great jewish film directors

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ernst lubitsch (the jewiest director of them all)
sergei eisenstein
dziga vertov
otto preminger
jean epstein
erich von stroheim (note fake "von")
cecil b. de mille (half-jewish, no kidding)
josef von sternberg (note another fake "von")
billy wilder
lewis milestone
rouben mamoulian
roman polanski

....?

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 25 November 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

JEWS? in the FILM INDUSTRY?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 November 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

cecil b. de mille (half-jewish, no kidding)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 25 November 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

i know, doesn't that blow your mind?!

josef von sternberg's real name was joseph sternberg--he was born in new york, i think. i guess the germanized spelling convinced everyone he was some distant european genius (well, he was a genius, but anyway).

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 25 November 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

the de mille thing is a brain-bender

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

woody allen!
mel brooks!!

― stevie (stevie), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:28 (twenty-one years ago)

adam levine!

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, adam levine.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

the dude from maroon 5?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:35 (twenty-one years ago)

if $sarcasm % 2 = 0
{
print "Barbra Streisand"
}

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

somebody's livin' in the matrix

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

fritz lang

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

That's a great juxtaposition!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 25 November 2004 19:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Sidney Lumet
Steven Spielberg
STANLEY KUBRICK

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 25 November 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

fritz lang wasn't jewish!!

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 25 November 2004 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

someone said i looked like adam levine last week.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 25 November 2004 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

from imdb:

On March 25, 1933, two days after Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Das (1932) was banned, Lang was summoned to the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda to meet with Joseph Goebbels himself. Goebbels explained the reason for the ban (when the Nazi party slogans are fed into the mouth of the villain at the film's conclusion) and apologised to Lang. He then shocked Lang by offering him the position of production supervisor at the UFA studios, where his first film would be a biography of William Tell. Lang suspected a trap and attempted to throw off Goebbels by telling him, "My mother had Jewish parents," to which Goebbels responded, "We'll decide who's Jewish!" Lang then expressed interest in the position and said he needed some time to think it over. That very evening, he boarded a train to Paris, leaving behing most of his money and personal possessions behind, along with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who divorced him later that year and went on to write and direct films for the Nazi propaganda machine.

He's had an amazing life.

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Thursday, 25 November 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

LENI RIEFENSTAHL

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 26 November 2004 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Robert (and) Curt Siodmak
Mauritz Stiller
Albert Brooks
Edward G Ulmer (I think)

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 02:39 (twenty-one years ago)

ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch ernst lubitsch fucking OTM, am!!!t.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 26 November 2004 03:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Woody Allen

― %#, Friday, 26 November 2004 03:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Woody Allen is jewish?

― Masked Gazza, Friday, 26 November 2004 03:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Wasn't Lubitsch called the King of Hollywood before Clark Gable?

Jules Dassin
Mervyn LeRoy
Maya Deren

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 03:59 (twenty-one years ago)

jules dassin you say!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 26 November 2004 04:07 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.jewhoo.com

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 26 November 2004 04:13 (twenty-one years ago)

We strongly recommend against using the terms “Jew” or “Jewish” in any search. They occur too frequently. Almost everyone listed on the list is Jewish or “part” Jewish. Read , “What is Jewhoo?” and our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for more on this point.

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 26 November 2004 04:14 (twenty-one years ago)

CHANTAL AKERMAN!!!!!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 26 November 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

peter brook!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 26 November 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

according to his recent biographers, that goebbels meeting was likely something lang made up to boost his reputation.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 05:59 (twenty-one years ago)

not only is akerman jewish, but she's made a few films about it i believe. actually she had an interview recently where she criticized godard for some of his foolish ideas about jews and jewish history. i always love it when someone dares to criticize godard in the french press, and akerman's comments were especially astute if i recall.

...

how did i forget about stiller?

was ulmer jewish? i know he made some yiddish films, but for some reason i thought he wasn't actually jewish, just working as a director-for-hire.

i wonder how many of these folks really identified as jewish. eisenstein certainly didn't; anyway his parents were very assimilated and totally areligious as i understand. vertov's dad ran a hebrew/yiddish bookstore (his real name was david kaufman) and lived through several pograms in bialystock--i think vertov was very marked by jewish culture and jewish radical culture in particular.

there have been other french jewish directors but i'm forgetting now.... obviously jean epstein's sister marie epstein. and i think maybe agnes varda? some of the russian emigres working in paris in the 20s and 30s were jewish, i think maybe meerson? his niece ended up marrying henri langois. i think.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:08 (twenty-one years ago)

well he's still at least part-Jewish xp

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Friday, 26 November 2004 06:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm not sure if that's true... i'll have to look into that. lang was a bit of a fabulist.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i think akerman's comments were along the lines of godard routinely returns to the idea of spielberg et al stealing the past of european jews; he often uses jews as examples of this or that; but he doesn't really know anything about judaism or jewish history at all. and there's something more than a little condescending about his attitude toward the whole thing. seriously, fuck godard. i can scarcely think of another artist working today who is taken so seriously for saying such flaky stuff. he might be somewhat genuinely insane, but still it speaks to the french tendency to coddle and encourage their artistic nutcases to the point where said nutcases can say whatever they want with impunity and expect people to nod along.

