arts&life
film
I
Norman
An Israeli director takes a leap with
Richard Gere as the star of his new fi lm.
TOM TUGEND L.A. JEWISH JOURNAL
ABOVE: Gere with writer/
director Joseph Cedar
(standing).
TOP: Richard Gere as
Norman Oppenheimer.
his mark as the director of
some of the top Israeli movies
of the past two decades. Two
of his pictures have earned
Academy Award nomina-
tions — Beaufort in 2007 and
Footnote in 2011.
As Norman, Gere embodies
that often annoying, sometimes
pathetic and occasionally use-
ful figure who will press his
advice and services on you,
whether you want them or not.
He’ll tell you how to get the
best deal at a store, find the
best restaurant in town and
PHOTOS BY NIKO TAVERNISE/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
f you recall Richard Gere
as the WASP-y hunk in
Pretty Woman, it takes
a mighty leap of the imagi-
nation to visualize him as
Norman Oppenheimer, a New
York shlub and small-time
fixer.
But that’s the role he plays
— and plays superbly — in
Norman: The Moderate Rise
and Tragic Fall of a New York
Fixer, which opened in Metro
Detroit last week.
Almost as unlikely is that
the director and writer of
Norman is Joseph Cedar,
making his American movie
debut. Though he was born
in New York, his family made
aliyah when he was 6 years
old, and he has since made
knows — or pretends to know
— the right person to fix your
problems with city hall.
An inveterate name-dropper,
Norman lives in the hope of
attaching himself to an influen-
tial figure, whose real or imag-
ined endorsement will earn
him legitimacy and respect.
His lucky day arrives when
he encounters an Israeli
deputy minister of trade (Lior
Ashkenazi) in New York, during
a low point in his diplomatic
career, and insists on buying
him an exorbitantly expensive
pair of shoes. Three years later,
the shoe recipient has become
the prime minister of his coun-
try and, at a reception, embrac-
es Norman warmly. Suddenly,
the fixer is perceived by New
York’s Jewish elite as a man of
real standing and influence,
well worth cultivating.
But, as the full movie title
indicates, Norman’s sudden rise
is followed by an abrupt fall as
he becomes the unwitting foil
of a major political scandal.
This reporter first met
Cedar, now 48, some 17 years
ago in a very modest hotel,
when he came to Los Angeles
to promote his first Israeli
film, A Time of Favor, and was
figuratively knocking on doors
to establish some Hollywood
connections. As an observant
Modern Orthodox Jew, Cedar
was an anomaly among the
more hedonistic film colonies
in Tel Aviv and Hollywood.
Later, when one of his films
placed among the five Oscar
finalists in the foreign-language
film category, Cedar was asked
to participate in the custom-
ary advance panel discussion
among the five directors who
had made the cut. Trouble
was that the event was sched-
uled on a Saturday and Cedar
wrestled with the problem of
participating without violating
Shabbat laws.
He didn’t mind walking a
few miles from his hotel to the
event venue — nearly unheard
of in Los Angeles — but the
question was whether he would
be allowed to use a microphone
during the panel discussion.
Cedar phoned his rabbi in
Israel and together they found
a solution to the knotty prob-
lem.
I reunited with the filmmaker
again recently — this time he
stayed at a fashionable Beverly
Hills hotel and was in the com-
pany of Gere, still a strikingly
handsome figure at 67. There,
he considered how he managed
the considerable leap from
directing Hebrew-language
Israeli films, with a necessarily
limited international audience,
to a major English-language
American movie (though with
some brief Hebrew conversa-
tions).
“In a sense, I was something
like Norman and needed some-
one to open doors for me,”
Cedar said.
Gere noted that when Jewish
directors fled Nazi Germany
and tried to gain a foothold in
Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin
gave them a leg up. In Cedar’s
case, the door opener is Oren
jn
Moverman, an Israeli American
producer long established in
New York, who also got Gere
involved in the project.
The veteran actor of some
60 films, who was raised as
a Methodist but now is a
Buddhist, said of his role: “I
never jumped as far away
from who I actually am and
from how I would react to the
humiliations Norman endured.
I have never remotely played a
character like him.”
While the “fixer” persona,
who attaches himself to some-
one in power, is certainly not a
uniquely Jewish phenomenon,
Jews as historically a small
minority in host countries were
more likely to cling to a more
powerful protector, Cedar said,
citing, in particular, the figure
of the medieval court Jew.
Yet, there is a universal
appeal — or revulsion — to the
Norman character.
Gere recalled attending a film
festival screening of Norman
in Miami, at which the actor,
asking for a show of hands,
found that about 20 percent of
the audience was Jewish and
80 percent Latino. Probing fur-
ther, Gere concluded that “the
Latinos got the essence of the
Norman character just as clear-
ly as did the Jewish audience.”
Cedar plans to helm at least
one more American movie,
he said, but Gere vowed that
he had no interest in playing
another Norman character.
“Norman is so far out,” he
said. “He is the most unique
character I’ve ever met.” •
May 11 • 2017
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