Fables and Lies

Last month saw the release of two autobiographical films, now both Oscar nominees, about young artists growing up in complicated, 20th-century American Jewish families. In The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg follows a precocious child filmmaker, Sammy Fabelman, as he turns his camera on his fracturing family. In Armageddon Time, James Gray meditates on Queens in 1980, where the intersections of school, family, and the police destroy a friendship between two boys, one Black and one Jewish. Do these movies have something new to say about the drama of upwardly mobile Jewish family life, or are they simply retreading familiar territory? Jewish Currents contributing writer Rebecca Pierce joined editors Arielle Angel, Ari Brostoff, and Mari Cohen on this week’s On the Nose to discuss the latest in Jewish film. 

MOVIES AND TV EPISODES MENTIONED:

8 ½, dir. Federico Fellini

Pain and Glory, dir. Pedro Almodóvar

Cinema Paradiso, dir. Giuseppe Tornatore

Lincoln, dir. Steven Spielberg

Star Wars, dir. George Lucas

Jaws, dir. Steven Spielberg

“Miami Mama-Mia/Pigeon on the Roof,” Animaniacs

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”