um.... ok.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:16 (twenty-one years ago)

how Jewish a filmmaker is Henry Jaglom?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 26 November 2004 06:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know about Ulmer. I was guessing on that one.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Jerry Lewis

― Why Does Herr Dadaismus Run Amok? (Dada), Friday, 26 November 2004 12:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Some more, not all great:

Joel and Ethan Coen
George Cukor
Max Fleischer
William Friedkin
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kubrick
Norman Lear
Barry Levinson
David Mamet
Joseph Mankiewicz
Paul Mazursky
Max Ophuls
Alan J. Pakula
Sidney Pollack
Abraham Polonsky
Otto Preminger
Martin Ritt
Stuart Rosenberg
Herbert Ross
Robert Rossen
John Schlesinger
Don Siegel
Robert Siodmark
Todd Solondz
Robert Wise
William Wyler
Robert Zemeckis
Fred Zinneman
David & Jerry Zucker

― Why Does Herr Dadaismus Run Amok? (Dada), Friday, 26 November 2004 12:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Yup, Max Ophuls was, but EDGAR G Ulmer wasn't, despite the circumstantial evidence of having made pictures in Yiddish, which were apparently made on the East Coast after a Hollywood blackball.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 13:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, how did it take so long for Jerry Lewis to get mentioned? He was the first name I thought of.

A fiery spinoff of this thread might be anti-Jewish filmmakers...? No, maybe not.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 13:42 (twenty-one years ago)

how did it take so long for Jerry Lewis to get mentioned?
See first word of thread title

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

... but but "The Clown That Cried"! Sorry.

― Why Does Herr Dadaismus Run Amok? (Dada), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't even accept that as a joke, Ken L.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:10 (twenty-one years ago)

A lot of people don't like Jerry Lewis. I do, but then I'm French (not really)

― Why Does Herr Dadaismus Run Amok? (Dada), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

(x-post)

especially since we're at the point in the thread where dullards like Fred Zinnemann, Barry Levinson and Herbert Ross get called "great"

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:12 (twenty-one years ago)

... I did say "not all great"

― Why Does Herr Dadaismus Run Amok? (Dada), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Why even mention them, then? Why not list some great film directors who aren't Jewish? [insert appropriate emoticon to prove i'm not doggin you here]

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:14 (twenty-one years ago)

amateur!!st back to thread!

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Louis Malle was partly Jewish

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread reminds me of my grandmother watching TV. ("He's Jewish... She's Jewish... He's Jewish...")

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

We should also be discussing the levels of their devoutness.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"directors who are great jews"

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

"He attended shul only on holidays but did keep kosher while on set"

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

"dated shiksas but married within the faith"

xxxpost
Good one, beanz. In the book 'On the Rez' by Ian Frazier he discusses hanging out watching Western movies on TV with some Native Americans and they can pretty much identify all the Indian extras by name. So: John Wayne shoots Comanche off horse. Brave bites dust, viewer Indian extends arm, further extends index finger from position encircling beer can to point and say "that's Burgess Red Cloud."

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

jerry lewis invented video assist! props for that!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 26 November 2004 17:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't know Kubrick was Jewish.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 26 November 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread reminds me of my grandmother watching TV. ("He's Jewish... She's Jewish... He's Jewish...")

or that scene in the phillip roth story where the jewish mother searches the list of the deceased in a plane crash for jewish names?

We should also be discussing the levels of their devoutness.

i somehow am guessing that very few if any of these folks are really very hardcore in that respect.

― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

not jewish: norman jewison!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 26 November 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

not jewish, but fled the nazi's because of his jewish wife: Douglas Sirk.

or that scene in the phillip roth story where the jewish mother searches the list of the deceased in a plane crash for jewish names?
Not the same thing, but you just reminded me of when Humbert Humbert looks over the list of Lolita's classmates and mentions this one: "Irving, for whom I am sorry."

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 26 November 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I forgot to add earlier that this thread reminds me of a novel, Leslie Epstein's Pandaemonium

― Ken L (Ken L), Saturday, 27 November 2004 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

'Trouble in Paradise' !!!!!!

― Michael White (Hereward), Saturday, 27 November 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

six years pass...

somewhat related... J Hoberman's 4-part book excerpt on the Hollywood "Jew wave" around 1967-74:

http://www.filmlinc.com/blog/entry/flaunting-it-the-rise-and-fall-of-hollywoods-nice-jewish-bad-boys

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 November 2011 00:34 (fourteen years ago)

Don't know how it'd hold up today, but I liked Joan Micklin Silver's Crossing Delancey when it came out.

― clemenza, Friday, 4 November 2011 00:38 (fourteen years ago)

Is Spike Jonze aka Adam Spiegel Jewish? If so, him.

― moley, Friday, 4 November 2011 01:36 (fourteen years ago)

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