ARTS&LIFE
TV & FILM
T
he Golden Globe awards, for
excellence in TV and film, will be
awarded on Sunday, Feb. 28, at 8
p.m. Due to the pandemic, the Globes
will be a virtual event. Norman Lear,
98, the creator of many great TV shows,
including All in the Family will receive the
“Carol Burnett Award” for “outstanding
contributions to television.”
Unlike many years, there is no Jewish
nominee in the film (drama) actor/actress
categories (there are five nominees in
all Globe categories). However, Gary
Oldman is nominated for a best actor
(drama) Globe for playing Jewish screen-
writer Herman Mankiewicz in Mank.
The best actor, comedy or musical
film category has two Jewish nominees:
Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat Subsequent
Moviefilm) and Andy Samberg, 42 (Palm
Springs). Cohen played star character
Borat, as well as co-writing this “mocku-
mentary.” Samberg played an affable guy
who finds himself living the same day
over and over.
The best actress (musical/comedy
film) nominees include Kate Hudson,
41, who had a star role in Music, a film
most critics disliked. She plays a reformed
drug dealer who takes care of her autistic
half-sister.
Sacha Baron Cohen, 49, is also nomi-
nated for best supporting actor (film) for
playing 1960s radical Abbie Hoffman in
The Trial of the Chicago 7. Aaron Sorkin,
59, who wrote and directed the film is
the sole Jewish nominee in the best (film)
director and best (film) screenplay cate-
gories.
Composer James Newton Howard,
69, is nominated for best original score
(News of the World) and Diane Warren,
64, is up for a Globe for co-writing the
original song “Seen” for the film The
Life Ahead.
One nominee for the best animat-
ed film Globe, Over the Moon, has a
poignant asterisk. It was written by
Audrey Lederer Wells, who died of
cancer in 2018, at age 58. The film
is dedicated to her. Her late father,
Wolfgang Lederer, an Austrian
Jew, fled from the Nazis, joined the
American army and fought from
D-Day until he was severely injured in
early 1945. He was highly decorated
and left the army as a major. The car-
nage of war led him to become a psy-
chiatrist and many of his patients were
Holocaust survivors.
A Holocaust survivor is the central
character of The Life Ahead, a best
foreign language film nominee. Sophia
Loren plays a retired prostitute who
is also a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
She forms an unlikely friendship with
a Muslim boy. This film got mixed
reviews, unlike the 1977 film Madame
Rosa, which was based on the same
novel by Romain Gary. It won the
Oscar for best foreign film and French
actress Simone Signoret (whose father
was Jewish) was, frankly, better than
Loren in the same role.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is nomi-
nated for best drama film. It competes
with Mank, which, as I said, is about a
“real” Jew. The director and screenwriter
of Mank aren’t Jewish. There are eight
important real-life Jewish characters in
the film and no Jewish actors or actresses
play them (Oy, you say? I agree).
The best film (musical or comedy) cat-
egory has many more Jewish connections.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was, as I’ve
noted, co-written by Sacha Baron Cohen.
It was directed by Jason Woliner, 40. Also
nominated in this category are Hamilton,
directed by Thomas Kail, 43; The Prom,
a musical whose songs were co-written by
34 | FEBRUARY 25 • 2021
ANIKA MOLNAR/NETFLIX
Amit Rahav
and Shira
Haas in
Unorthodox
Global
Gold
The most complete Jewish guide
to the 2021 Golden Globes.
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST