Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg's 'Obama'

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:17:44 +0100

A spoof video made by Barack Obama and Steven Spielberg for the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner.

Spielberg to head Cannes jury

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:10:27 +0000

He lost out to Ang Lee at the Oscars, but director Steven Spielberg is set to be the one awarding the prizes later this year at another of the film industry's most high profile events.

The Lincoln director has been named as the head of the jury for the Cannes Film Festival, following in the footsteps of such well known figures as Roman Polanski and Francis Ford Coppola.

The festival, which opens on May 15 in the French resort town, is now in its 66th year.

Mr Spielberg described the appointment as an "honour and a privilege.

"For over six decades, Cannes has served as a platform for extraordinary films to be discovered and introduced to the world for the first time," he said. "The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cultural and generational medium."

Cannes officials have been attempting to put the director on the panel for years. Thierry Frémaux, chief executive of the festival, said: "Because of his films, and the many causes he holds dear, he's year-in year-out the equal of the very greatest Hollywood filmmakers."

Steven Spielberg aims for third Best Director Oscar win for Lincoln

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:30:12 +0000

When Seth MacFarlane opens the 85th Academy Awards late on Sunday evening, a Jewish director will be in the running for another consecutive year to scoop the most coveted prize in cinema.

If Steven Spielberg picks up the trophy for Best Director for the film Lincoln, he will follow in the success of Michel Hazanavicius in 2012 – the French Jewish filmmaker won for The Artist – and go one better than the Coen Brothers and Darren Aronofsky, who were nominated in 2011.

Mr Spielberg has won four Oscars in the past, including being named Best Director for both Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.

The Jewish star of Lincoln, which documents the US president's final months in office, is also in the running for the prize of Best Actor. If Daniel Day-Lewis wins, he will be the first person to win three Best Actor Oscars in history.

His win is viewed as almost certain by industry insiders, with Entertainment Weekly's senior editor Thom Geier stating that he would be "shocked - I think everyone would be shocked - if someone other than Daniel Day - Lewis ascended the podium Sunday night".

Elsewhere, battling it out for the award for Best Documentary feature are the films 5 Broken cameras and The Gatekeepers, both of which focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The former, co-directed by an Israeli and a Palestinian, documents tension in a West Bank village from the perspective of a Palestinian farmer, while the latter follows six former Shin Bet heads.

In total, Spielberg's Lincoln is up for 12 Oscars. Other Jewish contend e rs include Alan Arkin, up for Best Supporting Actor for Argo, and Benh Zeitlin, up for a directing award for Beasts of the Southern Wild.

British Jewish film producer Teddy Leifer could take home the prize for Best Documentary for his film The Invisible War, a look at sexual assault in the US military that has been praised by President Obama.

Youngest Jew saved by Schindler mourned

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:15:17 +0000

The youngest Jew to be saved by Oskar Schindler has died at the age of 83.

In the 70 years since Leon Leyson was given a second chance by the heroic German businessman, he emigrated to America, served in the US army and carved out a career in teaching. Mr Leyson was married for 46 years and is survived by six grandchildren.

He survived the Holocaust only after the intervention of Schindler, who gave him work at his factory. The boy known to Schindler as "Little Leyson" had to stand on a box to do his work.

Born in Poland, he was ten when the Nazis occupied the country and his family was sent to the Krakow ghetto.

Just 13 when he was rescued – one of 1,100 Jews helped by Schindler – two of Mr Leyson's brothers were killed but with Schindler's aid both his parents and two siblings also survived.

Mr Leyson, who had been diagnosed with lymphoma four years earlier, rarely talked about his early life until after Steven Spielberg's 1993 film was released. Speaking a few years later, he said he had not wanted to give his children "a legacy of fear" by dwelling on his past.

He told the Los Angeles Times that watching the film was "like having an out-of-body experience… little kids who were … trying to get away from the Sondercommando - that was me."

Awards recognition for Spielberg’s Lincoln bodes well for Oscars

Anna Sheinman — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:12:59 +0000

Steven Spielberg’s US civil war drama Lincoln has dominated the nominations for this month's Bafta awards.

