I Arts & Entertainment
Character Studies
Artist creates
life-size
sculptures of
children as
cultural icons.
Farright: Judy Fox
Right: Eve (detail), fired
clay painted with casein.
One critic described Judy
Fox's work as "a contra-
diction of baby fat and
worldliness."
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
culptor Judy Fox, who
uses established ges-
tures of children as
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Stone's Throw
By all accounts, director Oliver
Stone (JFK) hasn't indulged his taste
for bizarre conspiracy theories in his
new film, World Trade Center, which
opened Wednesday, Aug. 9. Instead,
he has crafted a terrific, straight-
forward story of the heroism of two
real-life police offi-
cers on 9-11.
Stone grew up in
New York, the son
of a secular Jewish
father and a non-
Jewish mother. He
Danny Nucci
was raised without
religion and became
a Buddhist some years ago.
Most critics say first-time screen-
writer Andrea Berloff wrote a bril-
liant script, and I'd be willing to bet
she snares an Oscar nomination.
Berloff, 34, grew up in a religious
Jewish home in Massachusetts.
Jewish actors in the cast include
44
August 10 • 2006
the focus of her work, will be
represented for the first time
in Michigan as part of a group
exhibit at the David Klein Gallery
in Birmingham.
Eve, which presents a com-
bined biblical and mythological
Maggie Gillenhaal, who co-stars a
one of the officer's wives, and the
handsome Danny Nucci, who has
a supporting role as a policeman.
Nucci, 37, is an Italian Jew who was
raised in Italy and
America. He has
played many roles,
but he's still most
recognized for
playing Leonardo
DiCaprio's Italian
Maggie
immigrant friend in
Titanic.
Gylienhaal
Atoning
I'm glad Mel Gibson issued an abject
apology to the Jewish community
for his anti-Semitic remarks follow-
ing his arrest for driving under the
influence. But before everyone com-
pletely forgives Mel, remember how
he manipulated public opinion in the
months before his film The Passion
of the Christ opened.
Gibson perfectly played his
Passion critics. The Anti - Defamation
League and a group of interfaith
figure as a child, can be seen -
through Aug. 26 in the exhibit
"An Assessment of Contemporary
Figuration:' which also features
the artistry of Eric Fischl, Alex
Katz and Philip Pearlstein in a
show of 16 notables.
scholars Privately told him his movie
was anti-Semitic and quietly urged
him to change the script. Gibson
made these comments public and
painted himself as a "martyr for
his faith" and for "free speech."
He seemed to relish "tweaking the
Jews," and he had to know the furor
was helping make his movie a block-
buster.
Gibson's "game" was aided by a
claque that included Bill O'Reilly and
Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel,
Jewish film critic Michael Medved
and Peter Bart, the
Jewish editor of
Variety.
Medved said
Gibson was being
"crucified" by his
critics. Bart defend-
Michael
ed Gibson at every
Medved
turn and fawned
over him when he
appeared on Bart's cable talk show.
Maybe Gibson will now ask forgive-
ness for this "game," too. The claque
won't apologize.
"Eve is a rather early piece
of mine," says Fox, 49, who has
worked with fired clay since
earning her bachelor's degree
in art at Yale University and
her master's degree in art his-
tory and conservation at the
Institute of Fine Arts at New
York University.
"She is a toddler re-enacting
a role. Here, gesture has taken
a long iconography that started
out as a gesture of modesty and
was transformed into a gesture
of shame."
Fox, whose interest in sculpt-
ing began during a teen sum-
mer at a camp in Connecticut,
entered college with the intent
of having a double major in
art and medicine. Although
she dropped the medicine,
she retained her interest in
the human body, and shows it
through her life-size figures.
"I consider art and biology
quite related," says the artist,
Who's There?
In 1972, famed cartoonist, playwright
and Oscar-winning screenwriter
Jules Feiffer wrote Knock, Knock, a
play about two old bachelor Jewish
intellectuals who like to sit around
their house in the woods and bicker.
Into their lives
comes Joan of Arc.
Feiffer explains: "I
wanted to see what
would happen when
someone comes to
try and get them
Halley Feiffer
out of the house.
It would have to be
a woman, a very powerful woman.
They would probably have the most
contempt for a shiksa. Joan of Arc!"
The Tony-nominated Knock got
good reviews when it opened 30
years ago and has just been revived
by the Vineyard Theater on Martha's
Vineyard in Massachusetts. Playing
the role of Joan is Feiffer's daughter,
Halley Feiffer, 22.
Halley is Jules' daughter with his
current wife, Jewish comedian and