New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival Pomegranate Awards

I had the opportunity to attend the 28th Annual Pomegranate Awards hosted by the American Sephardi Federation as part of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. This stunning event was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in downtown Manhattan at Battery Park. The venue overlooking the Statue of Liberty - an icon integral to one of the theme’s of the evening, namely, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Liberty, and the vital role of Sephardic Jews in the founding of our nation over 250 years ago.

The event was preceded by a light cocktail hour overlooking the Statue of Liberty, which preluded the entire evening. The main event, in the spacious Edmund G. Safra Hall, was hosted by the dazzlingly dressed Sabrina Soffer. Soffer, a recent graduate of George Washington University and herself of Dagestani Jewish heritage on her mother’s side, whose story she told in My Mother’s Mirror: A Generational Story of Purpose, Resilience, and Self-Discovery, offered opening remarks about the importance of Jewish unity and transmitting Sephardic history and legacy to the next generation. Soffer’s keynote address also touched on her experience with anti-Semitism at university and her upcoming book Of Good Courage: Israel and the West’s Fight for Moral Clarity, co-authored with Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. Soffer’s remarks were followed by those of Hélène Jawhara Piñer, an award-winning chef and scholar, whose cuisine recreates the dishes of Sephardic staples, such as almodrote, braised lamb, and Andalusian challah.

These introductory remarks were then followed by the reception of the Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement for Philosophy the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. BHL, as he is affectionately known, spoke expressively about the importance of Liberty for American Jewish history. He mentioned that some of the founding citizens of our nation from over 250 years ago, were Sephardic Jews seeking religious liberty, and that Emma Lazarus, whose words are immortalized on Lady Liberty, was herself of Sephardi heritage, descended from those initial 23 pioneers to New Amsterdam. Because of that lineage deep within American history, BHL argued, it is up to Sephardic Jews today to restore American honor.

Two Pomegranate Awards were given for excellence in Music. One went to Murray Perahia, the award-winning pianist and conductor, whose interpretations of the classical composers Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin embody lyrical sensitivity, elegance, and profound musical insight. He is considered one of the greatest pianist alive today, marked by his humble demeanor. This was followed by the Pomegranate Award granted to Jeannette Sorrell, a Grammy-winning conductor, whose childhood dream was to follow in the footsteps of Murray Perahia, with whom she had the pleasure of sharing the stage. Sorrell, born of a Holocaust survivor father whose origin she discovered in 2018 before her Carnegie Hall debut, has led the world’s chief orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Seattle Symphony. Joined by her musical partner Jeffrey Strauss and their troupe Apollo’s Fire, Sorrell performed several deeply provoking pieces from Sephardic Jewish history as a finale to the event. The moving renditions of Avraham Kerido, Borrecho, and Tzur Mishelo, brought several audience members to standing ovation and to tears.

Finally, the last person recognized was Avi Issacharoff, the journalist, report, producer, and screenwriter, whose best talent is known for the Netflix hit series *Fauda*. Issacharoff is of Kurdish and Persian heritage himself, and he learned his sense of storytelling, for which he received the Pomegranate Award for Storytelling, from his mother and grandmother who spent long nights enthralled by tales of dragons and monsters. His journalist integrity and humor was brought to light when he shared a story how he met a head of Hamas, who told him he planned to remove all Jews from Israel and send them back to Europe and America, to which Issacharoff asked, “What about me? My grandparents are from Kurdistan and Uzbekistan,” to which the sheikh responded, “You can stay.” Also humorous was Issacharoff’s quip that it was the strength and resolve of Kurdistani ladies, from whom he descends, who were able to stop ISIS in their tracks.

I was pleased to meet several individuals of Bukharian Jewish descent. There was Ruben Shimonov, the skilled calligrapher equally at home in Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Russian, and Spanish, born in Uzbekistan and raised in Seattle, director of Sephardi House. In addition, Joseph Kandov, an award-winning filmmaker, whose several films include The Set-up and Til Death Do Us Part. In addition, I met the mezzo-soprano singer, writer, and educator Yaffa Borukhoba, who wrote and illustrated a children’s book You Don’t Look Jewish and hosts the StreetSmarts MBA podcast.

In this night of pan-Jewish unity, Soffer, Egyptian on her father’s side, also shared how she and an Egyptian student shared a love of the songs of Enrico Macias, who performed the second night of the Festival. Soffer also related how she and a Bukharian student sang together childhood songs such as Kayfuyem, which her mother Lea Wolf — of Kavkazi Mountain Jewish heritage, from the Tat Jews of the Southern Caucasus — taught her.

This piece was originally intended for a Bukharian newspaper.

Watch my interview with Sabrina Soffer on the Embracing Abraham podcast on YouTube.

Zohar:

The Zohar is a very complicated text to outsiders. But has some of its reputation been assigned by scholars? Isaiah Tishby was an English-speaking scholar who produced an early version of a Zoharic anthology. Gershom Scholem was a Hebrew-speaking scholar who made pioneering investigations into the study of Jewish mysticism In general, the main thrust of the arguments espoused by Isaiah Tishby and Gershom Scholem are opposed, as far as their views regarding the authorship of the Zohar. Both scholarly articles begin with a lengthy schema, or description of the parts of the Zohar - so that section is remarkably the same in both authors. But their views of the composition of the Zohar itself come from different directions. Tishby seems to believe that that the Zohar is a confused jumble of kabbalistic strands that somehow found their way into a non-coherent system in the Zohar Ḥadash in the 14th century, which was then added to by other sections. Tishby describes the Zohar as having "many drawbacks," the foremost of which is: "Different topics are jumbled together and subjects that have practically nothing to do with one another are set side by side without any internal connection between them. At many points we jump from one subject to another, without any logical transition or rational continuity" (7), which are more prominent in the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar. He comments: "In these sections are signs of a basic defect in the actual thought structure" (7). Tishby also refers to its "piecemeal"  style, which "seriously obscures its ideas." The reader of Tishby's introduction is left with an entirely mystified, confused introduction to the Zohar. By contrast, Scholem sees the Zohar as a unified, coherent, literary whole by a single author, which has remarkable consistency in its use of linguistic features, despite their particularity. Scholem is arguing against the idea that it is "a multitude of writings of apparently very different character, loosely assembled under the title of 'Zohar'" (159). For example, Scholem praises the section Idra Rabba, or "Great Assembly": "The composition of this part is architecturally perfect; the totality of the speeches constitutes a systematic whole" (160). Scholem especially brings attention to its unified emotional effect: "As the unravelling of the mystery progresses, the participants are increasingly overcome by ecstasy, and in the final dramatic apotheosis, three of the[ rabbi's followers] die in a state of ecstatic trance" (160). In the view of Scholem, the Zohar is a literary composition which is masterfully put together to achieve maximal mystical and emotional impact. Scholem does make the caveat that the sections Raya Mehemna and Tikkunei ha-Zohar which Tishby calls out, were likely authored by another author in imitation of the main part. He refers to its "deliberate imitation of the uniform language of the other parts" (168). Elsewhere, Scholem criticizes imperfections in the Zohar's Aramaic, which he considers thirteenth-century Hebrew in disguise (165), but notes its consistent nature throughout (163) and its "rainbow picture of linguistic eclecticism, the constituent elements of which, however, remain constant throughout. The syntax is extremely simple, almost monotonous" (164). He elsewhere refers to the author as an "omnivorous reader gifted with an excellent memory" (172). Personally, Scholem's view inspires me to study the Zohar at a greater depth, whereas Tishby's introduction leaves me confused over the jumble of texts I am about to investigate. Isaiah Tishby, The wisdom of the Zohar (Oxford, 1989), 1-30 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Schocken, 1995), 156-204

Goodbye, Columbus (1969) and the Rejection of American Middle-class Jewish Values

If The Heartbreak Kid is about a hapless Jewish man, Lenny Cantrow who falls for a hot, American blonde of upper-middle-class WASP extraction, Kelly Corcoran, then Goodbye, Columbus is about a hapless Jewish man, Neil Klugman, who falls for a Jewish girl going on WASP, Brenda Patimkin, from a nouveau riche, middle-class family. In each, the choice of mate is a sort of repudiation of the man's values, in each, the parents of the girl do not approve, and in each the family belongs to a well-off socioeconomic status. In this film, Brenda Patimkin reflects on how her family used to live in the Bronx, where Neil currently resides with his aunt. "Oh, we used to live in the Bronx," she says. The Patimkin's are social climbers, having made money selling construction-parts, they want nothing to do with their first-level immigrant past as Jews. The family — the mother, the brother, and the girt, except for the father, who is played by Jack Klugman (opposite the character Neil Klugman) — have all undergone rhinoplasty to hide their Jewish identity, and now they live in a WASP-ish neighborhood. However, their Yidishe identity comes through, for example, when the father refers to his little girl as his tsatschkele, his little pet. This film reflects the identity problems revolving around assimilation that American Jews faced in the mid-late twentieth century.

However, in a way, this film is a counterpoint to The Heartbreak Kid. There, Leonard Cantrow successfully, if naively, "assimilates" by marrying into the Corcoran family, here, Neil Klugman ultimately cannot stand the assimilated Patimkin family. If he saw in Brenda the image of the "hot" "non-Jewish" shiksa, what he found instead was the Jewish American Princess. Although he forces her to break traditional boundaries, she ultimately sides with her papa. Neil rejects Brenda's association with this well-off, assimilated family and says Goodbye, Columbus.

What is fascinating about the title is that it simultaneously represents the assimilated family, as well as a larger conversation about the Jewish people and Zionism. The brother repeatedly plays a record album from his alma mater, The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He pines after his days as the quarterback of the football team and the attention that was lauded on him. So for him, Goodbye, Columbus is nostalgic. But for Neil, it is deeper. There was a 1926 Yiddish theatre song that the screenwriter Philip Roth may have picked up. The song was called “Ikh For Aheym,” “I’m going home.” The song featured the line, “Zay gezunt, Kolumbes,” “Goodbye, Columbus,” as in the legendary colonizer of the Americas. But, here, the song is referring to assimilated, American Jews returning to the Land of Israel (British Mandate Palestine), and making aliyah as Zionists and rejecting the materialism which America offered. Thereby, by rejecting the Patimkin's, Neil is simultaneously rejecting the nostalgic, assimilated life of the brother who only cares about American football and the comfy life of materialism. However, we do not know what Neil chooses. Does he become a Zionist, a librarian, a communist, a captialist, or does he find a proper shiksa, like Lenny Cantrow? The film just does not tell us.

The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and the American Jewish Woman

The Heartbreak Kid (1972, Elaine May, Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Jeannie Berlin)

This delightful film is based on a quick piece published in the January 1966 issue of Esquire by Bruce Jay Friedman. Whereas Friedman's fast-paced piece revolves around the existential angst of being rushed into a marriage and choosing "the right one," Elaine May turns this into an American Jewish story of assimilation, in which the protagonist Leonard Cantrow (Charles Grodin) pines after his non-overbearing, non-Jewish love-interest, the daughter of Minnesota tycoon Al Corcoran, Kelly Corcoran (Cybill Shepherd).

When compared to the story, we can see how the screenwriter Neil Simon and director Elaine May remade the message as an American-Jewish narrative. First off, the story is much quicker and has a different characterization. In the story, the wife doesn’t have a name, and gets one line (And I’m supposed to just listen to that? in response to his insinuations of divorice). Furthermore, her characterization is completely different from the film: Cantrow's wife is described as pale and skinny (illuminated by Friedman's phrases his bride’s slack form, pale and angular), and contrasted with Kelly, the woman of his dreams, who is described as having a nice fleshiness, a good hundred and thirty pounds to his bride’s hundred four. In the story, the wife is a waif. However, as in the film, the story also describes her as having “loud pipes."

Compared to the film, the characterisation of Lenny's women seem like a reversal. Lila is loud-mouthed, is buxom and untowardly sexual; she is also dark-haired and of darker complexion. She represents the worst of Jewish women. Therefore, Lenny is not attracted by his overbearing Jewish wife.

In the film, it is the pale, skinny, slack-formed shiksa who attracts him. The film transferred the characterization of his wife onto the shiksa Kelly. In the story, it is his wife who sounds like Twiggy. The story and the film are the opposite.

By so doing, the film reaffirms stereotypes of Jewish women. There is another series on Netflix right now using that same theme: Nobody Wants This… (because, er, nobody wants to see more Jewish women stereotypes, but actually apparently everybody does), about a Los Angeles Reform rabbi (played by Adam Brody) who falls for a non-Jewish sex-podcast-host (played by Kristen Bell). In the words of people who were involved with the production: The stereotypes of Jewish women can sometimes lean into shtick, necessary as they are for the show’s comedic contrast between the fun, outspoken, sex-positive shiksa and the severe, withholding Jewish women who view her as a threat. But [the real-life rabbi Steve] Leder said that while their exaggerated tendencies were written for a laugh, the Jews were in on the joke.

I sure hope so, and clearly there is comedic value in The Heartbreak Kid. Whereas in Nobody Wants This, the shiksa is the sexy one, in The Heartbreak Kid, it is Lila who is buxom and sensual; the audience is supposed to find her curling Lenny's chest hair discomforting and her constant need of reassurance, "am I good enough?" disturbing. While Kelly is sensual in a vague sense (in the sense that any woman in a bikini is sensual — compare Kelly's black one-piece with Lila's two-piece polka dot bikini set and robe, preceded by her red bathrobe), Kelly represents the virginal young woman. Kelly is seen by Grodin as proceeding from the clouds, as he stares up into the sun. She is young and naive, and she plays with Grodin's emotions (seemingly changing her mind whether she wants to pursue, or be pursued by, him). She is the "little girl" to Lila's matronly, fully-grown womanly attributes. Although in terms of getting what she wants, Kelly seems much more mature than Lila, who always needs reassurance.

Ultimately, then, The Heartbreak Kid falls into the age-old trope about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. If we see Lila as the foil for Judaism, she is earthly, sensual, emotional, and unstable. Kelly is the foil for Christianity (her family is Episcopal). Kelly is light, airy, young, heavenly, and alluring. These are powerful tropes.

But in the end, Leonard finds himself in the same situation, at the end of the film rattling off his half-baked theories to two children, who leave him, and then mumbling to himself incoherently. He pursued the second beauty, but one wonders if he would have been better off with Lila. The original story (A Change of Plan) makes this point clearer, with its heading: Dedicated to any man who has ever, for one fleeting moment or more, harbored the thought that his wife was not absolutely the most wonderful woman he ever met. While portrayed through the lens of Cantrow, this is a really a tale of two women.

Books for the Study of ancient Christianity, early Judaism, and Second Temple Jewish Literature

 If you are looking to learn more about early Christianity, early Judaism, and its relationship to the Second Temple Period, these resources will be helpful. The Second Temple Period was the time when the Temple was rebuilt under Ezra-Nehemiah after the return of the exiles from Babylon back to Judea. It covered approximately 500 years, from 444 BC/BCE to 70 CE/AD. During this time, the last books of the Bible were completed (e.g., Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, Haggai, etc.). Also, the apocryphal books were written during this time, as well as the pseudepigraphical books (the name means falsely attributed, and refers to books whose authors pretend to be someone else from Biblical history, such as Moses, Enoch, or Abraham).

The following categories of Jewish books were written during Second Temple times:

1. The Apocrypha (called the Deuterocanon, or Second Canon, by Roman Catholics)
2. The Pseudepigrapha (books from famous biblical heroes, Moses, Enoch, Abraham)
3. The Dead Sea Scrolls (books collected by the Essene sect at Qumran on the Dead Sea)
4. Philo (a Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, Egypt, who wrote commentaries on Bible)
5. Josephus (a Jewish historian who wrote Jewish histories for the Romans)
6. The New Testament (books regarding Jesus of Nazareth by his Jewish followers)

All of these were Jewish books written during the Second Temple period.

What will follow will be a list of published versions of these books, with links to them being found on Amazon.

I. Apocrypha

• M. Coogan, editor. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Fully revised fourth edition. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). This is considered the standard Apocrypha Bible.
• The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha.

II. Pseudepigrapha

• James Charlesworth, editor. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 volumes. (New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985). (link) This edition has the full texts, plus pages of introductions and commentaries.

The Charlesworth edition is exceedingly helpful, and includes 65 different books:

1. 1 Enoch (Ethiopian)

2. 2 Enoch (Slavonic) (Appendix: 2 Enoch in Merilo Previdnoe)

3. 3 Enoch (Hebrew)

4. Sibylline Oracles

5. Treatise of Shem

6. Apocryphon of Ezekiel

7. Apocalypse of Zephaniah

8. Fourth Ezra

9. Greek Apocalypse of Ezra

10. Vision of Ezra

11. Questions of Ezra

12. Revelation of Ezra

13. Apocalypse of Sedrach

14. 2 Baruch (Syriac Apocalypse)

15. 3 Baruch (Greek Apocalypse)

16. Apocalypse of Abraham

17. Apocalypse of Adam

18. Apocalypse of Elijah

19. Apocalypse of Daniel

20. Testaments of 12 Patriarchs

21. Testament of Job

22. Testaments of Three Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob)

23. Testament of Moses

24. Testament of Solomon

25. Testament of Adam

26. Letter of Aristeas

27. Jubilees

28. Martyrdom of Isaiah

29. Ascension of Isaiah

30. Joseph and Aseneth

31. Life of Adam & Eve

32. Pseudo-Philo

33. Lives of the Prophets

34. Ladder of Jacob

35. 4 Baruch

36. Jannes and Jambres

37. History of the Rechabites

38. Eldad and Modad

39. History of Joseph

40. Story of Ahiqar

41. 3 Maccabees

42. 4 Maccabees

43. Pseudo-Phocyclides

44. Sentences of the Syriac Menander

45. More Psalms of David

46. Prayer of Manasseh

47. Psalms of Solomon

48. Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers

49. Prayer of Joseph

50. Prayer of Jacob

51. Odes of Solomon

52. Alexander Polyhistor

53. Philo the Epic Poet

54. Theodotus

55. Orphic Hymns

56. Ezekiel the Tragedian

57. Fragments of Pseudo-Greek Poets

58. Aristobulus

59. Demetrius the Chronographer

60. Aristeas the Exegete

61. Eupolemus

62. Pseudo-Euopolemus

63. Cleodemus Malchus

64. Artapanus

65. Pseudo-Hecataeus

This 2-volume edition has more books than anyone would ever need in their lifetime!

If somebody just wants to read the texts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, and others, themselves without any scholarly comment, the following editions may be useful:

• George W.E. Nickelsburg and James VanderKam, translators. 1 Enoch: A New Translation: Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Just text and no commentary.
• James C. VanderKam, Jubilees: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2020).
• The Complete 54-Book Apocrypha: 2022 Edition With the Deuterocanon, 1-3 Enoch, Giants, Jasher, Jubilees, Pseudepigrapha, & the Apostolic Fathers (Covenant Press, 2022). Handy, non-scholarly edition of a majority of the books in public domain translations.

III. The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Arab Bedouins in a cave in the Judean desert in 1948. The Bedouins did not know what they were, so they took some fragments to a local Orthodox priest. The Priest could not read them but eventually contacted some Jewish academics who could read the ancient Hebrew script. Eventually, a team of Protestant and Catholic scholars was assembled to decipher the documents. More were found every day. It took nearly 50 years to catalog all the scrolls, and still clean-up work is being done. In total, 900 scrolls and scroll fragments were found, composing about 100 different texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of three types of works: Biblical Manuscripts, Sectarian texts dealing with the Essene community at Qumran, and Non-Sectarian texts that the Essenes collected at Qumran (e.g., Jubilees and 1 Enoch).

There have been many editions of the scrolls, but here I am aiming at comprehensiveness, clarity, and fidelity to the original.

Editions with Original Hebrew:

• Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, editors. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999-2019. This edition has the Hebrew & English side by side on facing pages, so you can know what is being discussed! It comes in 2 volumes:
• Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, Volume 1. Has scrolls 1Q1 through 4Q273.
• Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, Volume 2. Has scrolls 4Q274 through 11Q31.
• 
  

The Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) - Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone; book written by David Grann (2017)

I saw The Killers of the Flower Moon yesterday.

The masterful, 3 hour and 27 minute film from Martin Scorsese simultaneously disturbed and enlightened. It is a paean to a century before, an homage to a time long ago, and a morality tale about greed, based on the 2017 book of the same name by David Grann.

Scorsese crafted an elaborate framing device, in which the viewer is brought back into the 1920s. He used old-timey black & white vintage footage (newly filmed, of course) which displays a number of richly ornamented Native Americans gallavanting through the town of Fairfax, Osage County, Oklahoma, showing up their bling, stylishly posing for the cameras, and driving their Studebakers—or rather, being driven by their chauffeurs. Enter the Osage: a Native American tribe whose relocation to a reservation whose land was previously deemed worthless until the discovery of natural oil. Scorsese cuts to a scene depicting several Osage braves enjoying an oil-drenched dance under a geyser of the bubbling brew. Scorsese intercuts the old-style title cards, or intertitles, appropriated from the silent film era, explaining how the Tribe benefitted from the oil boom, resulting in the wealthy Indians above.

