Academy Museum Displays Its Jewish Roots

“Das leben von a Yid ist schwer” is a Yiddish expression that roughly translates to: “It's hard to be Jewish.” And let's face it, there's some truth to that, with accusations of running a global conspiracy, controlling the banks and the media, spreading disease, shooting space lasers, not to mention leading an evil cabal that murders not only innocent women and children, but also the son of man.

So Jewish pride is understandably complicated: Throughout history, Jews have made contributions to the world in almost every field imaginable, deserving credit but not always wanting to stand out as Jews.

Which brings me to the Academy Museum which recently opened its first permanent exhibit, “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital.” It is a highly informative, thoughtful, and content-rich multimedia exhibit that, as curator Dara Jaffe told me, tells the story of several distinct interwoven elements that begin with the story of how between 1902 and 1929, Los Angeles became became the home of film production by independent producers, many of whom were Jewish immigrants, which led to the birth of the studio system.

This is explained mainly through a 3D topographical physical map of Los Angeles where the locations are lit up as on a screen we are told about all the early film production sites, in all their diversity, including the studies founded by Jewish immigrants, but also by Thomas. Ince, DW Griffith, Sessue Hayakawa, Mabel Normand and the studio created by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin (United Artists).

This is followed by a series of panels on the studies and history of its Jewish founders such as Jesse Lasky (Paramount), Samuel Goldwyn (Goldwyn), Carl Laemmle (Universal), William Fox (20).^th Century Fox), Louis B. Mayer (MGM), Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner (Warner Brothers). The panels also include major studio producers, executives and/or filmmakers, some of whom were Jewish (Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg) and others who were not (Daryl F. Zanuck, Frank Capra).

Last but not least, there is an excellent 30-minute looping film that is essentially Neal Gabler's “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood” (and in which Gabler was very involved).

What remains so powerful and necessary about this exhibit is that these Jewish immigrants, who were excluded by racism and bigotry from entering certain businesses, professions, schools, and neighborhoods in the United States, responded by moving to California and making movies that appealed to all Americans. . They did not work with bitterness or anger in the United States, nor do they even work with an agenda to promote Jewish acceptance. Instead, they made works that defined America to Americans. Even a film about a Jewish singer, “The Jazz Singer,” the first film in 1927, was a story about successful assimilation in America.

So there is some irony in the fact that Jews who did not want to be recognized for their Jewishness are, some 100 years later, at the center of a controversy at the Academy Museum for ignoring the Jewish identity of the founders of Hollywood.

When the Academy Museum opened in September 2021, there was one scandal (as my mother called it), because among the opening exhibits dedicated to Latino filmmakers like Pedro Almodovar, black filmmakers like Spike Lee, and women in the film industry (from Mabel Normand to Barbara Streisand), there was no section . or a dedicated description of the Jewish immigrants who created the studio system and created the major studios like Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia and Universal.

Honestly, I wasn't one of those complaining. Let me explain:

More than 90 years ago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the people who bring you the Oscars, first decided they should have a museum to preserve the history and artifacts of the motion picture industry.

Over the years, and then decades, various locations were announced, as were plans made for this museum. Nothing has happened. However, about fifteen years ago, plans finally began to materialize when the May Company building at the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire, next to LACMA and across from the Petersen Auto Museum, was chosen as the site end for the museum, and Renzo Piano. was hired as an architect. Construction began in 2015 and was supposed to be completed in 2017. Surprise: It wasn't.

There were financial delays and mounting costs that led to further fundraising. There were staff and personnel changes.

I remember a lunch on the roof of the Petersen Auto Museum where the plans for the museum were detailed, and a subsequent tour of the work.

At the time, what was envisioned was a kind of magical mystery chronological tour of film history, starting perhaps with Dorothy's red shoes, taking us through the early inventors of moving pictures and animation , the early founders of Hollywood and the silent era, and leads us through several floors to a temporary exhibition about today's cinema.

Then came the social upheavals of the pandemic, women's rights protests, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter to name just a few. There was a certain panic in the air: would the museum ever open, and if it did, would anyone come? Everything you need to rethink.

Under the leadership of Bill Kramer, then President and Director (now CEO and President) and Jaqueline Stewart, then Chief Artistic and Programming Director (now Director and President), a new vision was implemented.

I won't speak for the Academy, but for me, this vision is simply explained as: Create a museum that people actually want to visit. Create exhibitions where people who visit the museum, in particular. busloads of LA public school kids can see themselves. It features exhibits that include deep scholarship alongside engaging exhibits and iconic movie artifacts. Doing so was more important than having a historical and chronological pageant in the form of a museum.

In all this, the Museum was successful. What they achieved fulfilled the original goal of creating a Museum about filmmaking and the wide range of films, domestic and international, that the Academy has considered and honored. It's very much a museum, not a Hard Rock Café or a Planet Hollywood-like collection of memorabilia—the exhibits are smart, thoughtful, and informative. Miyazaki's exposition was amazing and Regeneration: Film noir 1898-1971it was a revelation.

And people came. In its first year, the Museum had approximately 700,000 visitors (20% more than expected). When I have friends who come to LA from out of town and ask me where to go, I send them to the Academy Museum and they love it. Some have returned more than once. When I recently visited the Museum to see the Hollywoodland exhibit, I spent an extra two hours walking through all the other exhibits, including one on John Waters, as well as rooms dedicated to the godfather i Casablanca. It is a great addition to the cultural life of Los Angeles and also has a great restaurant, Fanny's.

However, as I noted at the beginning, not everyone was happy. There was a feeling that in telling the story of the films, as David Baddiel said about social causes, “Jews don't count”; that the opening highlighted all the minorities, except the Jews, who were part of the founding of the Studies; and that their contributions had been deleted. There were articles about this glaring omission not only in Hollywood trade publications or Jewish publications, but in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others.

I wasn't that worried because in all those pre-opening presentations, I always got the impression that the story of the Jewish founders in Hollywood, as well as those immigrant actors and directors who created what we came to think of as the Classic Hollywood, from the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch to the dramas of Michael Curtiz and the films of Billy Wilder, would be given their due in a series of rotating exhibits as well as panels and symposia.

However, I will say here that the Museum did not respond well or quickly enough to these criticisms. The Museum was not interested in saying that they made a mistake because after 100 years of trying to have a museum, what they hoped would succeed worked and attracted visitors. But as they quickly saw, those who ignore Jewish history are forced to build a permanent exhibit on it. So what Bill Kramer of the Academy is now telling Pamela Paul of the New York Times is that “We listened.”

As for the exposure of the Jewish founders, I imagine there will always be those who say it's not enough. Not enough real estate, not enough examples. It is not an imposing display of great figures, nor a walk among giants (or short giants, as the case may be). As philosophy Taylor Swift is known to sing, “Haters gonna hate.”

However, if you actually spend time with the exhibit, read all the panels, and watch the films, I think you'll be, if not happy, well-informed about the training of early Hollywood businessmen and the Jewish businessmen who created the system of study

So, go see the permanent exhibit at Hollywoodland and decide for yourself, plan enough time to take it in and visit the other exhibits. As the director of Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, born Mano Kaminer in Hungary, where he first changed his name to Mihaly Kertesz, famous for his manipulation of the English language (on the set of “Charge of the Light Brigade, he famously said: “Bring on the empty horses”) once said: The only things you regret are the things you don't do.

For the Academy Museum, better late than never Hollywoodland. The lesson for the Museum is, as the founders might have said, Az me muz, ken men. If necessary, you can.