• About
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us
American Jewish World
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

    ​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Not Great Britain’s finest hour

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

    Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Robyn Frank finds her niche in the cookie business

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Editorial: More from my European vacation

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

    Our Rosh Hashana special edition

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home Arts

From 'Happiness' to 'Wartime'

American Jewish World by American Jewish World
May 23, 2020
in Arts
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

READ ALSO

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

New Todd Solondz film probes the bounds of social acceptance

By MICHAEL FOX

Todd Solondz revels in ironies, paradoxes, warring impulses and messy dilemmas. So it makes a kind of weird sense that such a sweet, pensive guy makes excruciating — and excruciatingly funny — movies.

With Life during Wartime, the New Jersey-born, New York City-based writer-director of such remarkable films as Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness delivers his most explicitly Jewish film. Set largely in Florida, Life during Wartime picks up the trail of most of the characters in Happiness (1998) some years after the devastating arrest of husband and father Bill Maplewood (played in the new film by Ciarán Hinds) as a pedophile.

Life during Wartime opens Aug. 20 at the Lagoon Cinema in Minneapolis.

Allison Janney plays Trish, a woman coping with family problems, and Dylan Riley Snyder portrays her son Timmy, in Life during Wartime, a new film from Todd Solondz. (Photo: Francisco Román)Allison Janney plays Trish, a woman coping with family problems, and Dylan Riley Snyder portrays her son Timmy, in “Life during Wartime,” a new film from Todd Solondz. (Photo: Francisco Román)

“For me, the pedophile is a metaphor about that which is most ostracized, demonized, feared and loathed,” Solondz explained in a recent interview at a San Francisco hotel. “Certainly, Jews are familiar with the sense of ostracization, of demonization. And the movie — all my work, I don’t know all, but a lot of it — has to do with the limits that we have of acceptance. We all have our limits. Do I embrace Hitler? I mean, he’s part of humanity. Where do you stop?”

Solondz never conceived of Maplewood as Jewish, but the character’s ex-wife and her two sisters are unmistakably so. Early in Life during Wartime, Trish (a marvelous Allison Janney) and her date, Harvey Weiner (Michael Lerner), confess not only to voting for George W. Bush on the sole basis of his support for Israel, but to a shared desire to be interred in the Jewish state.

“The idea of the courtship, being buried in Israel, is a perverse kind of sentiment,” Solondz says. “If you really are a Zionist, why would you want to take up space in that tiny piece of land? As if you get first dibs — all the people that died in the Holocaust, they didn’t get buried in Israel.”

Trish’s narcissistic sister, Helen, who lives in breathtaking luxury in L.A., is at the other end of the political spectrum. An enormous photograph of a Palestinian child with a rock standing in front of an Israeli tank hangs on her wall, and the word “jihad” is tattooed in Arabic on her arm.

But it’s risky to guess Solondz’s stance on Israel from his characters. He’s plainly liberal, but he’s not an ideologue.

“I think it’s hard if you’re a college kid today in many places, if you go to any liberal campus, to speak in favor of Israel or Israeli policy,” he says. “That’s the cultural climate. That wasn’t the case when I was a college kid. It’s not a question of right and wrong but it is part of the ambience that we live in right now.”

Todd SolondzTodd Solondz

How much direct experience does Solondz have with Israel? “Once every 10 years I’m there, for some reason or other,” he says. “I’ve got plenty of relatives and so forth. But every time I go it’s a different country.”

Bringing the conversation back to Life during Wartime, the filmmaker is endlessly fascinated with the daily struggle of his characters to move on with their lives in the wake of painful revelations and betrayals.

“I play with this notion of forgiving and forgetting, and the way in which, much as you may try to eradicate the painful things from your past, you can never escape it,” Solondz says. “It always has a hold on you, and you can pay a price for not acknowledging that. In my head, [Florida] was a place where one could go — the way I think California once was — a tabula rasa, you could go there and recreate your life. It’s where O.J. went after the trial.”

A subplot of Life during Wartime involves the approaching Bar Mitzva of Trish’s son, Timmy. (It’s a curious coincidence that the most recent Solondz and Coen brothers movies both involve Bar Mitzva boys.) The openly atheistic Solondz is typically droll and thoughtful about how he’s raising his young son.

“It’s endless conversations between me and Emily — Horowitz, ’cause if I don’t include that everyone will wonder,” he says with a smile. “She lights the Friday night candles and since we’re vegetarian, kosher is never an issue, really. I think it would be a nice thing for the little one to have exposure to some extent, certainly to know how to read Hebrew, because it will open more doors for him, so he has more options in life. Look, if he becomes a believer, I don’t want to deprive him of that opportunity.”

Solondz is not a sentimentalist by any means, but he is a philosopher and a pragmatist.

“If you go to Mexico, to Argentina, to Romania, there’s a synagogue,” he notes. “It has some meaning and resonance that would otherwise be a void if you grew up totally assimilated.”

***

Life during Wartime opens Friday, Aug. 20 at the Lagoon Cinema in Uptown.

Here’s the trailer:



(American Jewish World, 8.20.10)

Related Posts

Not Great Britain’s finest hour
Books & Literature

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

December 23, 2022
Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’
Theater & Performing Arts

Five reasons to see ‘A Servants’ Christmas’

December 11, 2022
Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes
Books & Literature

Stella Levi recalls life on Rhodes

November 13, 2022
Attention, young Jewish artists! We want your Hanuka-themed artworks
Visual Arts

Attention, young Jewish artists! We want your Hanuka-themed artworks

November 13, 2022
Strange journey of a prophet
Books & Literature

Strange journey of a prophet

October 18, 2022
‘Uncle Philip’s Coat’ is bigger than life
Theater & Performing Arts

‘Uncle Philip’s Coat’ is bigger than life

October 18, 2022
Next Post

Editorial: The next war?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECENT ARTICLES

From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

From a brothel to a Brooklyn dress shop

January 22, 2023
On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

On the 100th anniversary of Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’

January 22, 2023
​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

​​’Echoes of the Holocaust’ to have world premiere in Minneapolis

January 20, 2023
In local appearance Nick Winton told the story of his father, humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton

In local appearance Nick Winton told the story of his father, humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton

December 23, 2022
Not Great Britain’s finest hour

Not Great Britain’s finest hour

December 23, 2022

About

Since 1912 the AJW has served as an important news resource for the Jewish community. The Jewish World unites the main Jewish communities in St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as those in Duluth, Rochester and smaller cities, and bridges the divides between the various Jewish religious streams.

Quick Links

  • About the AJW
  • Advertising Information
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Subscription Information
  • Jewish Community Directory

Contact Us

The American Jewish World
3249 Hennepin Ave., Suite 245
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tel: 612.824.0030 / Fax: 612.823.0753
editor@ajwnews.com

  • Buy JNews
  • Landing Page
  • Documentation
  • Support Forum

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
  • News
  • Food
  • Health & Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Opinion

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.