Arts & Entertainment
Another Oscar Favorite
Danish Jewish director is nominated for an
Academy Award for best foreign-language film.
Tom Tugend
Jewish Journal of Greater L.A.
Three decades earlier, her mother's fam-
ily arrived in Denmark in 1903, the year of
the infamous Kishinev pogrom.
usanne Bier, whose Danish film
But the secure refuge in Denmark was
In a Better World is a favorite for
shattered in 1940, when Nazi armies invad-
Oscar honors, is an anomaly.
ed the country. Both families were saved
She is a woman director in an over-
in the celebrated 1943 boatlift to Sweden,
whelmingly male profession and is
which saved almost all of Denmark's Jews.
emphatically Jewish in a country and
Susanne's father, then 12, vividly recalled
industry in which such affirmation is hard- the experience to his daughter. The car in
ly the norm.
which the family was driv-
After a Golden
ing to the boat rendezvous
Globe for best foreign-
ran out of gas, next to a
language film, Bier,
German command post.
who studied for two
After a very anxious time,
years in Jerusalem, is
a passing Danish motorist
in a strong position
supplied the refugees with
to repeat in the same
fuel.
Academy Award cat-
INA BETTER WORLD
After the Allied victory,
egory. However, she
both families returned to
faces stiff competition
Denmark; and, from their
from the other four
backgrounds and experi-
finalists representing
ences, they transmitted
The poster for In a Better World
Algeria, Canada, Greece
two life lessons to Susanne.
and Mexico.
"I felt early on that even
Israel, which seemed close to its first
in the most secure life, there is always the
Oscar when its entries made the final five
potential for catastrophe she said during
cut in each of the last three years, struck out an interview at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
early with The Human Resources Manager.
On the reverse side, her parents taught
Bier, youthful and animated at 50, was
her "to address the world in a positive way,'
born in peaceful Denmark, but the fates
to look for the good even in evil times and
and persecutions of forebears in Nazi
to deal morally and righteously with others.
Germany and czarist Russia have deeply
Bier grew up as somewhat of a tomboy,
affected her personal and artistic outlooks.
preferring soccer scrimmages with the lads
Her parental grandfather, a real estate
to playing with dolls, socially awkward, an
executive in Berlin, was farsighted enough
avid reader and with a creative bent.
to leave Germany for Denmark in 1933,
On finishing high school, she decided
when his son, Susanne's future father, was 2 to explore her Jewish roots by studying in
years old.
Israel. She spent half a year at the Hebrew
S
ews
'IInt
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
The Oscars, Part II
The Academy Awards will be presented
in a ceremony airing 8 p.m. Sunday,
Feb. 27, on ABC. The show will be
co-hosted by actress Anne Hathaway
and actor and Oscar nominee James
Franco, 32.
Last week, I covered the Jewish
nominees in categories other than
those below. The following round out
the Jewish nominees in prominent
categories.
Vying for best director are Ethan, 53,
and Joel Coen, 56 (True Grit); Darren
Aronofsky, 41 (Black Swan) and David
0. Russell, 52 (The Fighter). Russell is
the secular son of a Jewish father.
46
February 24 2011
Susanne Bier, 50, directed and co-
wrote In a Better World, a best foreign
language film nominee. If her film wins
the Oscar, like it won the Golden Globe,
Bier will be the one accepting the
award (see story above).
Likewise, if Toy Story 3 wins the
Oscar for best animated film, like it won
the Globe, the award will be presented
to Lee Unkrich, 43, the film's director
and co-writer.
Hailee Steinfeld,
14, whose father is
Jewish, is nominated
for best supporting
actress for her debut
film performance in
True Grit. In the best
Hailee
actress category,
Steinfeld
Natalie Portman, 29
University and 1 1/2 years at the Bezalel
Academy of Arts and Design.
She left Jerusalem after "two years of
partying," with a working knowledge of
Hebrew and a vague sense that she would
eventually marry a nice Jewish lawyer and
have six kids.
Her religiously observant parents,
whom she phones at least once a day,
approved of this tentative life path.
However, Bier discovered that "all the nice
Jewish boys I encountered were just too
boring." She was more attracted to not-
so-nice non-Jewish boys.
In her actual marital life, Bier has
struck somewhat of a compromise,
explaining, "My first husband was non-
Jewish, my second husband was a nice
Jewish boy and I am now in a relationship
with a non-Jewish man." She is the moth-
er of Gabriel, 21, and Alice Esther, 15.
Still searching for a fulfilling career, she
studied architecture in London and then
attended Denmark's National Film School,
graduating in 1987.
After these eclectic preparations, her
movie career took off auspiciously with
the Swedish film Freud Leaves Home,
which won critical acclaim.
Her next effort, Family Matters, flopped
badly, but Bier recovered and her subse-
quent nine films, released at the rate of
about one every two years, have been gen-
erally popular and well received by critics.
With the beginning of the 21st century,
Bier really hit her stride as director and
screenwriter. Her 2004 movie, Brothers,
was a box office and artistic hit and was
remade in an English version.
Natalie
Portman
Jesse
Eisenberg
(Black Swan), is the
Oscar favorite follow-
ing her Golden Globe
and Screen Actors
Guild awards for
Swan.
Best actor nomi-
nees include Jesse
Eisenberg, 27 (The
Social Network), and
James Franco for
127 Hours. Eisenberg
played Facebook
founder Mark
Zuckerberg. Franco,
the secular son of
a Jewish mother,
played a real-life
hiker who had to
amputate his own
Two years later, she scored even bet-
ter with After the Wedding, which made
the final cut for an Academy Award. Now
Hollywood came calling, and in 2007 she
directed Things We Lost in the Fire with
Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro and David
Duchovny.
Her current Oscar contender, In a Better
World, was released in her native country
as Hoevnen, Danish for "Revenge," which
seems a more pointed title.
The film stars some of the leading
Scandinavian actors and a remarkable
12-year-old boy, William Johnk Nielsen,
whom Bier discovered.
Like many of the director's movies,
Better World deals with complex family
relationships, this one between two fathers
and their respective sons, and the intense
bond between the two boys.
Also typical of Bier's outlook, the movie
ends on a note of hope.
"Too many European films celebrate
pessimism:' Bier said, "but desolation is
no good. It is better to communicate that
there's some hope in the world."
A few years ago, Bier and her frequent
writing collaborator, Anders Thomas
Jensen, worked on a project centering
on the Holocaust but couldn't get the
script right and shelved the project. She
hopes to deal with the topic in a future
film and rejects the notion of "Holocaust
fatigue" among the public and movie
producers.
"Examining the nature of evil pres-
ent a universal challenge to writers and
directors:' she said. "In that sense, the
Holocaust will always be relevant." Li
arm to save his life.
On Feb. 7, Eisenberg
spoke to reporters
gathered outside a
luncheon for Oscar
nominees. Eisenberg
told them the end-
less round of Oscar-
James Franco
related events, like
the luncheon, was a
bit exhausting — and it also reminded
him of his youth.
"When I was 13, I had to go to bar
mitzvahs every weekend, and this is
like the same thing — put on a suit
every weekend to go meet with a lot
of Jews," he joked.
"I guess the alternative is worse,
where no one likes your movie. I've
experienced that, and this is better." Fl