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arts&life

film

The Tribe At
T he Oscars:

2018 Edition

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

T

he 90th Oscars ceremony takes
place on Sunday, March 4, begin-
ning at 8 p.m. on ABC and hosted
by Jimmy Kimmel. The following is a
list of “confirmed” Jewish Oscar nomi-
nees. The number of Jewish nominees
is smaller than some years, but still
substantial.
Leading actor: Timothée Chalamet,
24, Call Me by My Name. He com-
petes in this category with Daniel
Day-Lewis, who starred in Phantom
Thread. Chalamet is the breakout actor
of 2017. Besides starring in Call Me, a
best picture nominee, he had a biggish
supporting role in Lady Bird, another
best picture nominee. He grew up in
New York City, the son of an American
Jewish mother (a real estate broker who
was formerly a Broadway dancer) and a
French Protestant father (an editor for
UNICEF). Chalamet has referred to him-
self as Jewish, and, as I’ve noted before,
his mother has posted photos online of
the family about to celebrate Passover
and celebrating Chanukah. Chalamet
has compiled a number of credits in TV
and film since he was a child. However,
before Call Me, almost nobody but his
friends and family would immediately
recognize his name.
In Call Me, Chalamet plays Elio
Perlman, a 17-year-old living in Italy
with his Italian Jewish mother and
American Jewish father. His character
has a brief same-sex affair with Oliver,
22, a visiting American Jewish student.
The movie ends with Elio receiving a call
from Oliver just as the family is about to
celebrate Chanukah. The film is based
on a novel of the same name by André
Aciman, 67, a Sephardic Jew who was
born in Egypt. He left Egypt in 1965 with
his family, briefly settling in Rome before
moving to New York in 1968. Like the
leading actors in the film, he is straight
(the married father of three) and he’s
emphasized that Call Me should not be
seen as only a gay love story, as Elio’s
sexuality is still forming, Aciman says,
during the time period depicted in the
film. Moreover, he told the Times of Israel
that the initial spark between Elio and

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March 1 • 2018

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Oliver is not sexual, “but Jewish at first,”
Aciman says. “It’s something fundamen-
tal and deep-rooted between them. It’s
the development of an essential bond
between them.”
The novel has a 30-page end section
which provides a partial coda about the
lives of Elio and Oliver (scenes that take
place 15 and 20 years after their first
meeting). This has led the director, Luca
Guadagnino, to seriously posit the mak-
ing of sequels to Call Me.
Daniel Day-Lewis, 60, is the only
person to win three best actor Oscars.
His father, Cecil Day-Lewis, was of Irish
Protestant background and the Poet
Laureate of England. His mother, the
late actress Jill Balcon, was Jewish. Jill’s
father, Sir Michael Balcon, was a found-
er of the British film industry. Daniel has
always been secular. He says Phantom
Thread, in which he plays a fashion
designer, will be his last film. Day-Lewis
was close to his late father-in-law, the
famous playwright Arthur Miller. In
1996, Day-Lewis wed Rebecca Miller,
now 55, and they have two children.
Miller, a (secular) writer and filmmaker,
has occasionally touched on Jewish
themes in her work.
No Jewish actresses are nominated this
year; no Jewish actors got a supporting
actor nomination and no Jewish writers
are nominated for an original screenplay,
but a number are nominated for best
adapted screenplay. The Disaster Artist, a
comedy about a terrible real movie, was
written by Scott Neustadter and Michael
H. Weber, both 40. They adapted a mem-
oir. The duo has been a writing team since
1999 and have similar backgrounds —
Neustadter grew up on Long Island and
Weber in Atlantic City. Both had a bar
mitzvah and like to schmooze about Jews
in the movies. Their breakout film was 500
Days of Summer (2006), a clever original
romantic comedy/drama, followed by The
Fault in Our Stars (2014).
Also in this category: Logan, which
was co-written by Scott Frank, 57, James
Mangold and Michael Green, 45. Logan
is the first comic book-based movie to
get a best screenplay Oscar nomination.

