arts & life
Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait of Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer
Helen Mirren's
unshakable portrait
lifts Woman in Gold.
Helen Mirren and
Ryan Reynolds star in
Woman in Gold.
Celebrity Jews
I
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
THE SMALL SCREEN
The two-part CBS mini-series
The Dovekeepers is adapted
from the 2011 novel of the same
name by Alice Hoffman, 63
(airs 9 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday,
March 31-April 1). The central
event of both the novel and
series is the Roman siege (70
C.E.) of the Judean desert for-
tress of Masada at the end of
the Jewish revolt. But within, it
tells the stories of four women,
each extraordinary in her own
way, who have come to Masada
via different paths. The series
was filmed in Malta and, as far
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March 26 • 2015
Lady in Gold.
What every viewer will discern,
though it isn't acknowledged
until later, is the cost of Klimt's
materials, the affluence of his
model and the value of the fin-
ished work. Money, you see, is
the uncouth elephant in Woman
in Gold, which opens Wednesday,
April 1, at the Maple Theater in
Bloomfield Township.
In portraying the mostly true
story of Maria Altmann's uphill
effort to reclaim the works of
art stolen by the Nazis from
her Austrian-Jewish family six
decades earlier, British director
Simon Curtis and screenwriter
Alexi Kaye Campbell would pre-
fer that we focus on the justness
of Altmann's cause and the pull
of family history and personal
memory.
However, the most interesting
aspect of Woman in Gold, based
on the 2012 book The Lady in
Gold by Anne-Marie O'Connor
(see Editor's Picks on next page),
is the unexplored tension between
noble aspirations and fallible
human nature.
For glossed-over reasons,
Altmann (alternately played
with stiff-backed vehemence
and grandmotherly affection by
Helen Mirren) decides late in life
to take on the Austrian govern-
ment over the five Klimt paintings
that graced the family's sprawling
Vienna flat and now hang in the
Belvedere Palace.
The longtime Southern
California resident enlists a young
lawyer named Randol Schoenberg
(a clean-cut Ryan Reynolds), the
unqualified son of an acquain-
tance, to consider her case. We are
clumsily informed that his grand-
father was the Austrian composer
Arnold Schoenberg, but that his
heritage is not important to him.
Schoenberg has a new job and
a young family, so Altmann's
request is a nuisance more than
anything. Until he goes online,
that is, and learns that the most
famous of the five Klimts, Adele
Bloch-Bauer I, is valued at hun-
dreds of millions of dollars.
It wouldn't behoove this poi-
gnant underdog saga to be sullied
by a Jewish preoccupation with
money, so Schoenberg's obsession
with the case is henceforth por-
trayed as a journey whereby he is
transformed from a callow youth
to a skilled attorney and from an
assimilated Angelino to the proud
claimant of his Austrian-Jewish
heritage (the real Schoenberg was
a consultant on the film).
Likewise, Altmann pooh-poohs
any interest in the proceeds of
a possible sale. In fact, when
Austrian officials broach the idea
of a financial settlement, Altmann
is insulted and infuriated.
Notwithstanding her wrench-
ing return trips to Vienna with
Schoenberg to look for docu-
ments in the Belvedere archive
and meet with the dastardly
Austrians, Altmann's evolution
takes place primarily in her mind.
A great deal of Woman in Gold
unfolds in flashbacks spanning
Altmann's childhood, wedding
and escape from Austria after the
Nazi persecution of Jews com-
menced following the Anschluss
in 1938.
Adele Bloch-Bauer was not an
anonymous model of Klimt's but
Altmann's beloved aunt. After she
died in 1925, her 1907 portrait
(commissioned by Adele's hus-
band) served as a kind of com-
panion to the adolescent Maria.
While the legal machinations
and rulings in Altmann's case
provide the rooting interest, it is
the family life in pre-war Vienna
— and Maria's survivor's guilt —
that gives the film its emotional
punch. And viewers assuredly
feel it, thanks to the paint-by-
numbers screenplay.
Despite its arthouse engage-
ments, Woman in Gold epitomizes
mainstream movies that spoon-
feed their audiences. There is
scarcely a moment where the
viewer is in doubt of what to
think or feel and barely a line of
dialogue that doesn't smack us on
the nose with its obviousness.
The performances of Mirren,
Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black)
as young Maria, and the moving
Allan Corduner as Maria's father
elevate the film above its pen-
chant for transparent manipula-
tion. They are almost enough to
recommend Woman in Gold.
as I know, none of the members
of the mostly little-known cast
are Jewish. Sam Neill, 67, who
plays the ancient Jewish histo-
rian Josephus, is probably the
most recognizable.
Weird Loners premieres on
Fox on Tuesday, March 31. Four
down-on-their-romantic-luck
30-somethings find them-
selves living together in a New
York City townhouse. One of
the two female residents is
Caryn Goldfarb, a high-strung
"Jewish-by-adoption" dental
hygienist (Becki Newton, who
plays Goldfarb, isn't Jewish).
Susie Essman, 59 (Arrested
Development), who can be quite
funny, plays Caryn's mother.
Miriam Shor, 43, who lived
half her youth in a Detroit sub-
urb (where her divorced Jewish
father lived),
is one of the
co-stars of the
new TV Land
series Younger
(created by
Darren Star;
premieres 10
Shor
p.m. Tuesday,
March 31). She plays a publish-
ing-firm executive who hires
series star Sutton Foster as her
assistant. Foster's character
is 40, but makes herself over
to appear younger to get the
job. Shor, who speaks Yiddish,
has starred in many short-lived
series and has guested on hit
shows like The Good Wife.
TV note to fans of Jinxed:
Yes, both accused murderer
Robert Durst and filmmaker
Andrew Jarecki are Jewish.
AT THE MOVIES
Opening this week: Get Hard is
a comedy starring James (Will
Ferrell) as a millionaire hedge-
fund manager sentenced to a
long stretch in San Quentin and
has 30 days to put his affairs in
order. He hires Darnell (Kevin
Hart) the only African American
he knows, to prep him for prison
life (in other words, "get hard").
Darnell hasn't been to prison
and isn't a criminal – so they
have to make educated guesses
as to what James should do
to fit in. Alison Brie, 34, plays
Darnell's "slutty" fiancee.
The film had a recent preview
showing at a big Texas film fes-
tival, and many critics branded
the flick racist and homophobic.
There is racially tinged language
throughout and, in one scene,
James tries to accost a gay man
in a public toilet to prepare him-
self for life in prison.
The director, Etan Cohen, 41,
defended the movie in a post-
festival press conference, noting
it was a satire,
and the racial
humor was "a
delicate bal-
ance to find
... It was hard
to modulate
... how far to
push it."
Cohen
Cohen was
born in Israel
to an Orthodox family and
raised in the States. This is his
directorial debut, but he is best
known as writer/co-writer of hits
like Tropic Thunder and Men in
Michael Fox
Special
to the Jewish News
I
T
he opening shots of
Woman in Gold depict
the preparation and
application of gold leaf to a paint-
ing. The sequence evokes the title
of the film, then goes on to intro-
duce the famous Gustav Klimt
portrait known familiarly as
❑
Black 3.
❑