposition of the Production Code in 1934 — when Bonnie stroked Clyde’s gun, the symbolism was unmistakable — it was violent in ways that had never been seen before. Audiences gasped when a comic bank robbery climaxed with Clyde’s shooting a bank teller in the face, and were stunned when this attractive outlaw couple died in a torrent of bullets, their bodies twitching in slow motion as their clothes turned red with blood.

From most powerful Jew in Washington to most powerful Jew in Chicago? 

I doubt Rahm Emanuel is trying to over-hype the upcoming announcement of his plans to run for mayor of Chicago. After all, Emanuel is no ” title=”Cleveland” target=”_blank”>Cleveland.

But, it’s a likely possibility for the White House chief of staff, who is scheduled to make the official statement this Friday. 

From Chicago Sun-Times:

Watch for Rahm Emanuel to hit the bricks running for Chicago’s mayoral mantle this weekend after his formal announcement Friday he is leaving his job as White House chief of staff.

Read more at ” title=”Michael Jordan” target=”_blank”>Michael Jordan say?

The suspense is killing me.

If you want to pack a ballroom full of Jews, try this theme: Hollywood and Israel.

It’s a relationship the Jewish community never tires of exploring, no matter how fraught or flimsy or confounding the connection.

An event organized by the pro-Israel World Alliance for Israel Political Action Committee (WAIPAC) on Sept. 14 drew a crowd of 350 to the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard. There, Hollywood hotshots Sherry Lansing, Marc Platt and David Lonner thrashed out their passions and prescriptions for a Hollywood that cares — even as Israel faces an unfriendly media and artist boycotts, and as increasing political tensions tug at American Jewish loyalties.

Do people in Hollywood care about Israel? Sure. The only problem is that no one knows what Hollywood should do.

“Hollywood is packed with people who know how to influence opinion,” said Lonner, founder of Oasis Media Group, whose clients include writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams and producer/director Jon Turteltaub. “If we can figure out a way to harness that, I do believe we can make a difference.”

But Hollywood is not monolithic. It’s “just a group of individuals,” said Lansing, former head of Paramount Pictures and founder of The Sherry Lansing Foundation. “There are people who care deeply, people who are indifferent and a group that is vocally opposed to Israeli policies,” she added. To lump the whole of Hollywood together would be misguided, but the panelists agreed that the prevailing industry ethos toward Israel is characterized by deep uncertainty and ambivalence.

“Hollywood loves an underdog,” said theater and film producer Platt (“Legally Blonde” franchise, “Wicked”). “Always has.” But while the Jewish state may have played that role well for generations past — a newly minted, vulnerable nation under constant threat and attack — these days, young Hollywood isn’t buying the Israel-as-victim ticket. Even with a nuclear threat from Iran, young Hollywood sees an Israel with power and prestige, an Israel that hasn’t always acted wisely — or kindly — when it comes to the Palestinians.

“Because Israel is in a position of power,” Platt said, “power can be abused, and that leads to criticism.”

Though not in this room. After all, WAIPAC is not JStreet, so instead of discussing the tough choices Israel faces, the panelists stuck to their comfort zones: how much they love Israel, how they want to improve its image and how to get other people to love it, too.

“Emotionally, I can never be objective about [Israel] because I love it so much,” Platt said.

“I was always somebody who was very proud of being Jewish, but I had no idea how much I loved Israel until the plane landed on the ground [on my first trip], and I walked outside and started to cry,” Lansing said.

“I always say I’m like a light socket plugged into an energy source when I’m there,” Lonner added.

Both Lansing and Lonner have organized industry trips to the Holy Land, the best pro-Israel aphrodisiac: “The best way to convert somebody who isn’t pro-Israel is to take them to Israel,” Lansing said again and again.

Prompted by moderator Jay Sanderson, president of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Lansing, Lonner and Platt offered up their 2 cents on how Hollywood could be of more use to Israel’s welfare.

Lansing stressed education — Internet campaigns and public service announcements; Platt said the industry needs leaders and role models who can galvanize support.

Lonner borrowed a play from Mel Gibson.

“I think there’s a gigantic market for biblical stories,” Lonner said, calling for the industry to try its hand at Hebrew bible narratives. “Ironically, and upsettingly, the effect Mel Gibson’s movie had in this country and around the world showed that biblical stories — violence and all, sex and all — do have a marketplace.”

Sanderson wondered whether the days for telling stories about Israeli and Jewish history are over. Couldn’t a contemporary “Ten Commandments” do the trick?

Remember, Platt warned, Hollywood is a business, first and foremost. So, while it’s nice to dream up movies that showcase Jewish values and the nuances of life in Israel, more importantly, they’ve got to sell.

“We all appreciate and respect Steven Spielberg’s great film ‘Schindler’s List,’ ” Platt said, “but it did take the most successful director of the 20th century, a best-selling novel and a protagonist that was a Gentile, to tell the story of the Holocaust.”

“I don’t want to sound dramatic, but I’m actually more concerned today than I’ve ever been in my whole life,” Lansing said. Someone in the audience raised the issue that Lansing sits on The Carter Center board of trustees. Jimmy Carter’s 2007 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” presents a critical view of the Israeli government.

Lansing said the book upset her, but it was no reason to end her friendship with the former president: “To leave the table and not engage in dialogue is to ensure that no one will ever change their mind.”

When something is glaringly offensive, such as last year’s boycott of the Toronto Film Festival’s spotlight on Tel Aviv, Hollywood rallies to the cause. But, for the most part, the Jewish Hollywood behemoth can’t be bothered with the everyday trials of the Jewish state.

Besides, the film community is becoming increasingly global, where party lines do not prevail nearly as much as they do in Washington.

“More and more voices are being heard,” Platt said, “including Israeli voices. And there’s also, as there should be, the other side — Arab voices and Palestinian voices that are also important.”

Maybe instead of asking what Hollywood can do, Hollywood Jews should ask themselves who they want to be.

“I don’t think there’s a collective response,” Platt said. “I feel it’s in the actions of people, in the stories you tell and how you tell them, the way you behave and how you wear your Jewishness.”