Most of the founding fathers of the Hollywood studios were Jewish, but very few of the movies they produced depicted Jewish American life. Since then, the most significant films that have done so have been independent productions, whether from decades ago (“The Plot Against Harry,” “Hester Street”) or more recently (“A Serious Man,” “Armageddon Time”). Now there’s a new entry in the field, “Between the Temples,” whose sardonically punning title, though suggesting something of the movie’s bitter comedy, barely hints at its bracing extremes of melancholy, derision, and tenderness. The film is the first high-profile project by Nathan Silver, who has been assiduously at work for the past fifteen years directing distinctive indie films on stressfully tiny budgets, often featuring his mother, Cindy Silver, a nonprofessional actress. His previous work has sometimes brought Jewish customs to the fore; “Soft in the Head” (2013) dramatized a pair of Shabbat dinners. In the new film, Silver, working with a bigger budget and a cast of notable actors—headed by Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, and Dolly De Leon—expands his emotional range and his scope of action while delving into secular Jewish life and its interface with organized religion. (The movie was shot in early 2023, before the October 7th attacks on Israel and the massacres in Gaza, thus turning it, in effect, into a historical drama of American Jewry.)
Denne historien er fra September 02, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra September 02, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Drug of Choice - The natural world contains many billions of potential medications. The question is how to find the ones that work.
AI. is transforming the way medicines are made. Bacteria produce numerous molecules that could become medicines, but most of them aren’t easily identified or synthesized with the technology that exists today. A small percentage of them, however, can be constructed by following instructions in the bacteria’s DNA. Burian helped me search the sequence for genes that looked familiar enough to be understandable but unfamiliar enough to produce novel compounds. We settled on a string of DNA that coded for seven linked amino acids, the same number found in vancomycin. Then Burian introduced me to Robert Boer, a synthetic chemist who would help me conjure our drug candidate.
Screams from a Marriage
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Fly with Me
The children’s books of Katherine Rundell.
The Mystery of Pain
Garth Greenwell’s novel of extreme affliction and ordinary happiness.
The Show Must Go On
What if Ronald Reagan’ Presidency never really ended?
LAST COFFEEHOUSE ON TRAVIS
For a few months, I stayed with my aunt's friend in Midtown, back when she could still afford to live there.
Tales from the New World
The novelist Richard Powers considers our changing earth.
Land of the Flea
What America 1s buying and selling.
The Dark Time
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
The Post-Moral Age
If conscience is merely a biological artifact, must we give up on goodness?