arts&life

film

The
At
The

Tribe

Golden
Globes

Hammer and Chalamet

James Franco

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

T

he Golden Globe
awards, presented by the
Hollywood Foreign Press
Association, will be presented
at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 7, on
NBC, hosted by Seth Meyers.
The Globes are awarded for
excellence in TV and films and
the film awards are a good, if
not perfect, predictor of Oscar
nominees/winners.

THE ACTORS

Unlike the Oscars, the Globes
present best and supporting
actor/actress awards in separate
awards, one for drama films and

28

January 4 • 2018

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one for best performance in a
musical or comedy.
No Jewish actresses were
nominated for a film Globe, sup-
porting or best. However, Jessica
Chastain and Meryl Streep are
nominated (best actress, drama)
for playing a real person with a
Jewish parent. Chastain plays
Molly Bloom, whose memoir of
the same name is the basis for
the film Molly’s Game. Bloom
calls herself Jewish in the film,
but doesn’t mention being
Jewish in her memoir (her father
is Jewish). Streep plays the
late Washington Post publisher
Katherine Graham in The Post.

Dat-Lewis

Graham’s father was Jewish,
but she was raised Christian.
Daniel Day-Lewis
(Phantom Thread), 60, and
Timothee Chalamet (Call Me
by Your Name; turn to page 32
for more on this film), 21, vie
for the Globe for best actor,
drama film. Day-Lewis is
the son of an English Jewish
mother and an Irish English
Protestant father. He’s always
been secular, like his screen-
writer wife, Rebecca Miller,
55, the daughter of the late
playwright Arthur Miller.
Day-Lewis, the only three-
time best actor Oscar winner,
decided to retire from acting
after completing Phantom
Thread, a film about the world
of high fashion. He was vague
about his reasons, but seemed
firm in his decision.
Vanity Fair recently called
Chalamet the “breakout star of
the year.” In November, he had
a big supporting role in Lady
Bird, a Globe nominee for best
comedy film. Call Me by Your
Name, a best drama film nomi-
nee, opened in December to
great reviews. Set in Italy, the
film stars Chalamet as Elio, the
17-year-old son of an American
Jewish professor (Michael
Stuhlbarg, 49) and an Italian
Jewish mother. Armie Hammer
plays Oliver, an American Jewish
college student who comes to
the professor’s home to help
him with academic paperwork.

Daniel Day-Lewis

Oliver and Elio are drawn to
each other, partially because
they’re both Jewish. A brief
romance ensues. It’s based on a
2007 novel of the same name by
Andre Aciman, 66, an American
Jew born in Egypt who partially
grew up in Italy.
Chalamet’s complete back-
ground became known in the
last month as interviewers spo-
radically asked him about play-
ing a Jewish character ( far more,
he was asked about his sexual
orientation — he’s straight).
As previously reported in my
weekly column, his mother is
an American Jew. Chalamet, in
effect, called himself Jewish in
an early December interview.
(His mother has posted online
photos of a family Chanukah
celebration and of an about-to-
be used seder table.) Two weeks
ago, Chalamet told a reporter
that his father, a journalist, is
“French Protestant” and his
mother is Jewish.
James Franco (Disaster
Artist), 39, is nominated for
best actor, musical or com-
edy. In Disaster, which he also
directed, he plays a (real-life)
director of a real terrible movie.
Franco’s mother is Jewish and
while he was raised secular,
he’s embraced his Jewish back-
ground — including having a
very real bar mitzvah in 2015.
(Note: Ansel Elgort, the star of
Baby Driver, competes in this
category. I’ve long known his