The Charlotte Jewish News - November 2023 - BONUS
“So Long, Marianne,” Another Upcoming Leonard Cohen Miniseries, Focuses on His 1960s Years (JTA) — The actor and musician Alex Wolff assumes the role of one of the century’s most beloved Jewish musicians during a crucial early period in his artistic development in an upcoming miniseries. “So Long, Marianne” will follow a young Leonard Cohen during his years-long relationship with Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen, which spanned from the early 1960s through the ’70s. Named after the hit Cohen song, the series follows the pair during their extended sojourn on the Greek Isle of Hydra, with segments also set in Norway, New York and Cohen’s hometown of Montreal. Variety reports that the show has already filmed and is selling international rights in territories including the United Kingdom, Greece and Cyprus, but there is
no word yet on a U.S. release. The show is co-produced by Norwegian, Canadian and German production companies, and bestselling Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbø is credited as a co-writer. Wolff, the son of Jewish jazz musician Michael Wolff and Christian actress and producer Polly Draper, is known for his roles in the “Jumanji” franchise and the horror film “Hereditary.” He also sang and acted with his family in the Nickelodeon series “The Naked Brothers Band.” The role of Ihlen is being played by Norwegian actress Thea Sofie Loch Næss. Other characters will include portrayals of real-life artists and creatives Charmain Clift, George Johnston, and Irving Layton, who traveled in Cohen and Ihlen’s circles, and depictions
of Cohen’s mother and other family members. Cohen died in 2016, but interest in his life remains high: “So Long, Marianne” joins another Cohen screen adaptation in development. Israeli-Canadian journalist Matti Friedman’s nonfiction book “Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai” is also being adapted into a miniseries by Israeli production house Keshet International and “Shtisel” writer Yehonatan Indursky. The book covers Cohen’s 1973 concerts for Israeli soldiers on the frontlines of the Yom Kippur War, which the musician had embarked on directly from Hydra as his relationship to Ihlen was unraveling. Cohen and Ihlen’s relation-
Leonard Cohen poses for a portrait in a diner in New York, circa 1968. (Roz Kelly/ Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
ship was also previously covered in a 2019 documentary, “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” directed by their onetime Hydra companion Nick
Broomfield. Another Cohen documentary, covering the life and afterlife of his frequently-covered song “Hallelujah,” was released last year.
Henry Ford’s History With Antisemitism To Become a Movie By Andrew Lapin (JTA), November 21, 2023 A lawsuit filed by a Jewish labor activist in 1925 took down Henry Ford’s antisemitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, in a real-life drama that riveted Americans. A century later, the saga is set to become an on-screen drama, too, as a Jewish-interest production company is developing a film based on an academic study of Ford’s antisemitism and the libel lawsuit that blunted its reach. Leviathan Productions is adapting the 2012 book “Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battles Against Hate Speech” by Victoria Saker Woeste, a research professor at the American Bar Foundation. The book focuses on Ford’s acquisition of the Independent in 1919, which he transformed into an antisemitic tabloid while at the height of his fame and influence as an automotive visionary. Under Ford’s ownership, the Independent published, among other headlines, “The International Jew: The World’s Problem,” and the paper was freely distributed at Ford dealerships. It played a major role in disseminating “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an antisemitic forgery purporting to detail the secret plan for Jewish world domination, throughout the United States in the interwar period. That document continues to animate antisemitism today.
Aaron Sapiro, a farm workers’ rights advocate, sued the paper for libel in 1925 after it published antisemitic allegations about his California cooperative farming movement. The trial two years later was a major First Amendment case and resulted in Ford agreeing to shutter the paper. Leviathan Productions launched last year with a goal of bringing more Jewish stories to screen. It was founded by Ben Cosgrove, a film and TV producer whose credits include the Os- Watch: JFGC, JCRC Parent Advocacy Series Session Three “Knowing Your Rights: A Conversation with Civil Rights Experts,” car-winning “Syriana,” and Josh featuring a panel from Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law focused on understanding best practices Foer, journalist and co-founder for Jewish safety accomodations in public educational settings. of the adventure travel brand Atlas Obscura as well as of the online Jewish text repository Sefaria. The company previously announced that it is producing a film version of “The Pledge,” a nonfiction account of U.S. Jews’ role in Israel’s 1948 war for independence, and a horror film based on the Golem of Prague. Ford’s antisemitism was also a plot point in the 2020 HBO adaptation of the Philip Roth novel “The Plot Against America.” In the story’s alternate-history United States where Charles Lindbergh becomes president, Ford serves in his cabinet and helps implement antisemitic policies. A recent experimental documentary, “Ten Questions For Henry Ford,” directed by Jewish filmmaker Andy Kirshner, also delved into his antisemitism. Watch: March to DC on National Mall in Washington DC, November 2023