It was announced today that the film has received the most Bafta nominations, 10, including best film and best actor for Daniel Day Lewis.

Mr Spielberg has also been nominated for the prestigious Directors Guild of America award for directorial achievement in a feature film. The winner of the DGA has gone on to win the Oscar for best director in all but six years since 1948.

Lincoln also leads the nominations for Sunday's Golden Globes, with seven nominations including best director.

The nominations for the Academy Awards, or the Oscars as they are better known, will be released on Thursday.

Trailer: Lincoln by Steven Spielberg

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:43:30 +0000

Lincoln, a biographical war-drama, directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, will be released in the UK in mid-January.

The film tells the story of America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, and his battle against slavery.

DVD review: In Darkness - better than Spielberg

Simon Round — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:00:08 +0100

Acclaimed Polish film-maker Agnieszka Holland’s harsh, uncompromising drama may have the same theme as Schindler’s List — a true-life story of a gentile who saved Jews
— but it is both more compelling and less sentiment-al than Spielberg’s blockbuster.

Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz) is a sewer inspector in Nazi-occupied Lvov, who augments his income with petty crime and does not shy away from exploiting the already persecuted Jews for a little extra cash. The opportunity comes his way to line his pockets by hiding a Jewish family in the sewers in return for their life savings, but ultimately he risks his life to save them — even when the money runs out.
His conversion is portrayed as both reluctant and troubled – his ingrained antisemitism is challenged along the way.

For his efforts, the real-life Socha was posthumously declared Righteous Among Gentiles by the Israeli government. Whether his screen personality, brilliantly conveyed by Wieckiewicz, is accurate or not, it is certainly convincing.

The brutality of the Nazis on pavement-level is graphically portrayed but is equalled by the suffering of the Chiger family in the sewers, forced into a hellish subterranean existence among the rats in a stinking and potentially lethal environment.

This is a long film which, at times, can be almost unbearable to watch, and its subject matter is by no means original.

Yet the story, based on Robert Marshall’s book, In the Sewers of Lvov, is also a redemptive tale of suffering and survival which has much of the excitement of a thriller.
In Darkness should be compulsory viewing for certain Polish and Ukrainian and indeed other football supporters.

Drew Barrymore's Jewish wedding

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:04:24 +0100

Drew Barrymore has married in a Jewish ceremony.

The actress, who is not Jewish, tied the knot with art consultant Will Kopelman in California last week. The ceremony was officiated by the groom's family rabbi and took place under a custom-made chuppah.

The actress, who shot to fame as a child in Steven Spielberg's film ET, reportedly wore a dress by Chanel. Her new husband's father, Arie Kopelman, is the chief executive of the fashion house.

Guest at the nuptials included actresses Reese Witherspoon and Cameron Diaz.

Ms Barrymore, whose mother was born in a Displaced Persons' camp to Hungarian Second World War refugees, has been married twice before. US gossip magazines have reported that she is considering converting to Judaism.

Steven Spielberg's Marilyn Monroe musical series

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:34:11 +0000

Joining a long list of Jewish creatives involved in Broadway musicals, filmmaker Steven Spielberg is the executive producer of a television show critics have already dubbed "the new Glee".

"Smash", starring Debra Messing and Anjelica Huston, follows the team behind a fictional new musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. It is set to air in the US next month. Watch to see whether you think it can steal Glee's crown.

Spielberg 'blacked out' of Beirut Tintin posters

Jennifer Lipman — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:21:07 +0000

Jewish director Steven Spielberg's name has been covered up on posters advertising the new Tintin film at a cinema in Lebanon.

A contributor to "Blog Baladi," a Lebanon-focused site, published photographs taken at Beirut's Cinema City with tape hiding Mr Spielberg's name.

Under the heading "Selective censorship at Cinema City", he noted: "The movie was produced by Steven Spielberg, but you wouldn't know that just by looking at the posters.

"Spielberg's name is blacked out on all posters."

Describing it as "hypocrisy", the blogger questioned whether the decision had been taken by the cinema company or the government.

"I guess that we shouldn't mention or see his name since he's Jewish, but we can go ahead and watch a movie he produced," he added.

On the cinema's website, the film is credited correctly.