By: Marion DS Dreyfus
Back in 1931, in bilingual Montreal, William Shatner made his first appearance where no infant Shatner had gone before. A Jewish kid from a Conservative Jewish home, he attended Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah, and pretty much lived the middle-class existence of his peers, before he attained iconic status as a beloved movie and Tv presence loved by millions.
So this is about The Fabelmans, right, so why start with Captain Kirk’s origins?
Because, much like Steven Spielberg’s ancillary origin story, Shatner too as a youth was beaten up, harassed and made miserable by anti-Semites in Canada’s sun-averse precincts.
Which is to remind us that growing up Jewish, even to well-heeled parents in ‘nice’ neighborhoods, was always fraught. If one was Jewish. Even though Spielberg is years younger and from Cincinnati, not Canada.
Spielberg’s latest film, interestingly titled FABLE =mans, is an intimate peek into young “Sammy Fabelman’s” climb into the cameraman’s directorship, starting as a kid with his first primitive camera and a thunderstruck outing to see “The Greatest Show on Earth.”. And even with his engineer father, here played by the dulcet Paul Dano, and a supportive musician mother {Michelle Williams, luminous and authentic]. Sammy captures many a morsel of revenge, using his camera as recording point-of-view.
The rise of contemporary anti-Semitism—though it has never been far from the bloody headlines, even if the media failed to make note of its prevalence—is fuel for this ramp-up of ire over the violence visited on Jews across this troubled topography called the US.
Sammy [ably played by a captivating newcomer, Canadian Gabriel LaBelle] makes his way through a handful of new venues [much like many youths with fathers whose job skills were ‘mobile’ and whose talents were in demand], not courting the hazings he receives at the hand of “all these Sequoias” of Gentile kids towering over him.
His aborning adroitness with successive generations of fancier cameras proves a blessing and a curse in that he captures footage of material he’d rather not have seen, which skews his adoration of his loving mother. His father’s best friend, ‘Uncle’ Bennie, is played by a toned-down Seth Rogan, doing what appears to be his first role not dependent on controlled substances and lark. Bennie plays a pivotal role in the fabric of his family’s fortunes and evolution.
The movie is a refreshing divergence –it tells a story, is well lit, never flags for the viewer, and costs (according to industry sources), only $40 million, a remarkable pittance nowadays.
Also refreshing is that Spielberg plays it straight. He does not stoop to the ugly caricatures of SNL mockery. Judaism is shown respectfully, for a change.
Audiences are glued to the plot developments, unlike, say, watching the kinetic but endless CGI wowie-grind of AVATAR, or the gloom of the mega-fat WHALE, though Brendan Fraser disports his role admirably, and courts sympathy for all so-rotund overlarge folk.
Of note is the new, highly lauded film being screened in only two NYC venues, LIVING, starring the lovable and ever-watchable Bill Nighy, starting the 23rd of December, at New Plaza Cinema [Macauley Honors College, 35 West 67th Street, second floor]. Buzzed to be an Oscar nom, don’t miss this revisit of an honored Kurasawa opus, the spooling of a life unwinding, making maximum lemonade from the lemons… another worthy holiday entertainment.
