Walk & Squawk announces the opening of

the Furniture Factory

a new performance space

4126 Third Street, Detroit

`RememberEiTitans'

the Kick Off Bash

Saturday Odober 21st

strolling dinner and dance party with DJ Hannah 'of Planet E

313.832:8890

Director Boaz Yakin, product of a
yeshiva education, explores high-school football.

($45 in advance, $50 at the door)

NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Special to the Jewish News

tence," says the director, who was called
into the principal's office at age 8 for
contradicting the principle of
'm not the kind of viewer who
Creationism.
usually goes to see this kind of
While his parents immersed them-
movie," director Boaz Yakin
selves in the theater (both taught at
admits of his latest film,
Juilliard), Boaz experienced a segregation
Remember the Titans (PG13), which is
as intense as his characters' in Remember
still doing big business at the box office
the Titans. His high school, he recalls,
after opening several weeks ago. The
consisted of "120 pimply Jewish boys
Walt Disney film is based on the true
stuck up in Riverdale," but Yakin was
story of a high school football team that
scared to transfer.
helped desegregate a Southern city in
A Price Above Rubies, he insists, wasn't
1971. "I'm from the independent film
so much his revenge as his exploration of
world. I'm not a big sentimentalist."
the way all patriarchal societies stifle
Blunt, edgy Yakin previously earned
individuals.
kudos for his Sundance winner Fresh,
(Sympathy for the Devil, his upcoming
about a black Brooklyn boy who thwarts
movie, will give Southern Pentacostal
rival drug lords. He raised ire for A Price
Christians the same treatment.)
Above Rubies, about a Chasidic woman
In the meantime, Titans, for Yakin,
burning with suppressed sexuality, which
has been a kind of "Big-Budget
so angered observant Jews that dozens
Filmmaking 101" — one that began
turned out to shut down production in
with an intensive research period in
Borough Park.
Alexandria, Va.
Yakin wrote both those
Boaz Yakin, right, directs
The director visited the
movies, and didn't fancy
Denzel Wash ington, left, home of Coach Herman
himself a director for hire.
and Will Patton in
Boone, the strong-willed
But then again, he could- "Remember the Titans." African American who "lit-
n't get a job for a year after
erally streamrolled" his black
Rubies — until producer Jerry
and white players into accepting each
Bruckheimer approached him to direct
other. He tooled around Alexandria with
Titans, starring Denzel Washington.
Bill Yoast, the gentle white assistant
"It's not a Boaz Yakin film," the film-
coach whose daughter, Sheryl, was
maker acknowledges, "but it's a nice
obsessed with football.
story with a good message. And I real-
At one point Yoast stopped at a ceme-
ized that unless I made a mainstream
tery with a startling revelation: Sheryl,
movie, I'd be fighting an uphill battle for
who is depicted in the film as a preco-
the rest of my life."
cious 9-year-old, was buried there, Yoast
Yakin is used to conflict. His Israeli-
said. "I hadn't known that she was
born parents, who met while studying
dead," says the filmmaker, who is slated
pantomine with Marcel Marceau in
to direct and co-write Batman Beyond
Paris, were secular Jews, but they sent
for Warner Bros.
young Boaz to an Orthodox yeshiva not
"I thought about that constantly on
far from his Upper West Side neighbor-
the shoot. I knew how happy it
hood in New York. Apparently, they
would make Bill that his daughter
wanted their son to learn Hebrew
could live up there on the screen, at
"But it was a very schizophrenic exis-
least for a while." ❑

I

by Giacomo Puccini

October
14 - 22

at the Detroit Opera Hous

Starring:
Francesco Grollo,
Francesca Pedaci,
Raul Melo, Inese Galante,
Mario Corradi - director,
Steven Mercurio - conductor

FREE "Inside Opera" Lecture
One Hour Prior to Performance

Order today!
Tickets as low as $18.

313/237-SIN

TicketMaster: 248/645-6666
Group Sales: 313/237-3409

NOW ORDER ONLINE 0

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83'