Camera in the Sun Locations Under the Lens

Who: Abderrahmane Sissako is a Mauritanian-born, Mali-raised filmmaker whose cinematic training was done at Moscow’s Federal State Film Institute during the 1980s. The program concluded with his first film, the 23-minute short Le Jeu [The Game], which he shot in Turkmenistan to double for Mauritania. His next film was the 37-minute short October, shot around Moscow and following the romantic relationship of an interracial couple. Sissako followed these with a series of films shot around Africa. These included the 1997 documentary Rostov-Luanda, about his journey to Angola to search for an old friend from film school, and 2006′s Bamako, which centers on a trial in the capital city of Mali. The trial serves to judge the impact of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on the country’s people, and Sissako cast real judges and lawyers for the film’s court scenes. For the role of “Le procureur”, Sissako tried to recruit influential Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, but was turned down, and the following year Sembène passed away. But in April of 2013, Sissako visited New York City to attend the 20th New York African Film Festival at Film Society of Lincoln Center, where two of his films (Life on Earth and October) were shown — as were two of Sembène’s (Borom Sarret and Guelwaar),whom the festival honored as the “father of African Cinema.” Camera In The Sun sat down with Sissako during his visit to New York, and discussed the production of his early films, Le Jeu and October, his thought on Sembène and his thoughts on Mali.

Do you think language is a barrier to your films being more widely appreciated?

For me, cinema is interesting and special, because it’s the language of image. And when I think about a movie, I really think about image. It means for me every subject of drama is universal. For example, before I got back from Russia, where I lived for more than 10 years, of course I thought in Russian for the construction of ideas. But then I lived in Paris, of course I thought in French. But it was just how to communicate. The language of cinema or any drama is universal for me.

Why did you decide to go to Russia to study film?

First, not only in this time but also now, the big problem for young Africans was we didn’t have the opportunity to choose something — not where to travel, or where to study. If we got an opportunity, any opportunity, to do something different or to go somewhere… because to go somewhere, for me, is the most important thing for a human being. When the situation for any person is he doesn’t have the choice to do something, that is difficult and terrible. Just to resume, when I was 19, I got the opportunity to go to Moscow to learn cinema, and only the Soviet Union gave me this opportunity. And sometimes people think, “It was because you are a Communist.” No. Any young guy is a Communist in some way. And that is not a problem, to have the concept of sharing what we have. That is important for me, this vision. But I got this opportunity to go to Moscow to learn, and it was a big chance for me.

I think for me, cinema, or to make movies, or any act of creation is the research of yourself. If you ask me to make a movie about anything, of course I will do something like an autobiography. It doesn’t mean your autobiography is special or not. No. For me, it’s really important to start with what you know, what you have experienced, and to go somewhere. October is like this. Of course I used my own experience with ambition to tell something universal. That is ambition. And also, that is a most difficult thing.

[In film school,] the most important thing for me, and the most difficult, was if you want to be a filmmaker, the dangerous thing is to have big enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is not always a good thing. And in this school, they killed the pretend. It’s really interesting when you stop pretending that art is easy. “I just need a camera to make my movie.” No. In this school they tried to explain to me, “Go slowly.” That was interesting for me. But also interesting was when I came to this school — and like today — I wasn’t very interested in seeing movies. I’m not a cinefile. I’m not this guy. When I came to Moscow, to the school, I saw maybe three or four movies in my life. And It’s a different thing to like movies, and to make films. That’s a completely different thing. And for this reason, when I discovered the world cinema — when I saw in school Cassavetes, John Ford, or Antonioni, or Bergman, or Tarkovsky — that was for me, a young guy who wanted to be a filmmaker, watching their movies on a great big screen in a big theater, that was important.

Do you think Turkmenistan doubled well for Mauritania in Le Jeu?

Yes, because it was desert, and deserts are similar. Maybe with some changes. But if you shoot a movie in the desert, you don’t need to show desert. As a filmmaker, you need to cut that, not to show desert. Because it’s not interesting in the cinema. And it’s also the most difficult thing, to shoot a movie in the desert. And I knew that before, and for me it was normal. The most important thing was for me to tell a story in the place where the most important thing will be my character. That is one. The second thing, the place, was also important for me, because I didn’t get the opportunity to shoot my movie in Mauritania. And Turkmenistan was, for me, the only opportunity to do that. And also, the people from there look like Mauritanians, because they are desert people. And it was interesting, but it was my first movie. It was for film school. It was such a long time ago. Now, I’ve made several movies. But it was important for me, because it meant art was a universal thing. My cameraman was a Turkmen guy, my sound man was a Russian guy, et cetera — and we shot in the desert, like Mauritania, and I told a story. And this story of Le jeu was also not my story. But one thing was there. It was my inspiration.

What was your approach to filming October, and creating its interracial dynamic?

When I finished Le jeu, it was my school movie. And I was surprised, because when I showed this movie, it was in Cannes in 1991, and also it was bought by the French TV company, Canal J. I was very surprised. The movie went to different places, and different festivals. And I got the opportunity, and also money, to do another thing where I would have control. I decided to do that, and I decided to make October. Because the story of October is the story of many many people. Not only African people who studied in Russia, in the Soviet Union, but it’s the story of any couple. When you think the love story is not possible for this reason, love doesn’t need a reason. But if the reason exists, it will kill something inside of the people. So, if it’s because she’s not really close to my country — if she comes from Texas and I’m from Africa — something always happens in the human being. But most important in this time, for me, was the only reason for me to leave this country [Russia] where I spent more than 10 years: I know I’m not accepted in this society. It’s sometimes hard to say that. Because if you say, “In the Soviet Union, a Russian guy is like this…” that is not true. It’s not good to judge. But this was really true. And it’s not like if you live in New York, where everybody can be a New Yorker if you decide to be that. But not in Moscow for an African guy. No. And to live in this place where everyday I have the feeling, “It’s not my place. I need to leave, to go somewhere to make cinema to make it.” For that, I decided to make a movie. And after I finished this movie, I remember my editor who cut my film, she was a very nice woman — the kind of woman who exists in Russia: simple, beautiful, “like Momma” kind of woman — and also, very cinematographic. When we finished, we edited, and we put some music in to see how the movie would look. And at the first screening, she was there with me. And also my DP, who was Tarkovsky’s DP, Georgi Rerberg. He was a very close friend. When we saw the movie, she told me, “Abderrahmane, I don’t know what happened. But only now do I really understand that maybe your life was really hard in this place.” She hugged me, and she cried. It’s really, really interesting. I learned a lot in Russia. It was hard, but I like the people.

