Is this anti-semitism?

Yes, we all know about Raging Bull, Citizen Kane and Lawrence of Arabia, but tbf the original question did ask about *acclaimed* films.

The real problem with that prosthetic nose is that it looks totally unnatural on him, so his appearance becomes a cartoon jew, which may not be the effect they were looking for, but it's what they achieved. They should have noticed that in the rushes and axed the prosthetic as a failure.

I think Bradley Cooper knows what he's doing. He is a graduate of the Actor's Studio after all.

it does seem like a bizarre decision - like, it seemed a stretch to me when people were complaining about a non-Jewish actor playing Robert Oppenheimer, because Cillian Murphy looks convincing enough in the role, it's not like getting a white guy to play Nelson Mandela or something, it seemed like a weird essentialism - but in this case, if you need to stick a fake nose on Bradley Cooper it's like you're accepting that he doesn't look enough like Bernstein to be convincing in the role, it seems like that should be the point where you cast someone else to play Bernstein? (though I think he'd have been fine sans prosthetics anyway, which just makes it weirder)

both Bernstein and Oppenheimer were way more handsome and sexy than the stupid bland actors that have played them this year, an amoeba with a fake nose and a pallid walnut eating freak. This is where I agree with Baddiel tbh - so I probably need to stop posting!

I saw some people on twitter who were unhappy about Carey Mulligan playing Bernstein's wife, who was born in Costa Rica and raised in Chile, so maybe Cooper wore the nose to take the heat off her

the fake nose also has the effect of making Cooper look distractingly like Steve Martin in Dean Men Don't Wear Plaid

As long as Tom Wolfe is played by a dildo, I'm okay

the fake nose also has the effect of making Cooper look distractingly like Steve Martin in Dean Men Don't Wear Plaid

LOL I was thinking he looked like Steve Martin too!

an homage?

As the person quoted in the Guardian points out, if Cooper was able to play the Elephant Man without prosthetics, he could play Bernstein without prosthetics.

― Josh in Chicago,

This person's wrong, I think? The Elephant Man requires the actor to play without prosthetics.

It was Tracy Oberman, she's a fucking idiot.

xpost The more you know! The general point still stands, though. If one can portray Merrick, a person famous for his appearance, without makeup, then one could certainly portray Bernstein, a person not nearly as famous for his appearance, without makeup. It's not like anyone would have complained that Cooper looked nothing like Bernstein, or at least it likely would not have seriously hurt the film. It's like Philip Baker Hall in "Secret Honor." The looks are the least of it.

Quite a handsome nose if you ask me...

It also looks nothing like the fake one.

This "controversy" is so fucking dumb

People are pulling a single screenshot out of the trailer, in which the nose looks weird mostly due to stark lighting and the scene being in black-and-white, and acting like he's wearing a Toucan Sam mask throughout and speaking in a Jerry Lewis voice. In every other scene included in the trailer, the nose doesn't call any attention to itself at all.

I hope the movie starts with Cooper having a tiny button nose which grows through the movie to a full Cyrano de Bergerac.

none of this gets to the point of why need a biopic of Leonard Berstein

no one nose

This is why:

When he was not composing and conducting, Bernstein enjoyed skiing, playing tennis, and engaging in all manner of word games, especially cutthroat anagrams.

there are already movies about leonid brezhnev, lenny bruce, and lester bangs

To clear up any lingering confusion between him and Elmer Bernstein, in my mind at any rate

the nose is bad, but i saw some people saying that only a jewish actor should play a jewish character. i think this is a very strange position.

Only a Libra should play a Libra

Very upset when right handed actors play left handed characters

i saw some people saying that only a jewish actor should play a jewish character

I'm Jewish and that is absurd. As is the fake nose controversy. There's plenty of anti-semitism in 2023 but this does not qualify.

Only Al Pacino should play Jewish characters

the italian-jewish alliance, sometimes embodied

I'm a retired investor living on a pension

the movie looks like a horrible piece of shit for vacuous film school dorks, nose the least of the problems but obviously horrible if not exactly antisemitism

only Al Pacino should play gay men who visit the Mineshaft.

