FilmTalk 2010-11

Dr Cathy Gelbin 

This talk looks at the eroticized portrayal of Jewish-Christian relations in Paul Wegener’s classic The Golem, one of the iconic films of the silent era. Set in late Renaissance Prague, Wegener’s film shows the creation of a golem, an artificial human being from clay, according to medieval Jewish mysticism. As the being assumes a life of its own and stalks the ghetto, we witness the unfolding of forbidden desires between Christian and Jew, monster and human. The talk will trace how Wegener, by invoking Shelley’s Frankenstein,…

Prof Ginette Vincendeau

At the heart of Louis Malle’s groundbreaking and controversial film is the liaison between Lucien, a young, uneducated peasant in Figeac, South-West France, and France Horn, the sophisticated daughter of a wealthy Jewish tailor in hiding. Lucien and France’s budding relationship is played out against the background of the local Gestapo headquarters and the larger historical context in which normal power relations are inverted and moral boundaries blurred. 

Dr Nathan Abrams

In this illustrated lecture, Nathan Abrams will explore possibly the greatest rom-com ever made, When Harry Met Sally. He will ask such important questions as: can men and women be friends, or does the sex part always get in the way? What makes Jews and gentiles so attractive to each other? 

Nathan Abrams is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Bangor University. His most recent books include Jews & Sex (2008), Studying Film (2nd edn., 2010) and The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and…

Prof Mandy Merck

Charlotte York is the über-WASP character in Sex and the City, longing for a suitable marriage to an Ivy-educated investment banker. But in the first season of the TV series she has wild sex with an orthodox Jew, and in series six she falls for Harry Goldenblatt, who is reluctant to marry out. Although Harry dumps her, Charlotte continues to go to synagogue, meets his mother, and gives up Christmas. When the two get back together she cooks Harry potato kugel and matzo-ball soup and then realizes that he intends to eat it in front of the…