What was your relationship with Ousmane Sembène?

I met him in 1991. It was in Burkina Faso. I was of course very young, and I came from Moscow with Le jeu. It’s very interesting, because I’d go every night with my friend to the nightclub. We left the nightclub around 5-6 o’clock in the morning, and I came back to the hotel at 7 o’clock. Before I sleep, I prefer to go for breakfast. And Sembene was there early with Tahar Cheriaa, who was the big critic from Tunisia. So I came up to him to say hello, and he was there with 3-4 people. He said, “This guy is really interesting. He woke up very early.” He thought I just woke up. And he said, “I’m sure this guy can go very far.” But he never knew that I just came from the nightclub. That was really funny. And he heard about Le jeu, but he didn’t see it. But he was very interested in me because I studied in Russia, and he also went to Russia. And before this moment, I was accepted at FESPACO at Sembene’s table, where the next youngest person was maybe 60 years old. But I was one of the young filmmakers who Sembene accepted. You can come to say, “Hello”, and he tells you, “Please have a seat.” Of course I would say, “No, no. Thank you, Sembène.” If he insists, you can sit. And it was very interesting, but he played the role of the father. It means he doesn’t need to tell you your movie’s good, or this movie’s not good. No. If you are a young filmmaker, he accepts the art of every young filmmaker. That was the very strong character of Sembène. And the last really important meeting I had with him was when I prepared Bamako. I decided to have Sembène play the role of the “Le procureur.” I called him in Senegal, and on the phone I said, “Sembène, I need to talk with you. How can I meet you?” He said, “The only possibility is to take a plane to come to me in Dakar.” It was Friday. I said, “I can take the plane Tuesday.” He said, “OK, please come.” And I went. But before, I sent the script to Clarence Delgado, who was Sembène’s assistant. He’s a fantastic guy, a very good person, and a good first assistant. So I sent my script to Clarence to give to Sembène before I came. And I came, and I went to Sembène’s office with Clarence. I said hello to Sembène, and he said hello. He said, “Please have a seat. And Clarence, go out.” And he said, “Clarence tells me you want me to play the role of ‘Le procureur’ in a movie.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “No, it’s not possible. I never act in the movie. But if you want, I can propose a different actor.” And I said, “Yes, of course, Sembène. You can propose it. But I’m not sure if I will take another actor.” It was finished, but we talked, and I went back the next day to Bamako. The role was played by a Malian actor [Magma Gabriel Konaté], and it had very few words. But the figure of Sembène, especially in this movie, for me was very important. Just to see Sembène, and listen what happens, the Sembène figure… it was sad.

What’s your take on the conflict between Northern and Southern Mali?

That is a big question. What happened in the North of Mali, before the war when France came, was really something terrible. Not only for Mali, but for the whole region. The reality was for me not six French people who were kidnapped and were somewhere. No. The kidnapped were more than 300-400,000 people from Tombouctou, from Gao, from Kidal they were kidnapping with the system, the vision of the war — the fanatics who say, “You cannot play music. You cannot play football.” If you steal an old bicycle, because you are poor, they can cut off your hand or your foot. That is for a human being today the most terrible thing. Maybe for this reason, my next movie is called “Timbuktu.” It’s possible. I make movies for that. The situation in Mali between North and South is a development question with poverty, of course. If you don’t have the strong political vision on independence day to change something in all parts of the country — if you don’t put in education, if you don’t construct roads — something will happen anywhere. It’s not only the situation that it’s a little White, and a little Dark. No. It’s more complex than that for me.

