MARCH 7 • 2024 | 45

I don’t think he will ever be a 
practicing Jew. But I suspect he 
wouldn’t mind a bit if his chil-
dren are bar/bat mitzvah. 
Best Original Screenplay: 
Anatomy of a Fall (a French 
language legal mystery film), 
was co-written by nominee 
Arthur Harari. 42. Harari’s 
paternal Sephardi grandfather 
was born in Egypt and became 
a well-known French actor. 
With help, I found out that 
Arthur Harari’s parents are 
Jewish, too. 
Harari also directs and some-
times acts. Justine Triet, Harari’s 
life partner, is nominated as 
the co-writer of Anatomy. She 
directed Anatomy and is nomi-
nated for the directing Oscar. 
Also in the original screen-
play category are Josh Singer, 
52, the co-writer of Maestro, 
and (Ms.) Samy Burch, 36, 
for co-writing May December. 
Burch’s mother is Jewish.
Best adapted screenplay: 
Noah Baumbach, 54, is nomi-
nated for co-writing Barbie. His 
father is Jewish. The “official” 
Oscar nomination citation 
notes Barbie was based on char-
acters created by the late Ruth 
Handler, the co-founder of 
Mattel Toys. Handler, played by 
Rhea Perlman, briefly appears 
in Barbie.
Also, in the adapted category 
is Oppenheimer. While the writ-
ers are not Jewish, the official 

citation for the screenplay nom-
ination notes it was based on a 
historic study co-written by the 
late Martin J. Sherwin.
Also in the adapted screen-
play category is Jonathan 
Glazer, 58, a British Jew, for 
The Zone of Interest, a film 
about the Holocaust (loosely 
based on a novel). Glazer also 
directed Zone and he’s the only 
Jew to be nominated, this year, 
for the best director Oscar.
Glazer’s great-grandparents 
fled Eastern Europe persecu-
tion and settled in the U.K. 
over a century ago. His Reform 
Jewish parents were not very 
observant, but they did send 
Jonathan to a famous Jewish 
school in London and, as a 
teen, he spent five months on 
an Israeli kibbutz. 
His best-known films are 
Sexy Beast (starring Ben 
Kingsley), Birth (co-starring 
Lauren Bacall) and Under 
My Skin (starring Scarlett 
Johansson). 
The Oscar for best non-En-
glish language film goes to 
the film’s director. Zone is a 
non-English nominee and if it 
wins, Glazer, who also directed 
Zone, gets the Oscar. (Zone 
largely takes place in Auschwitz. 
Its characters, like the “real” 
persons at Auschwitz, speak in 
German, Polish or Yiddish). 
Best Score: Laura Karpman, 
64, for American Fiction and 

Robbie Robertson, who died 
last August, for Killers of the 
Flower Moon. Robertson was 
famous as the lead guy and 
chief songwriter for The Band, 
a top ’70s band. Robertson’s 
mother was a member of the 
Cayuga and Mohawk tribes. 
He was 12 when he found out 
that his father, who died before 
his birth, was Jewish. (Scorsese, 
the director of Killer, filmed the 
last performance of The Band 
[1976] and it’s a great rock and 
roll film). 
Best Original Song: Diane 
Warren, 67, for “The Fire 
Inside” from Flamin’ Hot. 
Warren has been nominated 
15 times for an Oscar, and 
has never won — and Mark 
Ronson, 48, the co-writer of 
“I’m Just Ken” from Barbie. 
He won (2019) the original 
song Oscar as the co-writer of 
“Shallow” from A Star is Born. 
The nominees for best ani-
mated (feature) films are a 
hodgepodge of animators and 
producers. Amy Pascal, 65, a 
top veteran producer, is up for 
Spiderman — Across the Spider-
Verse. She shares the film’s 
nomination with four others.
Letter of a Pig is nominated 
in the short (length) animated 
film category. It begins with 
a Holocaust survivor telling a 
group of teen students how a 
pig saved his life. It then shows 
the story’s profound effect on 

one student. 
The film was directed and 
written by Tal Kantor, 35, 
an Israeli. Her co-nominee is 
Israeli Amit Russell Gicelter, 
42, the film’s producer.
Sheila Nevins, 84, is one of 
the two nominated directors 
of The ABC’s of Book Banning. 
It’s a short documentary Oscar 
nominee. It follows the banning 
of books in schools (especially 
Florida). Nevins was the head 
of HBO Documentary Films. 
Edward Lachman, 76, is 
nominated for the Oscar for 
cinematography (El Conde, a 
black comedy/horror film). He 
was previously nominated for 
his work on Carol and Far from 
Heaven. These two films were 
directed by Todd Haynes, 63, 
as was May December.
The best film Oscar goes to a 
nominated film’s principal pro-
ducers. There are 10 nominated 
films and a lot of producers. 
My practice is not to work very 
hard to verify producers almost 
no one outside Hollywood 
has heard of and probably 
won’t win. Here are the pro-
ducer nominees I am sure of: 
Fred Berner, 70, and Steven 
Spielberg, 77, Maestro; David 
Heyman, 62 (Jewish father), 
Barbie; and Charles Roven, 74, 
Oppenheimer.
Two more notes and an 
Honorable Mention: Zone of 
Interest is a best film nominee, 
too. But Jonathan Glazer was 
not a Zone producer —and 
— Killers of the Flower Moon 
is a best film nominee, but its 
screenplay wasn’t nominated. 
The Killers screenplay was 
based on a nonfiction study 
of the same name by David 
Grann, 56. Paul Giamatti, 
a best actor nominee (The 
Holdovers), isn’t Jewish. But his 
former wife is, and their only 
child was raised Jewish. 

JENNIFER SU, WIKIPEDIA

Mark Ronson

BY RAPH_PH, ZONEINTREST

Jonathan Glazer

BY COSCOSCOS4 - OWN WORK

Diane 
Warren