Frank’s credits include writing Out of
Sight, for which he got an Oscar nomina-
tion. He also wrote and directed Godless,
a recent Netflix series. Green, 44, grew
up in a New York City suburb where his
religious, Israel-born mother insisted he
attend a yeshiva. He became more secular
as he grew older. Also: Aaron Sorkin, 56,
for Molly’s Game, a film from a memoir
by Molly Bloom (whose father is Jewish)
about running high stakes poker games.
Sorkin became famous with his 1989 play
A Few Good Men, which became a hit
movie in 1992.
Lee Unkrich, 50, was the co-director
and co-producer of Coco, a best feature-
length animated movie nominee from
Pixar Studios. He directed Toy Story 3,
which won the Oscar in 2011. Coco won
the 2018 Golden Globe for best animated
film and the betting is that it will win
the Oscar, too. Unkrich was raised in
Cleveland. This writer lives near Unkrich
in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I’m
happy to tell you that the bar/bat mitz-
vah announcements of Unkrich’s three
children, with his wife, Laura, have all
appeared in the Bay Area Jewish paper.
Frank Stiefel, 60ish, is nominated for
best documentary short subject (Heaven
is a Traffic Jam). It’s about Mindy Alper,
58, a talented California multimedia art-
ist who has battled mental health prob-
lems. Stiefel made a short movie, Ingelore
(2009), about how his mother escaped
Nazi Germany as a deaf teen.
Bryan Fogel, 40ish, wrote and co-
starred in Icarus, a best feature length
documentary nominee. Fogel, a very
serious bicyclist, blew the lid off Russian
athlete doping in his film. Before Icarus,
he was best known for Jewtopia, a come-
dic play/film. His parents, who belong to a
Denver Orthodox synagogue, will accom-
pany him to the Oscars.
Diane Warren, 61, is nominated for
best song: “Stand Up for Something”
from Marshall. This is her ninth best song
nomination. She competes with U-M
alums Benj Pasek, 32, and Justin Paul,
who wrote “This is Me” from The Greatest
Showman. Hans Zimmer, 60, is nominat-
ed for best musical score for Dunkirk. He’s

been Oscar-nominated 11 times, winning
in 1995 (The Lion King).
I don’t usually cover the technical
nominations because it’s very difficult to
ascertain if a sound editor, etc., is Jewish.
However, a Canadian friend helped
me establish that film editor Sidney
Wolinsky, 70, a truly talented man, is
Jewish. Born and raised in Winnipeg, he’s
nominated for editing The Shape of Water.
Before Water, he was mostly known for
his TV work, including The Sopranos,
for which he won an Emmy. His mother,
Eva Koves Wolinsky Stubbs, died last
December, age 92. She fled Hungary
in 1944 and eventually became one of
Canada’s leading sculptors. Wolinsky told
the Winnipeg Free Press: “I regret that she
didn’t get to see me get this nomination.
I think she would have enjoyed it. But she
was in her 90s and lived a long and good
life and she couldn’t make it any longer.”
The best picture nomination goes to a
film’s producers. Nine movies are nomi-
nated. The following have “confirmed”
Jewish producers:
Call Me by My Name was co-produced
by Peter Spears, 50. In a 2007 profile
in the Los Angeles Jewish paper, Spears
recounted how helping the Israeli film
industry reignited his Jewish ties, includ-
ing having a bar mitzvah at the Western
Wall. He recently said he could relate to
the “outsider” status of the main charac-
ters in Call Me because he is Jewish, gay
and grew up in Kansas.
The Darkest Hour was co-produced by
Eric Fellner, 58. This is the fifth best pic-
ture nomination for Fellner, a Brit.
Lady Bird was co-produced by Scott
Rudin, 59. This is the seventh best pic-
ture nomination for Rudin. He previously
won for No Country for Old Men (2007).
Greta Gerwig, the director/writer of Lady
Bird, recently told NPR she wanted to use
excerpts of a Stephen Sondheim musical
in her film. Fortunately, she said, Rudin is
friends with Sondheim, 87, and Sondheim
gave her permission.
Lastly, The Post was co-produced by
Amy Pascal, 59, and Steven Spielberg,
71. Spielberg directed The Post, but wasn’t
nominated for best director this year. •