I should probably have watched Carol in a cinema; then I might have seen what the fuss was about. It looks, like all Todd Haynes’s films, as elegantly enamelled as an Edward Hopper painting and concerns a love affair between a shop-girl and a married socialite who happens to be a woman. Had it been a man, I swear the film wouldn’t have been made. Consider the pitch. Bored rich man falls for shop-girl? Yes. Then what? They go on a road trip. Yes? After the electric sexuality of the female lovers in Blue is the Warmest Colour (the 2013 Cannes winner), Carol was like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s rose in The Little Prince, “beautiful but empty . . . one couldn’t die for you”.
Meanwhile, at Jewish Book Week, I attended a discussion on Howard Jacobson’s new novel Shylock Is My Name. Director Polly Findlay spoke about casting an Israeli Palestinian as Shylock in her production of The Merchant of Venice, feeling that an understanding of the outsider status is key to the role. Curious, I asked how it is that non-Jewish actors are often cast as Shylock, when rarely — since Olivier in 1965 — has Othello been played by someone white. Shylock and his daughter are clearly identified as Jewish, so why would Jewish actors not be the director’s first port of call?
An audience member was shocked by my question. “So you’d expect a gay character to be played by a gay actor?” I had to think. “Preferably, yes,” I said, causing further shockwaves. “But surely,” I was challenged, “don’t you just get the best actor for the role?”
Yes, of course, but if fine gay actors exist (and they do) why would you not cast them? Not that Michael Douglas and Matt Damon didn’t convince as Liberace and his lover in Behind the Candelabra, or Tom Hanks didn’t shine in Philadelphia, or Colin Firth in A Single Man — they are great actors all — but were I an openly gay actor whose name would green-light a film, I would probably feel discriminated against.
It’s an interesting question. Should a disabled actor play Stephen Hawking, should schizophrenic actors appear in A Beautiful Mind or Shine? Should I be grateful for the number of great Jewish characters I have played — or sad that in a 50-year career I’ve rarely played a “classic” role?
I’ll close my foray into film with a little light bragging. My cinematographer daughter-in-law Taina Galis (eight months pregnant at the time) shot Fyzal Boulifa’s Rate Me on a shoestring and it won the 2015 Illy Short Film Prize at Cannes. The Irishman Ben Cleary, two years out of film school, made Stutterer for five grand (the cost of a star’s limo for a week) and it won an Oscar. Don’t take my word for it, judge for yourselves. The forecast is rain, so retire to your long sofa with two shorts — three if you count the single malt — and while you’re at it, turn up the Radiator.
Meanwhile, at Jewish Book Week, I attended a discussion on Howard Jacobson’s new novel Shylock Is My Name. Director Polly Findlay spoke about casting an Israeli Palestinian as Shylock in her production of The Merchant of Venice, feeling that an understanding of the outsider status is key to the role. Curious, I asked how it is that non-Jewish actors are often cast as Shylock, when rarely — since Olivier in 1965 — has Othello been played by someone white. Shylock and his daughter are clearly identified as Jewish, so why would Jewish actors not be the director’s first port of call?
An audience member was shocked by my question. “So you’d expect a gay character to be played by a gay actor?” I had to think. “Preferably, yes,” I said, causing further shockwaves. “But surely,” I was challenged, “don’t you just get the best actor for the role?”
Yes, of course, but if fine gay actors exist (and they do) why would you not cast them? Not that Michael Douglas and Matt Damon didn’t convince as Liberace and his lover in Behind the Candelabra, or Tom Hanks didn’t shine in Philadelphia, or Colin Firth in A Single Man — they are great actors all — but were I an openly gay actor whose name would green-light a film, I would probably feel discriminated against.
It’s an interesting question. Should a disabled actor play Stephen Hawking, should schizophrenic actors appear in A Beautiful Mind or Shine? Should I be grateful for the number of great Jewish characters I have played — or sad that in a 50-year career I’ve rarely played a “classic” role?
I’ll close my foray into film with a little light bragging. My cinematographer daughter-in-law Taina Galis (eight months pregnant at the time) shot Fyzal Boulifa’s Rate Me on a shoestring and it won the 2015 Illy Short Film Prize at Cannes. The Irishman Ben Cleary, two years out of film school, made Stutterer for five grand (the cost of a star’s limo for a week) and it won an Oscar. Don’t take my word for it, judge for yourselves. The forecast is rain, so retire to your long sofa with two shorts — three if you count the single malt — and while you’re at it, turn up the Radiator.
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