FEBRUARY 6 • 2020 | 43
FACING PAGE: A scene from
1917, up for Best Film and
Best Director. BOTTOM:
Best Actor nominee Joaquin
Phoenix in Joker, a Best Film
nominee.
LEFT: Adam Driver and Lead
Actress nominee Scarlett
Johansson in Marriage
Story. BELOW: A scene
from Best Film nominee
Jojo Rabbit. Taika
Waititi (depicting Hitler) was
nominated for Best Adapted
Screenplay.
His incredible performance in Joker,
a huge box office hit, may propel him
to that super-star status Johansson has
long enjoyed.
Phoenix, who has twice played Jewish
film characters, made it clear in an
interview just a year ago that he is a
secular Jew who doesn’
t affiliate with
any organized religion. His Jewish-born
mother joined a Christian cult group
in 1969 not long after marrying his
non-Jewish father. Phoenix was just 3
when his disillusioned parents left the
cult in 1977. He said, in part: “My par-
ents believed in God. I’
m Jewish; my
mom’
s Jewish, but she believes in Jesus;
she felt a connection to that. But they
were never religious [after leaving the
cult] … we were absolutely encouraged
to have whatever belief we wanted.”
DIRECTORS/WRITERS: Sam
Mendes (1917) and Todd Phillips,
49, (Joker) vie for the Best Director
Oscar. Mendes is also nominated (Best
Original Screenplay) for co-writing
1917 and he is nominated as a pro-
ducer of 1917, a Best Picture nominee.
Phillips is also nominated for Best
Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Joker
with Steve Silver, 55. [Their nomina-
tion notes that the Joker screenplay is
based on work by three late Batman
comic book writers — Bob Kane, Bill
Finger and Jerry Robinson.] Phillips is
also nominated as a producer of Joker, a
Best Picture nominee.
Mendes, who is British, is the son of a
non-Jewish British father of Portuguese
ancestry and an English Jewish mother.
He has always been secular. He was an
acclaimed theater director in his 20s,
and he won the best director Oscar for
American Beauty (1999), his directorial
debut. 1917, a WWI epic, was inspired
by his paternal grandfather’
s battlefield
experiences.
Phillips was born Todd Bunzl in
Brooklyn. He was long associated with
co-writing and directing comedies
(he co-wrote Borat and directed and
co-wrote the hit Hangover films). Joker
is his darkest film to date.
Taika Waititi, 44, (Jojo Rabbit) is also
nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Jojo is an anti-Nazi film that I found
much more poignant and well-written
than some advance reviews led me to
believe. While Waititi is, in common
terms, only one-eighth Jewish, he iden-
tifies as a “Polynesian Jew” and I think
he merits inclusion in this article.
Noah Baumbach, 50, who wrote
and directed Marriage Story, is nomi-
nated for best original screenplay. He
also is nominated as a producer of
Marriage Story, a Best Picture nominee.
Baumbach burst into prominence in
2005 with his critically acclaimed film
The Squid and The Whale, which was
based on the real-life tense relations
between his parents, both writers (his
continued on page 44
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