Tags: Abderrahmane Sissako, Bamako, FESPACO, Le jeu, October, Ousmane Sembène

Who: Walter Bernstein is a New York City-based screenwriter whose burgeoning career scripting films and television programs was interrupted in 1950, when he was blacklisted for being a member of the Communist Party. Bernstein had been raised Jewish in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He grew up watching films at the local Century and Albany movie theaters, where his first cinema-going memory was the 1928 silent film The Noose, starring Richard Barthelmess. After attending college at Dartmouth, where he joined the Young Communist League, Bernstein was drafted into the U.S. Army, and was a correspondent for its official magazine, Yank. During World War II, he infiltrated Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia to interview Marshal Josip Tito. He also wrote from Tehran, Tel Aviv and Cairo and covered the Middle-East. Once, while awaiting a flight to Sicily at an Algiers airport, he and a crowd of American soldiers watched a live performance by Al Jolson — whose 1927 film The Jazz Singer ushered in the cinematic sound era. But it was You Were Never Lovlier, a musical comedy with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, which became Bernstein’s favorite film during his deployment. He screened it several times while reporting from Italy and Egypt, and later regarded it as “a kind of talisman for me, a small defiance of death.” Peacetime brought him back to New York City, and a job at The New Yorker, where he had published fiction before the war and reportage during it. He also collected his war stories into the 1945 book, Keep Your Head Down. Its release garnered positive notice, and in the Summer of 1947 Bernstein signed a 10-week screenwriting contract with Columbia Pictures, and went to work for writer/director/producer Robert Rossen. Both men were open Communists, and Bernstein later recalled that Rossen wanted him to “help him make his political ideas palatable to the studio executives.” In November of that same year, the House Committee on Un-American Activities called ten Hollywood writers, directors and producers to testify and expose fellow Communists. “The Hollywood Ten” refused, and they were cited for contempt. In response, The Motion Picture Association of America issued the “Waldorf Statement” condemning them, with the heads of every major Hollywood studio (including Columbia’s Harry Cohn) vowing not to employ Communists. Even successful screenwriters like Ring Lardner and Dalton Trumbo were now “blacklisted.” Bernstein moved back to New York City, where he wrote for the theater for director Elia Kazan, penned political speeches for 1948 Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, and television show scripts for directors Martin Ritt and Sidney Lumet. In the Summer of 1950, Bernstein’s name appeared in the “Red Channels” booklet, which led to his own blacklisting from films for 8 years, and television for 11. Bernstein continued to write for television, but submitted his scripts under aliases, such as “Paul Bauman.” While Bernstein never named names to HUAC, colleagues Kazan and Rossen did, and he never spoke to either again. But it was Lumet who saved Bernstein from professional oblivion, when he recruited him to write the screenplay for the 1959 film That Kind of Woman, starring Sophia Loren. Bernstein could now work under his own name, and later adapted a Eugene Burdick novel into the script for Lumet’s 1964 film Fail-Safe, chronicling an American tactical mistake which threatens to cause nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Bernstein’s later rewrote that screenplay for a 2000 live television performance, broadcast in black-and-white on CBS. Bernstein was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay for the 1976 film The Front, directed by Ritt and starring Woody Allen, and based on Bernstein’s experiences trying to work while on the Blacklist. Over the past 15 years, Bernstein has taught screenwriting — first at Columbia University, and now at New York University in the Tisch School’s Department of Dramatic Writing. He has also penned teleplays for several television films, including the 1997 HBO film Miss Evers’ Boys, about the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The year before, Bernstein published a memoir of his time on the Blacklist, Inside Out. Despite his current teaching work, and continuing to develop screenplays of his own, Bernstein’s picture was affixed prominently above a February 2013 New York Post article about elderly (and supposedly out-of-touch) Oscar voters published on the eve of the Academy Awards. The author of the Post article noted that Bernstein “at 93, is one of the oldest — and most active — members of the New York voting bloc. Bernstein still teaches at NYU and writes, still sees all the movies each year and thinks Life of Pi was ‘marvelously done.’” The article ran the day after I interviewed Bernstein for a profile that aired on The Jewish Channel, where he shared memories of his New York Jewish upbringing, his life on the Blacklist, and his teaching work at NYU. Camera In The Sun followed up to discuss his 1990s teleplays for HBO, and scripts currently in development — including one about Richard Nixon’s 1950 Red-baiting U.S. Senate campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, and a biographical film about lawyer William Kunstler.

What was your upbringing like?

I grew up in Brooklyn, in Crown Heights. I was born around the same time when my grandparents made the move from the pushcart to the store, and from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn, along with a few other people. It was a lower middle class upbringing, basically. My father was a schoolteacher, and the area was gradually becoming Jewish doctors, lawyers, teachers, businesspeople. My grandparents on one side were in the clothing business, which became the uniform business. They made uniforms for policemen and firemen — and then during the war, for the Army. On the other side, my grandfather I think had originally been a tailor, but then ended up just hanging around the shul all day helping people, basically. It was a very Jewish, but not religious, upbringing area. I mean, I lived on Eastern Parkway for a while early on. There was a synagogue across Eastern Parkway then, which for some reason was called “Murphy’s Shul.” I never could find out where it got that name, but everybody referred to it as Murphy’s Shul. We weren’t religious. I think [my family] went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, and that was probably it. I don’t think even on Rosh Hashanah they went. It was kind of a standard hypocritical Jewish upbringing, basically.

I was bar mitzvahed. Studied for a year. I remember the rabbi. There was a big fight, because the rabbi would come to give me instruction on Saturday. But Saturday was the day I went to the movies, so it was always a big fight.

We hated the Orthodox. Hated them. I mean they were everything we were trying not to be, basically. And I think I went to Hebrew school very briefly, but couldn’t stand it. Hated it. Hated these old men with beards who smelled and were trying to give us education we didn’t know anything about, or cared about particularly. I mean, there was never any denial about being Jews. But we were a different kind of Jew. We were assimilated Jews, and that’s what we wanted to be, basically.

Was Communist philosophy popular within the Jewish community where you grew up?

It was certainly in the air. I mean, I had an aunt who was I think a charter member of the American Communist Party, and she was regarded as the “black sheep” of the family, basically. I mean, I think her siblings cared about her, but she was something to be avoided. She went to Russia for a few years, I remember, to work over there in the ’20s. My father was liberal, basically. But the whole thing of communism was in the air. I grew up during the Depression. What drew me to the Left in general were the conditions. First the Depression, and the feeling that I had — I was a kid, of course, but going to college — that the system was out of whack. There was something wrong there that was fundamental, that couldn’t be patched up particularly. And then, of course, there was anti-fascism. There was the rise of Hitler, and there was the Spanish War. Those were formative things for me particularly.

Do you recall The Jazz Singer‘s debut in 1927?

I remember hearing about it. You know, it was a big thing. Because sound was just coming in, and I went to the movies a lot. But all of a sudden, they were talking. They were making noise up there. So I remember other movies, because my grandmother and my mother would go if there was a movie with a Jewish theme. I remember there was one called Symphony of Six Million. It was, I’m sure, a terrible movie. But there was a sentimental Jewish theme, I think. And there was a famous play that was running forever called Abie’s Irish Rose.

I didn’t know from screenwriters. All I knew was “Is it an action movie?” I loved all the World War I movies that were out then: The Big Parade, Wings. And the Westerns, Tom Mix. Anything with action. Anything with guns or sports. There would be football movies, college football movies, boxing movies. You know, anybody kissing was just a waste of time. I mean, “Get rid of that.” You’d go on Saturday, and there’d be a double feature, and a serial, and a comedy short, and a cartoon, and a newsreel. All of that for a dime.

