The silver screen
This is about 10 great movies
And we’re back!
Housekeeping notes: Next Monday, paid subscribers will get ET Ask Home, my monthly questionnaire. I’m really excited about this one.
Also for paid subscribers: I’m starting to think about what paid-only features to offer next year, in 2024. If you have any opinions on this—if you like the monthly questionnaire but not the reading list, for example, or if you think I should keep both, or if you’d rather something entirely new—please do feel free to let me know either in the comments or via email.
And anyone else should feel free to email (polite, constructive) feedback, too.
And now onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For Haaretz, I wrote about how Golda is not the movie for the moment.
I made a cameo in this book review by my friend Jacob.
Russia extended the wrongful pretrial detention of journalist Evan Gershkovich.
A white gunman killed three Black people in Jacksonville, Florida in a “racially motivated attack” with guns he purchased legally.
“The mother of the Spanish soccer chief under pressure to resign after kissing a female player without her consent locked herself inside a church on Monday and declared that she is going on a hunger strike over her son’s ‘inhumane treatment.’” Ma’am…
Eminem sent Vivek Ramaswamy, a person of whom I was blissfully unaware a few months ago and who, I realize now, will take up some space in our national consciousness for years to come, a cease and desist demanding he stop using Eminem’s music in his campaign efforts.
Former President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to dismantle America’s civil service if reelected.
Pope Francis made comments about “great mother Russia” and now he’s in trouble with Lithuania.
MY VIEWS ON…
…Ten great movies!
I used to not really be a movie person. I loved going to the movies, but to watch one at home required a very particular state of mind. This year, though, I’ve found watching movies — all different kinds of movies — very comforting.
Recently, one of the group chats I am in was discussing what we would put on our Sight and Sound poll. Once a decade, Sight and Sound asks movie people to name top 10 movies, and then uses this to compile a list of the best 250 films of all time.
I am not a movie critic or a director or anything cool like that, but I do have opinions and this newsletter and no other, better idea for a subject this week, and so here are the ten movies that I would put down.
Ikiru, 1952, Akira Kurosawa
I actually watched this after I saw Living, the Kazuo Ishigruo adaptation starring Bill Nighy, late last year. I loved Living, but Ikiru is one of the best movies ever made. It’s about a man who’s lost his wife to death and his son to life and who is dying. It is also about a civil servant who decides to try to live before he dies, and what, exactly, constitutes living. It is beautiful.
The Big City, 1963, Satyajit Ray
The story of a middle-class housewife named Arati getting a sales job is about Calcutta at a time of change, about family, and about generational difference, but mostly it is about Arati saying, “Do whatever you like, but please don’t misunderstand me, darling.”
Diamonds of the Night, 1964, Jan Nemec
There is almost no dialogue in this black and white depiction of two Jewish boys who have escaped from a train transporting them to a concentration camp. Despite that, it is the best depiction of the complicity, banality, and mediocrity of evil I have ever seen. And what I really love is how gently the two boys are treated. Life is cruel to them, but Nemec never is.
Larks on a String, 1969 (but also 1990), Jiri Menzel
A true ensemble performance of “bourgeois” individuals and women who tried to leave post-WWII Czechoslovakia, all of whom have to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have made something this funny and sad and poignant and beautiful and then wait for the next two decades as it remained locked away.
Z, 1969, Costa-Gavras
Not only is this the best political thriller I’ve ever seen, it also has moments that are incredibly, heart-breakingly tender. The conclusion is perfect, but, then, so is everything that comes before it.
Fiddler on the Roof, 1971, Norman Jewison
In addition to being part of the American Jewish canon (though Jewison was not Jewish), this is arguably the best movie adaptation of any American musical.
When Harry Met Sally, 1989, Rob Reiner,
If we’re talking about Nora Ephron’s best works, I personally prefer You’ve Got Mail, which she directed as well as wrote (here she was the screenwriter, though obviously her mark is all over the movie), but When Harry Met Sally is a pretty perfect romantic comedy.
Spirited Away, 2001, Hayao Miyazaki
My younger brother had us watch this every night for a while growing up, and so it is a testament to how amazing this movie is that I am putting it on this list anyway.
Phantom Thread, 2017, Paul Thomas Anderson
Vicky Krieps goes toe to toe with Daniel Day-Lewis and wins.
Drive My Car, 2021, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
A Japanese man in mourning putting on a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya pulls off the best Vanya performance ever to be committed to screen.
Anyway, that’s what I would put, I think. If this encourages you to watch any of them, please let me know what you think!
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
Someone made a bagel shop out of felt.
The Financial Times has an interview with Shikma Bressler, Israeli particle physicist/activist.
From Haaretz: “Israel’s ambassador to Romania met with the leader of a local far-right party on Monday in Bucharest, which Israel had previously boycotted due to their history of antisemitic and Holocaust-denying statements.”
New American technology was used to discover “a mass grave of Jews killed by Nazis in Latvia.” Separately, DNA technology was used to discover the body of a World War II Jewish resistance fighter in the Netherlands.
There is a new cookbook with recipes of Rome’s Jewish food.
The Conservative movement’s ban on rabbis officiating interfaith marriages will remain in place.
That’s it for now! Hope to see you back here soon.
-ET
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