Hello,
Readers. Did you miss me?
My
first post for Tzivi’s Cinema Spotlight was way back in August 2011, and in all the
intervening years, month after month, I have always found something worth
recommending. But in December 2016, I had nothing. And I had nothing last month
either. All of the attention has shifted to Oscar candidates, and there are no
films with Jewish content in contention this year… absolutely none. I don’t
know what that says about the state of the world, but luckily Chicago
cinephiles have stepping in to fill the gap.
On
Sunday (February 12), you can choose between two wonderful films or see both!
The first is the documentary Morgenthau,
screening in the afternoon at Spertus Institute in the South Loop. The second
is Fire Birds, a Black Comedy from
Israel, screening in the evening at Moadon Kol Chasash on Clybourn (just north
of Fullerton).
*************************
The
subject of Morgenthau is the deep
humanitarian commitment of Henry Morgenthau Senior
(best-known today as the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the
Armenian Genocide), his son Henry Morgenthau Junior (best-known today as the U.S.
Secretary of Treasury under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the
Holocaust), and his grandson Robert M. Morgenthau (best-known for his thirty
year tenure as District Attorney of New York County and personified today on
television in Law and Order’s beloved
character Adam Schiff).
In 1866, ten year old Henry
Morgenthau Senior and his family arrived in New York. Although his father, Lazarus Morgenthau, had been well-off in Germany, Lazarus was never able to
make a go of it in America. Henry Morgenthau Senior, on the other hand,
made so much money as a real estate investor that he was able to
help fund Woodrow Wilson’s Presidential campaign.
When Wilson became President in 1912, Henry
Senior lobbied for a position in the cabinet, but
Wilson offered him the position of ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire instead. His friend Rabbi Stephen
Wise encouraged him to take the position, so he did. Thus he found himself in
the eye of the storm once the Turkish government began to systematically deport
members of the Armenian community. Unable to convince Wilson to intervene, Henry
Senior resigned in 1916 and turned his attention to relief efforts, using his
considerable connections to raise awareness as well as cash. He continued to work with war-related charities after the war, and in 1919
he headed a fact-finding mission on behalf of the United States
government to investigate reports of mistreatment of Poland’s Jewish community.
All this time, Henry Morgenthau Junior (born in 1891), was coming of age in New York as
the scion of a wealthy and politically connected family. In 1913, he met
Franklin Roosevelt, an upsate New York neighbor with common interests, and the
two became close lifelong friends. In 1934,
President Roosevelt appointed Morgenthau to the post of Secretary of the
Treasury (the position to which his
father had aspired at the start of the Wilson Administration). This appointment
made Henry Junior a key player in The New Deal, and also put him in a position to
receive first-hand information about German atrocities during the Holocaust. He
made enemies (especially within the U.S. State Department) because he was
vocal, and after Roosevelt died in 1945, he resigned and spent the remainder of
his life working for various Jewish philanthropies (some specifically targeted
to Israelis).
While
Henry Junior was fighting inside the government, his son Robert (born in 1919)
was fighting on the high seas, mostly aboard destroyers. He saw combat action
in both the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters, returning home at the end of
the war with the final rank of Lieutenant Commander. Just as his father had
done, Robert also made a good friend in another wealthy and politically
connected family, and in 1961, President Kennedy appointed him U.S. Attorney
for the Southern District of New York. He served in this position until
President Nixon booted him out in 1969 (although he took time off to run
against Nelson Rockefeller for Governor of New York in 1962). In 1974, he was
elected to the office of District Attorney of New York County. In 2009, he announced that he would not
seek re-election. At the end of that year, he was replaced by Cyrus Vance, Jr,
who had served as Assistant District Attorney and had run with Robert’s endorsement.
Now
more than ever, we need positive stories of public service and Morgenthau is exemplary. Director Max
Lewkowicz and his writers Henry Feingold, Sam Roberts, and Valerie Thomas have
done a masterful job of narrative compression, keeping each personality and
timeframe distinct. I guarantee you will come away from this film filled with
renewed optimism and hope for the future. And unlike me, sitting here in
Brooklyn, if you see Morgenthau at
Spertus, you can also participate in the post-screening Q&A to be conducted
by Dr. Tony Michels,
the George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History at University of
Wisconsin, Madison. Send me your notes!
*************************
Fire Birds is a totally different kind of film,
but equally wonderful. Fire Birds
opens with a jazzy upbeat rendition of the beloved Yiddish tune “Oyfn
Pripetshik.” You may not recognize the name of this song, but I guarantee you
have already heard it. It is the background music that plays on the Schindler’s List soundtrack when Oscar
Schindler is watching the little girl in the red
dress flee from the Nazis. I am sure this was intentional on the
part of director Amir Wolf, because Fire
Birds is a Black Comedy about “the world’s most exclusive club.”
Wolf
and his two co-screenwriters Orly Robenshtein Katcap and Itzhak Wolf, also juggle
complex timeframes. In the present tense, a detective named “Amnon” (Amnon
Wolf) is ordered to investigate the death of an old man found dumped in the Yarkon River. The body had an Auschwitz tattoo, and Amnon,
the son of two Survivors, does not want this assignment, but he is on
probation, so he has no choice.
Amnon’s
investigation is cross cut with the story of how “Amikam” (Oded Teomi) spends
his final days. I don’t want to give too much away, so suffice it to say that
Amikam (assuming that really is his name) runs afoul of two widows: a famous
actress named “Zissy” (Miriam Zohar) and a retired surgeon named
“Olga” (Gila Almagor).
Olga
and Zissy are also Survivors as were their now dead husbands, so I know this story
may sound grim. You will just have to believe me, therefore, when I tell you
that some scenes had me belly laughing. In one scene, Amnon takes his young daughter
to visit his elderly parents. “Danielle” (Sarit Vino-Elad) is supposed to
interview her grandparents to learn more about her family history, but Amnon
doesn’t want her to know about any of the “things” he learned as a child. So in
answer to the question “Where did you and Zayde meet?” his mother (Alisa Rozen) describes a camp on a chocolate river filled with
marzipan. “Every day we had tea with Mister Himmler!” Danielle is
entranced and I am literally laughing through my
tears.
Fire Birds was nominated for ten Ophir Awards by
the Israel Film Academy in 2015, with a well-deserved win for Dvora Keidar in the Best Supporting Actress category. It
was also nominated for Best Feature at the 2015 Haifa International Film
Festival and the 2015 Montreal World Film Festival. Fire Birds is Amir Wolf’s first
film! What will he bring us next?
*************************
To
purchase tickets for Morgenthau,
visit the Spertus website: http://www.spertus.edu/programs-events/morgenthau
To
purchase tickets for Fire Birds,
visit the “Israeli Movie Night” page on EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/israeli-movie-night-tickets-31453822229
If you
are not able to attend the Morgenthau
screening, you can watch it on Amazon and iTunes: http://www.doggreenproductions.com/portfolio/morgenthau/
Groups
interested in screening Fire Birds
can order it from the Israeli Films website: http://www.israelifilms.co.il/Fire-Birds.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
.gif "1962")
Top
Photo: Dvora Keidar (left) as “Martirio Halperin”
with Miriam Zohar as “Zissy Glick.” Courtesy of the Chicago Festival of Israeli
Cinema.
Bottom
Photo: President John F. Kennedy arrives at LaGuardia Airport on October 11,
1962 on a campaign swing for multiple candidates. JFK’s friend Robert M.
Morgenthau (standing to his right) was the Democratic candidate for Governor of
New York. Photo courtesy of
Dog Green Productions.