What did your father think of you becoming a screenwriter?

Well, films were a little bit disreputable, basically. And I didn’t start in films. I started writing prose and short stories, and then pieces for The New Yorker. So, that was all very acceptable. You know, he was proud of me. He’d carry around any kind of clippings about me. Stuff like that. Never said it to me, but I knew he did to other people. I think he was a frustrated writer himself, possibly. It was interesting. When he graduated from college he was offered a job, or had the opportunity of a job, working for [movie pioneer William Fox]. But it was so speculative in those days, and so chancy with something like that, he turned it down. I think he was always sorry he did. And you could get a job in the public school system then without any further education. And that was secure.

What was the journey like to your posting in Tehran, and what was your assignment from Yank?

We took a boat from Philadelphia, through the Panama Canal, to Australia, and then on through the Indian Ocean, up to the Persian Gulf. It was 42 days on a Dutch freighter. We were carrying arms of some kind, and it was a Navy gun crew. And then there was a couple of guys from an oil company going to Saudi Arabia, I think it was. And there were three or four Mexicans who were going to open a Mexican embassy in Moscow. They taught me how to play bridge, which I’ve never played since. And it was… to say “tedious” is the least of it. You know, you were sitting there looking at the ocean, and the food wasn’t great, and the liquor ran out early. But I did learn to box. I traded lessons to a very nice kid on the Navy gun crew who wanted to take exams in the Navy to move up in rank. He had just started to be a professional boxer, so he gave me boxing lessons in return. That passed the time. In Tehran, I entered the local boxing tournament, and fortunately I was called to go to Jerusalem. It intervened before I could fight. I would of gotten killed, really. I didn’t know anything.

I was originally sent over by Yank to go to the Soviet Union to be the correspondent there. But god forbid the Army should do anything directly, like send me right to the Soviet Union. So they sent me to Tehran, in what was then Persia. I was to report to the military attache there, and he was supposed to get me into the Soviet Union. And I had the good luck to be given very ambiguous orders. They cut orders that said, “You are to go to Tehran and such other places that are necessary for your mission.” It didn’t mention the Soviet Union. So I got to Tehran, and reported in, and they just laughed at me. They said, “You can’t go to the Soviet Union. Nobody goes to the Soviet Union. They haven’t approved you. Just stay here.” And I had these orders that said I could go anywhere necessary to my mission, so I just took off. I stayed there about six weeks, as I remember. And there was a yearly anniversary of Yank, and on the NBC radio the correspondents were reporting from all over the world, wherever they were, on a program. I got a telegram saying go to Jerusalem and make this broadcast. So I flew to Jerusalem, and from there I just followed the war. And everywhere I went, I just showed my orders if they asked for it, which they rarely did. As long as I sent stories back to Yank, and didn’t disgrace them in some way, I spent the next two years following the war in North Africa, and Sicily, and Italy, and then Yugoslavia.

When we marched into Tito’s headquarters up in the mountains in Bosnia or Croatia, it was at the same time as they were having what they called “the youth congress”. They had young people from the different partisan detachments all over Yugoslavia coming there to have a 3-4 day congress of some kind. I attended it as a spectator a couple of the days. And what I was struck by was they were Serbs, they were Croats, they were Muslims, they were Bosnians — all these different things, and they were all at that moment dedicated to some kind of multicultural, multi-ethnic Yugoslav nation. It was very heartening, very moving to see that. Some of them had been coming for months, really, having to go through German lines to get there. And they all had stories of battles and wounds. I don’t think at that moment it was about communism, particularly. I think it was nationalism, really, and a kind of generalized anti-fascism, basically. They had their homegrown fascist elements there, and in Hungary, in Romania. The Yugoslav Croats had a particularly virulent brand called the Ustashi, and there was a notorious concentration camp that they ran. So there were enough fascists to go around. But I really don’t remember anybody [at the youth congress] talking any kind of communist ideology. Just that this was gonna be the country after the war. And it was always shocking to me when what happened happened after Tito died. He held it together initially, just my guess, because they were together during the war. And it took a while, I think, for that feeling to die out, and feelings of nationalism and religion to arise. I never went back there, so I have no idea what the internal battles were, the internal dissents. Tito also held it together by force of personality, and because of the way everybody felt about him. He was a big hero.

The Allies were giving [the Yugoslav Partisans] arms, but they were very nervous about the fact that Tito was a Communist. They didn’t want to give him any publicity, particularly. So they were holding off anybody getting in there, and controlling whatever correspondents they would allow in, really, until after the second front had started with the Normandy invasion. All the attention then would be on that, and they could kind of keep Tito in the background. That was why when I got in, and Yank started publishing the stuff I had written there, they got very angry at me. I thought I was gonna be court-martialed, basically. And I might have been, if it hadn’t been for a New York Times reporter who wrote a story about me that the Times ran. And so they weren’t going to do anything to me after that. But they were supplying Tito with weapons, because he was fighting the Germans. But politically, they wanted to control him as much as they could.

Keep Your Head Down came together first as a 3-part series in The New Yorker. That was where it was originally published, and then I just incorporated it as a book of war essays. It got some attention, but I don’t think any big deal. By that time the war was over, so it was a matter of curiosity. There were no repercussions [from the Army] or anything like that. The Yugoslavs liked it a lot. They gave me a medal and named a street in Belgrade after me, I’m told — although I doubt whether it still exists. So I was a very minor hero to them, because I had broken this story, and they wanted as much publicity as possible.

What was it like as a Jew reporting from the British Mandate in Palestine during WWII?

