PHOTO BY DIRTY SUGAR PHOTOGRAPHY
Mica Levi
Kenneth Lonergan
rock band. In addition to scor-
ing Chazelle’s Whiplash, Hurwitz
also composed the music for
the two La La songs nominated
for Best Original Song: “City of
Stars,” which won the Golden
Globe, and “Audition.” The lyrics
for those songs were written by
nominees Benj Pasek, 31, and
Justin Paul. Pasek met Paul at
the University of Michigan. Both
come from religious families of
different faiths (Pasek is Jewish
and Paul is Christian). Their
works include a song-cycle
called Edges that premiered
in Ann Arbor in 2005 and has
since been produced around the
world. They are also the song-
writing duo behind the recent
Broadway hit Dear Evan Hansen.
(See sidebar “Hurwitz History”
for more about Hurwitz.)
ALL OTHER CATEGORIES
Director/Original Screenplay:
Kenneth Lonergan, 56, is the
only Jewish nominee in these
categories (Manchester By the
Sea). He was raised on the
Upper West Side of Manhattan
by his Jewish stepfather and
Jewish mother. Both were secu-
lar and both were psychoana-
lysts. His late father was Irish
Catholic. Lonergan (who says
Benj Pasek (left) and Justin Paul
Kahane Cooperman
he’s an atheist) told the New
Yorker that he was about 8 years
old when he finally realized that
everyone wasn’t Jewish. He grew
up in an affluent (but not super
rich) world of mostly liberal,
mostly Jewish professional folk
and their offspring. Not surpris-
ingly, most of his works (plays
and films) have featured mostly
Jewish or “half Jewish” people
from this milieu (the 1996 play
This Is Our Youth and the films
Margaret and You Can Count on
Me). Manchester seems to be
his “Irish-side” film. The central
character, Lee, is Irish Catholic,
and his life is virtually destroyed
by alcohol — the so-called
curse of the Irish. Manchester is
Lonergan’s breakthrough film,
and I hope it prompts, finally, a
film version of Youth.
Animated Film, Feature
Length: Osnat Shurer
(Moana). Shurer, 46, the film’s
producer, was born and raised
in Israel and served in an IDF
intelligence unit.
Documentary Film, Feature
Length: Life, Animated. While
I wasn’t able to confirm that
the film’s producer, Julie
Goldman, is Jewish — I men-
tion it because it’s based
on a 2014 book of the same
name by journalist Ron
Suskind, 57. The book and
film chronicle Suskind’s efforts
to assist his autistic son.
Documentary, Short Length:
Joe’s Violin (directed by Kahane
Cooperman, 52; co-produced
by Cooperman and Raphaela
Neihausen). Cooperman,
long a Jon Stewart Daily Show
producer, became head of the
New Yorker magazine’s video
wing (Screening Room) a few
years ago. She heard a 2014
radio story about a Holocaust
survivor who had responded
to a radio station appeal to
donate his used instrument.
Cooperman tracked down the
survivor, Joseph Feingold, now
92, and made a New Yorker film
about his life and that of the
poor Bronx girl who received
his violin. (The film can be
viewed on YouTube; it is also
screening through March 4 at
the Detroit Film Theatre). Also
in this category: Dan Krauss,
40ish, the director of Extremis,
a Netflix original film about
the grim realities of end-of-life
care that was mostly filmed in a
California hospital. •
HURWITZ HISTORY
S
ince Justin Hurwitz won two Golden
Globes (score for La La Land and
best song, “City of Stars”) in January,
his mother, Gail Halabe Hurwitz, a reg-
istered nurse, has filled me in on the fam-
ily’s history.
Gail comes from a Sephardi family
and Justin’s father, Ken,
a writer, comes from a
Russian-Polish Jewish
family with ties to the
Milwaukee area. Gail’s
father was born (1903)
in Aleppo, Syria, and her
mother was born (1915)
in Beirut, Lebanon.
They came to the States
Justin Hurwitz
around 1920 and settled
in Los Angeles. Ken and
Gail were wed (1983) in a Los Angeles
Sephardic temple and Justin was born in
1985.
“Justin started piano lessons at age 6,
and it was clear very early that he had
an aptitude for this instrument,” Gail
says. “He was a devoted student [who]
progressed rapidly. A piano teacher intro-
duced him to composition, we bought him
a synthesizer and at age 10 he composed
his first tune.”
The family moved from the Los Angeles
area to Wisconsin in 1998 (Gail and Ken
now live in the San Francisco Bay area),
where Justin attended a top conservatory.
His only sibling, Hanna Hurwitz, 31, an
accomplished classical violinist, attended
a Birthright trip to Israel.
“We have a very large family on my
mother’s side residing in Israel because all
of her family moved there from Lebanon
and remained there throughout their
lives,” Gail says. “I would say that both my
children are very proud of their Middle
Eastern heritage and culture.” Justin, Gail
says, was very close to both his grand-
mothers — Gail’s mother died in 2015,
around age 100, and his paternal grand-
ma, who lives in Wisconsin, is 100.
About Justin’s Harvard years, Gail says:
“Justin went in 2003 to study music. There
he met ... Chazelle. Both played in Chester
French for one year, dropped out, and
began rooming together and collaborating
on what would become their first full-
length film [Guy and Madeline on a Park
Bench].”
The film got a distributor and was
released. After college, both Justin and
Damien moved to L.A. to make films.
“It was a slow start,” Gail says. “To make
a living in L.A., Justin got jobs writing
comedy [ for The League, The Simpsons
and more].
Guy and Madeline was liked enough,
Gail explains, that Chazelle got funding
to do a short version of Whiplash. It was
a hit at Sundance, a full-length version
was funded and it became a surprise big-
market hit. Whiplash led to funding for
La La Land — and the rest, as they say, is
cinema history. •
jn
February 23 • 2017
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