 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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