First of all, I loved the country. I fell in love with Jerusalem immediately. And also, it was a time when I was there when Jews were trying to get into there, and the British were trying to keep them out. And I was very much in favor of seeing that as some kind of haven for them particularly. I spent a fair amount of time in Palestine. There, back and forth from other places. For a while I stayed at the YMCA in Jerusalem. I stayed at the house of a woman of Berlin, a refugee woman, in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv at that time was like Miami Beach. It looked like Miami Beach. It had the esplanade and the beach. But Jerusalem was just an extraordinary city then, and hadn’t been built up of course, or anything like that. I loved going there. Even at that time, I was kind of upset about what I felt was anti-Arab, or even racist, sentiments that you would feel particularly. I visited a kibbutz, I remember, at one point. And I went there because I had been told it was mostly Americans who had immigrated and were living there. And I spent two or three very uncomfortable days. Nobody would talk to me. I mean, they assigned somebody to be a kind of a guide. But otherwise, they were contemptuous of the fact that I was an American, and not come over to live there, and they didn’t like me. I didn’t like them particularly.

[Growing up,] I didn’t have any contact with Hebrew. You know, I ‘d say the Fier Kashas on Passover or something. But I’ve always found Hebrew kind of a harsh language. So I never had any. I didn’t speak Yiddish really. I could understand it a lot more. But there’s a lot of English spoken [in Israel], and I don’t remember needing a translator. I had a friend [Gershon Agronsky] there who was the publisher of what was then The Palestine Post, now The Jerusalem Post. He was an American who had come there in the ’30s, married to a Sabra, an Israeli woman, and I stayed with them every once in a while. And she was fluent in Arabic and English and Hebrew. Came in handy there.

[On the Holocaust,] We knew something was going on. As a matter of fact, I wrote a story that was published in I think it was Harper’s Bazaar at that time, which printed fiction. This is while I was still in college. It was a story about a refugee kid who had come over, and what he had suffered. I didn’t know the extent of it at that particular point. We knew something terrible was going on there, and the Jews who could were fleeing it when they could. But the extent of it? No, I certainly didn’t know. Later on, when there were Army correspondents from Yank who were in Germany, by then they began to know what had happened. I wish I had known more. I wish I had known it earlier. I don’t know what I could’ve, would’ve done about it. But you knew Hitler was bad. You knew bad things were happening. But to know the extent of it, to see the extent of it — it was hard to take in, really, that such a thing was happening.

I got to Anzio. That was as far north as I got. Italy was tough. It was hard. It might have been the “underbelly” [of Europe], but “soft” it was not. It was partly mountainous, and the German resistance was very fierce. And it was slow. If it’s one thing about the war, it really was “hurry up and wait”, so much of it. You hang around. And the examples of actual fighting, in terms of time, are relatively few. They’re deadly, but they don’t last that long. So that’s why they kind of leapfrogged over to Anzio, to get a little more territory that way. But there were no enormous big battles, like there were in World War I — you know, big engagements — at least, none that I saw or participated in. But it was hard. And it got much harder actually as it got further north into the mountains. It was war.

What was your post-war theatrical writing experience like?

When I got out of the Army, I got a job with a theatrical producer I knew who wanted me to rewrite a play that he had that needed work. He paid me $15-a-week for that. I remember for $8-a-week, I got a room in a brownstone on 52nd Street, and I lived and ate on a dollar-a-day, which you could then. So I rewrote the play, and it went on… and flopped. I think it ran for three or four performances. It was later sold to the movies, but I don’t think it was ever done. It was about a bunch of kids. That’s all I remember. And the original writer, he was quite talented. He had a flare. He knew these kids, and could write about them, and I really provided structure for it. But it was fun going to rehearsals. I was in the Army for part of that time, but I remember being up for the opening night here in New York.

Considering your Army service, were you extra-insulted at being targeted for the Blacklist?

No, not particularly. I wasn’t blacklisted by accident. I had been a Lefty for a while, and everything that I ever saw published about my activities was true. So I think, trying to be high-minded about it, you believe in something, you pick up the tab for what happens afterward. What was surprising was that up til then, a lot of us had the feeling that you could be “rich and holy” at the same time. I was accepted. I was writing for The New Yorker. I was being published. And I hadn’t committed any crimes. “Why are they doing this to me?” There was that part of it. And then to suddenly realize that, yes, they are doing this to you — and they’re doing this to you because you believed and acted on this and this — and that’s the result. So you understand that, I think, after a while. And whatever feelings of self-pity you might have go away pretty quickly.

We all found a copy of Red Channels. You would have been ashamed if you weren’t in Red Channels, really. There were about eight things about me. They were all true. They weren’t making up anything. And there it was. Lenny Bernstein comes right ahead of me. I knew him. My wife at the time was close friends of his family, so I knew him that way. It didn’t really affect him. He still had his television show, the conducting and the composing. I don’t think he was effected by it.

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Tags: Elia Kazan, Fail-Safe, Inside Out, Josip Tito, Keep Your Head Down, Martin Ritt, Miss Evers' Boys, Robert Rossen, Sidney Lumet, That Kind of Woman, The Front, The Molly Maguires, Walter Bernstein, Woody Allen

When Canadian cinema is mentioned, it’s hard for many to come up with a long list of famous film titles. Most Canadian films are fairly low-budget and sparsely distributed. The industry is definitely not as big or as prominent as those in the United States, France, or India. But Canada’s film culture does have notoriety for the promotion of movie projects from other countries. Film festivals in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver have received worldwide acclaim and attention, attracting some of the biggest stars and biggest films. Canada simply does what it does best: promote other cultures — and in this case, through film. But are there events and festivals that focus on promoting Canada itself? Of course, but they are much more low-key and much more interested in promoting the Canadian culture that may be unknown to non-Canadians.

