Steven Spielberg had to know he was walking into a hornet’s nest when he embarked on “Munich.” Still, he couldn’t have imagined that he’d be this year’s Mel Gibson.
Gibson, of course, galvanized the Jewish community in 2004 with “The Passion of the Christ,” which breathed new life into the canard that the Jews killed Christ. It was hard to say which was more disturbing, the movie’s thesis or its phenomenal commercial success.
The controversy over “Munich” trumps any other in a look back at this year’s films containing Jewish themes, actors or implications. As 2005 began, the likely subjects of controversy – though hardly on the same scale — figured to be “The Merchant of Venice” and “Oliver Twist.” The two literary adaptations were high risk and high profile, with Al Pacino and Ben Kingsley interpreting the problematic Jewish characters Shylock and Fagin.
Both films met with unenthusiastic reviews and indifferent public response, and vanished from theaters almost immediately. A few critics assailed “Merchant” when it was released in January, but by and large neither film made the slightest dent in Jewish consciousness.
The most provocative Jewish-themed films of 2005, it turned out, came from the Middle East. Leading the way was the quirky spy drama “Walk on Water,” which grossed $2.7 million to place fifth among all foreign-language films, and the ultra-religious fable “Ushpizin” ($1.2 million and counting). Those hits, plus the favorable response to “Nina’s Tragedies,” “Campfire” and “Or My Treasure,” guarantee that the wave of Israel movies receiving U.S. distribution will continue.
Generating the most discussion, though, was the critically acclaimed Palestinian drama “Paradise Now.” With ticket sales approaching $1 million and the strong possibility of an Academy Award nomination, the portrait of two suicide bombers is widely regarded as one of the year’s most important films.
On the home front, Jewish families rather than politics provided the focus for a surprising number of American independent films. Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale” stood out from the pack, thanks largely to Jeff Daniels’ performance against type as a selfish novelist and father.
A couple of bestsellers were transposed to the screen with mixed results. Liev Schreiber’s deeply felt adaptation of “Everything is Illuminated” was intriguing if not fully satisfying. David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s oddly detached “Bee Season” suffered from, among other things, the miscasting of big stars.
Slipping in under the radar was “King of the Corner,” a poignant comedy directed by and starring Peter Riegert that’s worth seeking out on DVD, and Paul Reiser’s saccharine “The Thing About My Folks.”
The quintessential American Jewish independent, Woody Allen, released two films overrated by critics eager to trumpet his comeback. Quality aside, neither “Melinda and Melinda” nor “Match Point” contained Jewish characters, but one can hope that Allen hasn’t finished mining his ethnic identity.
Hollywood more than made up for Allen’s shortfall, though. The presumably Jewish sisters of “In Her Shoes,” the boyfriend and his therapist mom (played by Meryl Streep) in “Prime,” lovelorn filmmaker Mark Cohen in “Rent,” TV producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) in “Good Night, and Good Luck” and the manic protagonists of “The Producers” were just some of the urban Jews to grace screens.
Kevin Bacon played a Jerry Lewis-inspired comic named Lanny Morris in “Where the Truth Lies,” which featured a key scene triggered by the word “kike.” Bob Hoskins winningly portrayed theater producer Vivian Van Damm in “Mrs. Henderson Presents,” and Allan Corduner played a refugee tailor in 1930s Shanghai in the Merchant-Ivory misfire “The White Countess.”
Behind the camera, Sidney Lumet, the deft director of “The Pawnbroker” and numerous other New York stories, received an honorary Oscar. In the executive suite, Michael Eisner was pushed out of Disney and Harvey Weinstein left Miramax to form a new production and distribution entity dubbed The Weinstein Company.
It was an unexceptional year for Jewish documentaries, with the prosaic “Paper Clips,” “The Ritchie Boys,” “Watermarks,” “Protocols of Zion” and “39 Pounds of Love” making the festival rounds. “The Aristocrats” featured a slew of Jewish comics from Shelley Berman to Jon Stewart, while a lone comedienne commandeered the spotlight in “Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic.”
A quiet, mostly uncontroversial year in movies, in other words, until “Munich” arrived this month. Spielberg’s film kindled the politely worded wrath of the Jewish establishment by suggesting, among other things, that Israel paid a moral price for retaliating for the Palestinian attack on its athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
Although reviews are mixed and other films seem primed for glory come Oscar time, “Munich” will continue to provoke discussion on op-ed pages and within the Jewish community. That’s hardly an insignificant achievement for a movie, especially a flawed one. For all the criticism that will be aimed at him, however, there’s no chance of Spielberg becoming a pariah.
Speaking of Mel Gibson, he is reportedly producing a TV miniseries about the Holocaust that could air as soon as next fall. If you’re handicapping 2006 controversies, that’s a good bet.