APRIL 22 • 2021 | 39
original screenplay Oscar says: Screenplay
by Will Berson and Shaka King [who also
directed the film]; Story by Berson, King,
Keith and Kenny Lucas.
Berson, who has several minor writing
credits, began “shopping” a script about
the death of Hampton in 2014. The Lucas
Brothers, identical African American
twins, began shopping their own Hampton
script around the same time and got Shaka
King interested. In 2017, a black friend
of Berson told King about Berson’s script
and everybody “joined forces.” Berson,
43ish, a Manhattan native, is described by
Variety as a secular Jew. His parents are
both Jewish.
As noted above, Aaron Sorkin wrote
the Chicago 7 script in 2007, but the pro-
duction was long delayed. Sorkin is very
famous, so I won’t say much here. I am just
hoping that the success of Chicago 7 will
lead, fairly soon, to a film version of a new
play Sorkin wrote (2018) based on To Kill
a Mockingbird. It was a huge Broadway hit
and many say it ranks with his best work.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, an Amazon
Prime film starring Sacha Baron Cohen
as Borat, is nominated for best adapted
screenplay. Nine Moviefilm writers are
nominated. I am sure four of the nine
nominees, including Cohen, are Jewish:
Jena Friedman, 38, a comedian and
TV show producer. She grew up in a
Conservative Jewish household in New
Jersey; Dan Mazer, 49. He met Cohen
when they went to the same “fancy”
U.K. private school. Like Cohen, he’s a
Cambridge grad, and he shared, with
Cohen, a best original screenplay Oscar
“nom” for the first Borat movie (2007); and
Dan Swimer, 48, a veteran U.K. comedy
writer.
Nomadland, now streaming on Hulu,
is also up for a best adapted screenplay
Oscar. The nominee is Chloe Zhao, who
also directed the film. The nomination
notes that Zhao’s script is based on the
book Nomadland by Jessica Bruder. While
Bruder isn’t up for an Oscar, I’m sure she’ll
be thanked from the stage if, as expected,
Nomadland picks up awards.
Bruder, 44, has written for the N.Y.
Times since 2003. For several years, she
traveled thousands of miles to follow
people, mostly older, who were displaced
by the Great Recession and took to a life
on the road. In 2017, Bruder’s nonfiction
book Nomadland was published to great
acclaim. Chao’s film script has some fic-
tionalizations.
Bruder’s father, a major businessman
and philanthropist, is Jewish. Her mother
is Catholic. It’s pretty clear she was raised
Jewish or secular. In 2011, Bruder wrote
a Times article describing how the 5% of
the American population who do not cele-
brate Christmas, in any way, keep busy on
Christmas day. Bruder included herself in
that 5%.
White Eye, directed and written by
Israeli filmmaker Tomer Shushan, 40ish,
is nominated for best short live action
film (producer Shira Hochman shares the
nomination). It’s a poignant story about a
Tel Avivian who finds his stolen bicycle in
the street. In 20 minutes, he has conver-
sations with 10 Israelis of different ethnic
backgrounds. These conversations reveal a
lot about the biases and class structure of
Israeli society.
The original Netflix documentary My
Octopus Teacher is nominated for best
documentary feature. It was co-directed by
South African Pippa Ehrlich, 33. This film
has become almost a phenomenon — huge
viewing numbers and even parody videos.
Here’s the capsule plot: a (real) “burned-
out” documentary maker returns to South
Africa and “heals” via snorkeling in an
ocean kelp forest, where he encounters an
octopus that, in effect, befriends him and
demonstrates astonishing intelligence (this
is all real!). The photography and dramatic
storytelling are just superlative.
Ehrlich is the secular daughter of a
Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.
A (South African) Jewish Report article
says that Ehrlich is close to her Jewish
grandmother and that Ehrlich’s happiest
moment (since the film opened) came
when her “bubbie” said how much nachas
she was getting from the film’s reception.
Ehrlich’s filmmaking has been supported
by the South African ORT.
Including this year, James Newton
Howard, 69, has been nominated for seven
Oscars for best score and two more for
best song. He hasn’t won yet. He’s nomi-
nated this year for his score for the Tom
Hanks’ film News of the World. Long after
his father died, Howard discovered his
father was born Jewish. This led to him
embracing his Jewish background and he
is a practicing Reconstructionist Jew.
Diane Warren, 64, is another “always
a bridesmaid” story. Including this year,
she has been nominated 12 times for best
song and hasn’t won yet. She’s nominated
for co-writing the song “Seen” from the
film The Life Ahead (in which Sophia
Loren played a Holocaust survivor). Every
time she’s nominated, some writer says,
“It is Warren’s year.” I won’t repeat that
here. As my mother would say, Kinehora!
(Meaning, don’t say it aloud and invite bad
luck!)
SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
IMDB
A scene
from Mank
A scene from
Nomadland
A scene from
My Octopus
Teacher
IMDB