Take The cInéMAGINE Society for example. It’s a Lethbridge, Alberta-based not-for-profit organization that is focused on promoting French films to the surrounding area. Alberta and the Prairies are not very well-known for large amounts of French-Canadian citizens, or even culture for that matter. Compared to large centers like Montreal, it’s nearly non-existent. But cInéMAGINE works hard to make a name for itself by promoting something different for the Francophones and Francophiles of Alberta. The organization is in its tenth year, and has grown (and continues to grow) to allow for better film festivals. Marie-Hélène Lyle has been with the cInéMAGINE for 7 years, and has seen it grow. She has organized festivals in small towns and large cities, attracting audiences who either identify with the Francophone culture, or simply want to learn more. These festivals are open to the general public, and to all ages. Some events have been geared toward children, and others to adults. And on some occasions, film directors and actors have been brought in to speak and help with workshops.

The films shown at these festivals may be hard to find on television or movie providers like Netflix, but they give cInéMAGINE an important reason to exist and flourish. A recently-shown film did happen to have some notoriety — War Witch (or “Rebelle“) was an Oscar-nominated French-Canadian film about an African child solider. Other types of Canadian cinema have included children’s films, short films, and full-length features. Marie says it all depends on the type of audience and type of event.

And why show French films in places that aren’t predominantly French-speaking? Marie says many French-speaking residents find it a great service and easily-identifiable. Film buffs and/or students get an outlet to watch and learn about different types of filmmaking. And finally, it gives others a chance to widen their perspective on the world. And it’s not just in Alberta that foreign film festivals like these are taking place. They exist in all forms across the world, promoting different cultures to different people. Not only do these films provide knowledge and entertainment, but they bring us closer together and let us see and understand our world a bit better.

Coming up in 2013 for cInéMAGINE is a short film festival (appropriately titled, The Shorty Film Festival), which begins May 24th. It will showcase a mixture of English and French short films, while the audience enjoys traditional French-Canadian poutine. For more information on those French films, and what cInéMAGINE showcases and promotes, please visit www.cinemagine.net/.

But foreign film festivals aren’t only about widening the interest or knowledge of French culture in Canada. There are many other communities that have some form of club or organization determined to spread films from around the world. So it’s up to you, wherever you may live, to seek out and find events and programs from dedicated organizations like cInéMAGINE, and to learn and take what you can from them.

Tags: cInéMAGINE, war witch

Who: Bel Kaufman is a New York City-based author, who spent three decades teaching in NYC’s public school system. Up the Down Staircase, her 1965 debut novel, was inspired by a 3 1/2-page short story, From a Teacher’s Wastebasket, and was lauded within Time magazine as “easily the most popular novel about U.S. public schools in history.” The writing profession shaped Kaufman’s life from the beginning. She is the granddaughter of Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem (upon whose stories, Fiddler on the Roof is based). Her mother, Lyalya was the only one of Aleichem’s six children to also pursue a literary career — including over thirty years publishing short works in Forverts [The Forward], NYC’s weekly Yiddish newspaper. In August of 1948, Kaufman joined her mother and grandfather in print notoriety with the publication of her short story, La Tigresse in Esquire magazine. However, Esquire was not known for publishing female authors. So, at her agent’s suggestion, she submitted La Tigresse under a shortened first name — from ‘Bella’ to ‘Bel’. Kaufman then adopted the pen name as her own. From a Teacher’s Wastebasket was published in The Saturday Review in November of 1962, and attracted the attention of Prentice-Hall editor Gladys Justin Carr, who convinced Kaufman to expand it into a novel. In 1967, Warner Brothers bought the rights to Up the Down Staircase, and adapted it (with Kaufman as a consultant) into a film starring Sandy Dennis as “Sylvia Barrett” — a young English teacher at an urban public school. Kaufman received a brief cameo in the film as a fellow teacher clocking into work. But the success of the novel opened a new chapter in Kaufman’s life. Up the Down Staircase proved to be a best-seller for 64 weeks, and has sold over 6 million copies. Kaufman’s other books include Love, Etc., focusing on a divorced female author dealing with past, current and (literary) fictional loves lost. It also features plenty of Kaufman’s humor. She shared that talent with a new generation when, in 2011 at the age of 99, she began teaching a course on Jewish humor at her alma mater of Hunter College on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I interviewed Bel for The Jewish Channel that Spring, and asked about her memories of Aleichem, her favorite authors and poets, and her thoughts on humor. On Sunday March 10th, 2013 — two months short of her 102nd birthday — Kaufman was honored for “Making Trouble/Making History” by the Jewish Women’s Archive. She delivered an acceptance speech about her career, and the perks of old age…

Bel Kaufman’s speech at the Third Annual Jewish Women’s Archive Luncheon:

It’s a great honor you’re giving me today, and I’m quite touched by it. I’m not sure why I am celebrated by you. Is it because I’m a Jewish woman? Is it because I am old, sort of long in the tooth? Today is the 10th of March. In two months, on May 10th, I’ll have a birthday. I’ll be 102. How did I get to be so old? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something. I like it. I absolutely like being this old. And I’ll tell you why. All my life, I’ve had to do something that I had to do. I had to study. I had to go to school. I had to have a job. I had to teach. I had to marry, have children, work. For the first time in 101 years, I don’t have to do anything. What a wonderful, wonderful feeling — a liberating feeling. I can say, when I’m asked to do something, “No thank you.” “Why not?” “I’m 101.” What a great excuse. Provided, of course, one is healthy. And that’s a huge proviso. And I have been fortunate. I’m aware of the fact that I don’t have much time. My future has become my past. And so, my priorities are different. I value time. What’s important to me now is my family, is doing what I enjoy to do, even if it’s nothing. What a wonderful feeling it is to do nothing. But I have been busy. As you will see later, I’ve been busy translating all of my books into digital books. And they’re here today. I’ll be signing them. But besides being old… I like that word, ‘old.’ Not ‘senior.’ That’s a high school prom word. Not ‘older.’ Older than whom? Old. A very honorable word. I like it. And I wish all of you would have reached this ripe age. As I said, provided your healthy. That’s a huge proviso. Because I’m aware of the harsh realities. I’m aware of the problems in the market place. I’m aware of the premium on youth. But old age has its huge advantages. I remember the Browning line. “Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be. The last of life for which the first is made.” I always thought, “What a ridiculous sentence,” when I was young. I realize how true it is. All the struggles and problems of youth are behind me. Children are grown and on their own. And for the first time, one has opportunities to do what one wants, but not what one is supposed to do. So I’m enjoying this. And I’m enjoying particularly being with you today. Aging is a matter of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. And I don’t mind. I tell my age, and it’s a sort of “Open Sesame” to how kind people are. When I cross a street, they come to help me. When I’m looking for a place to sit, they offer me a seat. I wish all of you will reach this age that you will understand what I am saying.