Enter the white man. We see several examples of obese hucksters trying to disenfranchise the Osage from their money, offering them expensive photographs, sham insurance deals, and generally any other shady way to steal their guaranteed oil money. Of the photographs, we see a couple take up the offer, and Scorsese privileges us with several of these historically preserved photographs of Osage Indians posing for the camera, in their spiffiest Western best. Our heroine (played by indigenous Montana actor Lily Gladstone) also appears in one, doubtlessly photoshopped onto an older photograph. The boomtown 1920s are in full swing.

We see Leo DiCaprio, in the huckiest (like huckster-hillbilly-golly-gee-shucks) role we've ever seen him in, exit the train for town, and proceed to watch, and throw a few punches in, some drunken brawl—until his Indian accomplish taps him on the shoulder, and brings him to the car. Darn, Leo was just getting use to the local scene.

For much of the movie, we see wide-eyed Leo imbibing everything around him like a kid's first time at a circus. The brawls, the street races, the scam artists, the money. It's all so exciting and new to him!

He is taken to meet his uncle, who wants Leo to address him as the King, just as he did as a child. The uncle, William King Hale, is quite the local magnate around town, financing schools, hospitals, and public works. He promises to take Leo (his name is Earnest Burkhardt) under his wing, and show him the ropes.

Leo's first job is as a cab driver, a chaffeur, but driving Studebakers. He picks up his soon-to-be love interest Miss Molly Kyle, an Osage beauty whom apparently many a man had his eye on. After three rides, Earnest is smitten by Molly, and apparently vice versa. She invites him into her house, she makes him some pudding, and they spend the rest of the evening sizing each other up while smoking and listening to the sound of the rain on the roof.

Apparently, however, the King has some interest in Leo (*cough* Earnest) settling down with Molly. After all, she has is one of four sisters who are all full-blood Osage, with all the oil rights and benefits that entails (*cough* money).

I won't ruin the rest of the plot for you, but essentially in the rest of the movie, we see Leo become a sort of Wolf of Oke Street. (At several points, we hear Leo say, I do love me my money, in a manner not unlike Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine, I do want me my Nazi scalps!.) By the time we're done, we're not sure whom to believe, who to trust; was Leo purely motivated by greed and evil, or were his actions manipulated by those around him? Apparently, Scorsese would have had the time run a lot longer, but — and this is one of the differences between the book and the film — he did not want the film to become like a police procedural/courtroom justice epic.

The film ends with the framing device of a cast of voice actors in the 1960s narrating to an enthralled audience, in Garrison Keillor-Praire Home Companion-style, what happened to each of the characters. We are shocked, we are disturbed; like the audience of the true crime mystery theatre, we are enthralled, we want to know more. But that's the point: maybe some of these things can never be explained.

---

I understand that delving into uncomfortable aspects of American history might not be everyone's cup of tea. However, The Killers of the Flower Moon offers far more than just a recounting of past injustices. The book, and the film, is a compelling narrative that transcends history; it's a captivating tale of mystery, conspiracy, and the birth of modern investigative techniques.

At its core, this book is a gripping true crime story, filled with intriguing characters, suspenseful plot twists, and a gripping quest for justice. David Grann, and Martin Scorsese, skillfully weaves together multiple narratives – the Indian murders, the birth of the FBI (called here the Bureau of Investigation), and the pursuit of truth – making it read like a gripping thriller rather than a typical historical account.

Picking up this narrative, you're not just confronting the uncomfortable past; you're also witnessing the evolution of law enforcement and investigative methods. The story, whose criminal justice side is more transparent in the book, introduces you to real-life heroes like Tom White, an FBI agent who navigates through a maze of deceit and corruption to bring justice to the victims and their families.

Moreover, The Killers of the Flower Moon prompts reflection on broader societal issues, encouraging readers to consider the implications of historical injustices on present-day circumstances. It provides an opportunity to better understand the complexities of American history and how these events have shaped our society today.

Reading this book offers a chance to broaden your perspective, fostering empathy, understanding, and a deeper appreciation of the struggles faced by marginalized communities. It's not just about confronting uncomfortable truths; it's about gaining insight, empathy, and a more profound connection to the shared human experience.