Talk about versatile

the nose is bad, but i saw some people saying that only a jewish actor should play a jewish character. i think this is a very strange position.

Wait till they hear about Norman Jewison.

I'm torn, because the Jewface issue is legit, imo, but I'm not sure where the line should be drawn (or if) on actors altering their appearance or affect to appear a different race or ethnicity or anything, let alone use an accent as well. There was another minor kerfuffle a week or so ago of Hugh Grant getting shrunk to play an Oompa Loompa in the new Willy Wonka, with little actors complaining it was an insult that further limits their work, but of course this stuff happens all the time, to varying degrees. Brendan Fraser for playing obese. Zoe Saldana getting criticized for playing Nina Simone. Straight actors getting criticized for playing gay characters, etc. The crux of the Jewface debate, per Sarah Silverman at least, was that Jewish actors often get typecast as much as any minority actor, so seeing non-Jewish actors get roles as Jews by embracing or playing up stereotypes is a bit of an insult, but because Jews are typically considered white, they don't get the same sympathy that's extended to other minorities. And that Jews, perhaps used to decades of discrimination and micro-aggressions, don't often stand up for themselves.

Brendan Fraser got shit not for playing obese -- he got shit for playing obese, gay, lonely, and sentimental in a lachrymose shit show of a movie.

I wish people protested movies for being bad.

I'm not saying anything prescriptive (nor revelatory tbh) with this, but as a society we have way over-invested in media representation

and "relatibility"

My sense (as a, you know, Jew) is that non-Jewish actors, expecially in comedies, can often overplay "Jewishness" (whatever that means) in a way that - while it doesn't offend me - is nonetheless excerable to watch, and it makes me feel pissy that non-Jewish audiences probably can't sense the difference. Likewise I'd feel weird about about a non-Jewish actor going large with Jewishness - like, Jery Stiller-level large. Brannagh in Celebrity, already a bad movie, seems like a good example of ythis, although as a result at least we get the comedy of the same actor playing Woody Allen and Reinhard Heydrich.

There was a sitcom in the UK, full of actors who weren't Jewish but "looked" Jewish that felt very Jewfacey to me, although other people in family loved it.

Not bothered about BC's nose except that it looks nothing like Bernstein's nose.

(was called Friday Night Dinner)

Branagh has found a booming career in his autumnal years playing members of ethnic groups cluelessly.

Yeah, ultimately I don't really care about the Bradley Cooper thing, but it's still really touchy to tie in appearance with Judaism, especially that particular stereotypical trait.

Iirc Sarah Silverman complained that while casting an actor to play her mom in an autobiographical play, actors kept using a stereotypical New Yawk Jewish mom affectation, and Silverman's, like, I grew up in Connecticut, my mom is nothing like that. But then, as she concedes, in the end she ended up casting a non-Jew as her mom.

FND was produced and written by a British Jewish guy and most of the characters are played by Jewish people - Tamsin Grieg isn’t Jewish but nobody complained about her casting when it originally aired!

Just out of interest, who in Friday Night Dinner do you think looked Jewish but wasn't?

xpost I don't think that's right, iirc I think the controversy stemmed from the fact that *none* of the cast (except someone that played an aunt) was Jewish.

Simon Bird and Tasmin Grieg, obviously - so not really "most"

When you say "nobody complained", that doesn't square with my memory amongst Jewish peers, even back in the early 2000s when people tended not worry about this sort thing

For me it's less about the actors than it is about the untruthful-seeming perforances. Bird is just being Bird, he's fine. Grieg's performance is... not cool IMO

We’re both wrong - Tamsin Grieg has Jewish ancestry/roots but is Christian; Tracy-Ann Oberman is Jewish and played the aunt, as noted above, and had no complaints around the casting back then. There’s been a shift in recent years. I tend towards being OK with casting whoever is available that works best, and if the decision is made by producers/casting people/other interested parties who are themselves Jewish, I’m not gonna complaint n about that.

Nose prosthetics, though? No fucking way is that ever OK.

Right, I didn't realise she was one of those Christian Jews.

I'd never thought about it before but it is indeed true that most of the cast isn't Jewish. I assume the casting director saw Tom Rosenthal's name and thought he sounds Jewish we'll have him.