As far as my books are concerned — which are all here today, and I will be signing them later — for the first time in my life, I have collected my short stories. Actually, my novels are in a way short stories. Up the Down Staircase, which made my success, was an accident. I had published short stories in national magazines. One of them was a little 3-page story called From a Teacher’s Wastebasket, in which I had jotted down some scraps of paper, which juxtaposed together showed a picture of waste, of lack of communication, of discipline problems, of loneliness. And that was published. Prentice Hall, the publisher, had an editor who recognized something in that little 3 1/2 page story. Called me to have lunch, and asked me to expand it into a book. I said, “Oh, no, no, no. I’ve never written a novel. I’m a teacher of English,” I used to say it with great pride, “and a short story writer.” But they gave me an advance, which I immediately spent. I needed to spend it. I didn’t have a penny. I had left my husband. I had no savings. I spent the advance. What could I do? I had to write the book. It was guilt. That was my motivating fact. And I was very surprised when I discovered that as soon as the book was published, it became a national best-seller. And it’s still alive, and it is still very significant today. Well, what used to be a mischievous spitball is now a rebellious rock. What used to be stealing chalk, is now robbery at knife-point. What used to be infractions, like chewing gum in class, smoking in the lavatory, become crimes that our children commit. I think the difference has to do with a drug culture. Up the Down Staircase had no drug problems. At least, not many. It was a straw in the wind. And the wind is now a hurricane. As soon as the book was published, I became known as “the author of”, and I found myself known. Especially by teachers all over the country, who said, “How did you know? You described my class, my students, my problem.” And I treasure all the letters that they sent me.

It was bound to become a movie. And two moving picture companies bargained for it: 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers. And Warner Brothers won. I was the technical consultant. That meant they let me hang around, they paid me, they didn’t listen to a word I said. They transformed a high school in Manhattan, Textile High School Annex for Boys on 10th Ave., into the school I describe in Staircase. Inside, they had names of the teachers I invented. Inside, they had classes, and the numbers of the rooms I invented. And I remember seeing all those people scurrying around — actors, directors, script girls, makeup people — all of them working. Why? Because one day I had sat down at my typewriter and put a blank piece of paper into it. And that was the beginning. And so many of us who have thoughts about expressing something that you feel, about possibly writing it — perhaps you take notes and you leave them around, perhaps you jot down ideas — those may be the seeds from which would grow a creative work of art. I have written another novel, Love, Etc., which has to do with us grownups, and I like it very much. It’s a very good book. I believe that’s out here today too. As well as two volumes of my short stories. Some of it appeared in magazines throughout the years. I never collected them in one volume. And my nonfiction pieces, random thoughts and observations called This and That. I believe all four books are here today: This and That, Love, Etc., La Tigresse, which is my short story volume, and Up the Down Staircase. And I believe that they are available today after my talk. I was given 5-7 minutes in which to talk. I remember asking a class to write about 100 words, so I could tell what their weaknesses were in English. One boy wrote a few lines, “Eighty-five words so far. Need fifteen more.” I don’t need fifteen more. I think that I have communicated with you. And if I talked for 5-7 minutes, if I talked an extra half-a-minute, I hope you will forgive me. I thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bel Kaufman’s March 2011 interview with The Jewish Channel about her Jewish humor course:

It’s a small group. I’d prepared a series of brilliant hour-and-a-half lectures. When I saw the small group of such nice-looking people, I discarded my lectures, I got us to sit in a small circle, and just talk. So we talked about Jewish humor, and I was very funny. But they didn’t laugh much. You know why? They were taking notes. I guess they’re accustomed to do that. Well, I enjoyed it. Because there’s something very special about Jewish humor. First of all, because Jews have been persecuted so long in so many places, so many stages of history, they had to develop a defense mechanism. “Oh, so you think we’re cheap, huh? I’ll show you what cheap is…” And they begin to be self-punishing, self-critical, making fun of themselves. That’s a good mechanism. “Before they can say that, I’ll say something even better.”

My grandfather, Sholem Aleichem, I can talk about him because I’m very old. And I am the only one alive who remembers him — I was three, I was four — nobody else does. When I’m gone, there’ll be nobody who sat on his lap, or listened to his voice, or felt the warmth of his hand when we would walk. He used to tell me the tighter I held onto his hand, the better he wrote. So if you enjoy his work [points to herself] I get the credit. I held on very tightly.

We spoke Russian at home. We weren’t in a shtetl where Yiddish was the language. We lived in large cities — Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, Geneva — and the language that we spoke was Russian. Although, we understand Yiddish. When Sholem Aleichem would finish a story, he’d put on his best clothes and he would say, “I am finished with a story.” Oh, we got so excited! We fought each other for who would sit closer to him, and he would read in Yiddish. We were his first audience. Actually, he made of Yiddish — which used to be a kind of kitchen language — a language of literature. I think that’s very important to know.