In essence, The Killers of the Flower Moon isn't solely about the discomfort of history; it's about the intrigue of a compelling story, the pursuit of justice, and the lessons we can draw from the past to create a better future. It's a captivating journey that will leave you informed, moved, and with a renewed appreciation for the power of uncovering hidden truths.

You can find the book here.

How an AI image generator interpreted Killers of the Flower Moon; try it here at Kittl.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorcese, Wolf of Wall Street, Killers of the Flower Moon, Inglorious Basterds, Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Robert DeNiro,Money, Greed, Survival, Osage Indians, Fairfax, Osage County, Oklahoma, Lily Gladstone, indigenous representation

Dreamin' Wild Movie Review (2023) — Beau Bridges, Casey Affleck, Walter Goggins, Zooey Deschanel

Brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson in the film Dreamin' Wild/Zurich Film Festival.

Walter Goggins on set/ MoviePlayer.It

Once upon a blue moon a songwriter comes out with tunes so slow, so cool, so soulful, that you cannot just help but immerse yourself. It starts infecting your soul, and you cannot help but tap your feet, sing along, and find yourself humming the song days later. The sound is timeless—is it the '70s, '80s, '00s retro? Songs so cool that Jimmy Fallon declares it's his favorite song he's been listening to.

But the only problem is no one's ever heard of the band or the music.

Until now.

Until some vinyl-scrabbing crategrabbers in a Montana thrift store, reached the bottom of the barrel, and came to surface with 1979's Dreamin' Wild by brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson.

No one had ever heard of this album, or the artists, until Seattle-based vinyl collector Jack Fleisher found it in the back of the stack. And loved it. And began posting it on vinyl forums online. And every vinyl freak decided they wanted a copy of their own.

It's 2011—and the music hadn't hit the airwaves for some 30 years. The indies and the collectors dig it. And then Jimmy Fallon declares that the soulful crooner Baby—sounding as if it emerged from any of the great '70s acts—is his favorite song of the year. And it begans infecting everyone's ear who gives it a listen. Baby gets recorded by several different artists.* Pitchfork writes a review of the album. Other outlets, including The New York Times want to do a story on it, but nobody has a copy of the album.

The reason? Almost all the original pressings—except for the few that had made it out of the house—were still sealed in boxes in the Emerson's parents' basement. It had been a commercial, and apparently artistic, flop for the Emerson's. But apparently not so any longer.

Light in the Attic, a Seattle-based boutique record label helmed by Matt Sullivan specializing in bringing to light and repressing long-forgotten records, had gotten their hands on Jack Fleisher's copy and wanted to give the album the proper release it deserved after 30 odd years.

All that happens, and more. The re-release, the media press, the legendary tour, but first Matt Sullivan must find the Emerson brothers—from their rural abode in Fruitland, in eastern Washington. After the commercial failure, Joe stayed on the family farm, toiling at woodwork and logging; while Donnie, who had dreamed of music his whole life, attempted to lead a moderately succesful attempt in the industry, but with no lasting impact—until now.

This is where Dreamin' Wild, the film, comes in. It features Casey Affleck, brother of Ben Affleck, as Donnie Emerson; his brother Joe Emerson is played by the perfectly cast, good-natured Walter Goggins (whose affable ah-golly-gee-shucks disposition, also on display in his role as a country preacher in The Righteous Gemstone's, shines through here.) Donnie's wife is played by the adorable Zooey Deschanel. His father is played by veteran actor Beau Bridges, and Chris Messina plays the talent agent, master of repressing Matt Sullivan. And the film's cinematography of sweeping fields, and mountains, a paeon to the rural life, evokes Terrence Malick, who is mentioned in the credits and was co-producer with this film's director (Bill Pohlad) on other films.

Having a dream come to fruition after 30 years. Planting a crop and getting no result. Crafting an album that no one hears. Wishing and wishing and hoping and dreaming until you can't dream anymore. The stress of life has squeezed every last dream out. You walk in a haze, having forgotten your childhood hopes. But then the phone rings. And everything changes. The years the locusts have eaten are over, and it was all a dream.

Your dreams weren't too wild. Your wildest dreams are about to come true; it's just around the corner. If it happened for Donnie and Joe Emerson, it can happen for you too.

Buy the album or DVD here.