Top Jewish Drama and a Top Jewish Documentary

“A Real Pain”, a “very Jewish” film, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January and almost all reviews were stellar. It opens “wide” in theaters on Nov. 1.

OWEN GLIBERMAN, 65, Variety’s top critic, loved the film and you can easily find and read the review on-line (free). A “tag line” on the Variety review almost said it all: “Jesse Eisenberg Becomes a Major Filmmaker and Kieran Culkin a Movie Star — in a Funny, Knife-Sharp Odyssey.”

EISENBERG, 41, wrote the film and directed it. He has written plays and he directed one other film. But “Real Pain” is a clearly a great career milestone for Eisenberg. It’s almost certain he will be Oscar-nominated.

Here’s the premise boiled down: David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) are first cousins who haven’t seen each other lately. They reunite on a “Holocaust group tour” of Poland. David is a “very normal” guy, while Benji, in Variety’s words, is a combo of a “hipster slacker and corporate dick” who is also the “life of the party.” People are alternately annoyed at him and drawn to him.

Of course, because David and Benji are on a Holocaust tour, there’s lot of “Jewish stuff” in the mix.

Gliberman praises how brilliantly the main characters have been written and how well Culkin and Eisenberg play their characters. He also compliments Eisenberg’s direction.

JENNIFER GREY, 64, DANIEL ORESKES, 65, and LIZA SADOVY, 65ish, play other American Jews on the Holocaust tour. Also on the tour is an African (played by British actor Kurt Egyiawan) who survived the Rwanda genocide and converted to Judaism.

BANNER EISENBERG, 7, has a small part. He’s the son of Jesse, and his wife, ANNA STROUT, 40.

A few weeks ago, I came across “The Levys of Monticello” (“Levys”), a remarkably good documentary that is now streaming on Amazon Prime (free for subscribers). It is also available on Youtube for a $3.99 rental fee. It is one of the best documentaries about American Jewish history I’ve ever seen and it is at the level of a Ken Burns PBS documentary.

If you don’t subscribe to Prime, and you don’t want to rent the video—do watch the 20! (free) videos on Youtube about the film and about the Levy family. (Search: “Levys of Monticello”) There are many interviews with STEVEN PRESSMAN, 69, the “Levys” director and writer. The film and the videos amount to a college course (really!!).

Monticello, of course, was the beautiful home of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). It is located on a hill near Charlottesville, VA (the home of the Univ. of Virginia. Jefferson founded this university). Jefferson designed Monticello, which was inspired by Italian architecture. It was finished in 1772.

 

One of the documentary’s strong points is that weaves in the story of slavery at Monticello and that information is largely presented by African American historians and by descendants of Monticello slaves. Most of the work on the building was done by Jefferson’s slaves. Jefferson had between 100-200 slaves (at any one time) at Monticello.

Jefferson died heavily in debt. Monticello was in poor shape. It deteriorated further in the hands of the first buyer. In 1834, Uriah P. Levy (1792-1862), a great admirer of Jefferson, bought Monticello and he spent his money to bring Monticello back into its original shape. Sadly, Levy bought most of the Monticello slaves. (Several Levy descendants are interviewed in the film. They are proud of Uriah Levy, but the “shine”, they say, is diminished by Levy owing slaves).

Capsule: Uriah Levy was a 5th generation American. He was a war hero who fought anti-Semitism as he rose in the ranks of the U.S. Navy. He reached the rank of Commodore (an admiral). He stayed loyal to the Union in the Civil War.

The film lays out a complex series of events following Uriah’s death, that lead to a court battle for Monticello. It ended in 1879 with the purchase of Monticello by JEFFERSON MONROE LEVY (1852-1924), Uriah’s nephew.

Jefferson Levy was a wealthy man who poured about a million dollars of his own money to restore the run-down (again) Monticello (Like his uncle, Jefferson Levy admired Thomas Jefferson’s central role in the existence of freedom of religion in America).

The film has several asides which detail the growth of the American Jewish community and the growth of anti-Semitism in America. In the early 20thC., anti-Semites agitated to take Monticello away from the “alien” Levys. This campaign failed, but financial reverses forced Jefferson Levy to sell Monticello (for a loss) to a private association (1923).

The Monticello association “hosts” virtually “blanked-out” the history of Levy family ownership-- and how they saved Monticello twice! Finally, in 1985, new association leadership changed everything and visitors to Monticello are told (in various ways) about the Levys’ stewardship—and about slavery.

But, to me, the most chilling part of the film comes near the end. In 2017, neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Robt. E. Lee in a city park. They were filmed marching on the Univ. of Virginia campus shouting “the Jews will not replace us!” The next day, a counter-demonstrator was run down and killed by a neo-Nazi.

Millions were outraged when Donald Trump, then President, said that there were “good people on both sides” (i.e., neo-Nazis and counter demonstrators.)

Either Trump didn’t watch the neo-Nazi march news reports or he was just playing ‘footsie’ with the far right. He never apologized for this statement and he didn’t issue any further statement, period.

Trump’s statement, President Biden said, motivated him to run for the presidency and, at the recent Democratic convention, Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, said that he would never forget what Trump said about Charlottesville.

“The Levys” does include footage of the neo-Nazi march. It doesn’t mention the former President’s statement The same footage does show that the neo-Nazis gathered at a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the Univ. of Virginia campus.

The film does mention some ironies: Jefferson was a champion of tolerance of all religious groups and the sculptor of the Jefferson statue was MOSES EZEKIEL l (1844-1917), a Jew who was born in Viriginia.

The film doesn’t mention that Ezekiel fought for the Confederacy, was a friend of Robert E. Lee, and that he was a white supremacist. He sculpted a huge memorial honoring the Confederate dead that was, originally, placed in Arlington Cemetery (1914).

Well, after the Charlottesville “horrors” many Moses Ezekiel descendants joined, with many others, to ask the federal government to remove the Arlington Cemetery Confederate memorial, It was moved, in late 2023, to a federal park for various historical items.

This all makes me think about a statement made early in the film by an African-American historian [paraphrased]: “How do you work out the contradictions---a great President who wrote “all men are created equal” and championed religious tolerance---and owned slaves—and a Jewish war hero, who saved Monticello, but owned slaves, too?”

Maybe the answer is to denounce anti-Semites, black or white, without excuses—and your descendants will not be ashamed. And to denounce racists, even if some of them claim they like “some” Jews.

By the way, Pressman has just released a documentary about Moses Ezkiel.