I speak a little English, as you can gather. I speak the Czar’s Russian. That’s my real language. I speak French, but my accent is not perfect. When I speak a language, I like to speak it perfectly. So I read French, and I’m wary of speaking it. What else? German. I was born in Berlin. Because my father was studying medicine then. They had better schools than in Russia. So for my first three years, all I heard was German. Then in college, that’s here in Hunter, I took German as well as French. I used to know Hebrew, because Sholem Aleichem wrote to my mother, “I’d like little Bellatchka to learn Hebrew so that she would read a great poet, Chaim Nahman Bialik.” Bialik was a good friend of the family. On my first visit to Israel at the Israel airport, Bialik’s wife Mania came to greet me. They had moved to Israel, and he had already died. She wanted to pay me a complement. Here I am, a grown woman with a pocketbook. She saw me last in Odessa when I was 7. “Bellatchka, you haven’t changed at all.” She thought that would make me feel good.

My favorite Sholem Aleichem book is the first book I read in Russian translation, Mottel: The Cantor’s Son. And then the sequel, Mottel in Kasrilovka. The little Mottel is one of the most marvelous inventions. People compare him with Huck Finn. No, he was unique. I love those stories. I almost know them by heart. I like his Tevye stories. If you ask me about Fiddler on the Roof, I think it’s a very thrilling, beautiful, exciting musical written by two brilliant people — Sheldon Harnick the lyricist, and Jerry Bock the composer. But it has nothing to do with Sholem Aleichem. Tevye was a tragic character in Sholem Aleichem’s stories. The shtetl was not the beautiful setting that you saw on the stage or screen. Life was very difficult. But the musical is brilliant. Not Sholem Aleichem’s shtetl. It doesn’t matter, because it introduced people. “A writer called Sholem Aleichem? What else did he write?” Ah!

His laughter was so wonderful. I’m unhappy about so much of Jewish humor that got vulgarized through those stand-up comics with no taste. It hurts me. But I hope my students will know the difference between real humor that springs from a character or a situation, or silly memorized jokes. Sholem Aleichem’s humor was thumbing the nose at adversity, turning tables on tragedy, losing everything but winning the argument. His stories, mostly monologues. He was a verbal, an oral writer. It wasn’t so much what was happening that was funny, but what people said about it. And his humor is delicious.

Is Russian a good language for humor? I was [in Russia] many times as an adult. When Gorbachev was in power, he used to invite me to talk at the writers union, and they were all Russians. One of them asked me in Russian, “Are you familiar with your American writer, John ‘oop-dik’?” — John Updike. Well anyhow, I enjoyed those visits. The Russians, who were afraid to criticize their government, used humor. For example, they have a joke about a diner in a restaurant who says to the waiter, “You look very familiar. Did we go to college together?” The waiter says, “I never went to college.” [diner says,] “Ah, we were in the war together.” [waiter says,] “I was not in the war.” [diner says,] “How do I know you? Ah, I remember. You served me my appetizer today.” Instead of saying, “Lousy service,” it’s a joke. So the Russian jokes are self-critical about themselves, but in an anecdote.

On other Jewish writers she admires?

Well, I met many of them, and I knew many of them, because I’ve been around almost 100 years. Oh, how did I get so old? I knew Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer was a very funny man. He was an ardent vegetarian. And I think Saul Bellow called him a “vegetarian satyr”, because he was very involved in sex — personally and in his writing. I once invited him to a cocktail party. He said, “Can I come without Alma”, that was his wife, “and pinch the girls?” He came without Alma, and he pinched the girls. Well, he’s important. He got his Nobel Prize I think in ’78, and he read his speech in Yiddish. That was quite remarkable. Bellow got it in ’76. I knew Bellow. I had a crush on Bellow. He was very good looking in his young years.

Writers used to gather in our home in Odessa, and we would have tea. Most of them were the Russian-Jewish backgrounds. I was in Russia during the Russian Revolution in 1917. Dead bodies on the street, frozen. Famine. Green bread made from peas. There was no flour. But you know, a child has no basis for comparison. Doesn’t every little girl step over a frozen dead body? It was only when the grownups were worried, I got concerned. I began writing early. I published my first poem when I was seven in a Russian children’s magazine. Would you like to hear it? “It’s very dull to sit at home, when outside is Spring.” It loses a lot in translation.

I wrote a lot at Hunter. I wrote for the magazine, Echo. I wrote for the graduate book, Wistarion. I wanted to be a teacher. In my first class in public school when I was 12, I knew not a word of English. I was put in 1A with all the little Seven year-olds. I tried to understand what was being said, and in a couple of months I caught on. The teacher, I remember her name, Ms. Murphy. Bless Ms. Murphy. I was a shy foreign girl, and knew no one. I tried to say something in English, and the children giggled. It must have sounded funny. And she said to me, “You have a very beautiful voice.” If that’s how teachers in America are, I’d like to be one. And at Hunter, I never took education courses. But a friend of mine whom I loved very much, Elizabeth, I visited her class once, and there were the little ones. They were sitting there looking at me, waiting. What were they waiting for? Something from me. They were waiting for me to give them something. And all those eyes waiting were so moving. I said, “Oh, I want to do this all the time.” I never taught little ones, but it was a remarkable feeling. “I can give them something they may remember.” Hunter was wonderful in many ways. In what other college can you go from room to room to different classes, and recite your favorite poem to a listening audience? We had that.

My favorite Russian poet is everybody’s favorite — [Alexander] Pushkin. Pushkin is wonderful. Died in a stupid duel when he was very young. My favorite English poet… I hate to say it, because the others would feel hurt. I like them too. But I’ll talk of the dead ones. That’s safer, isn’t it? T.S. Eliot, I had committed to memory the entire Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I’ll recite it at the drop of a hat. All of Eliot I have found very exciting. I love [John] Keats much more than [Percey Bysshe] Shelley. I love Keats’ odes, and I’ve committed some to memory. I love Emily Dickinson. Mysterious lady, but a remarkable poet. I could continue, but these are the ones I go back to.

On how she stays so active:

I’m too busy to grow old. When I have time, I’ll sit down and start getting old. I’ve too much to do outside of myself. I’m interested in people and places and books. Life is interesting.

Tags: Bel Kaufman, Fiddler On The Roof, La Tigresse, Love etc., Sholem Aleichem, This and That, Up the Down Staircase