FilmTalk 2013-14

Dr Charles Drazin (Queen Mary, University of London) 

David Lean’s 1948 adaptation of ‘Oliver Twist’ provoked so many protests against perceived antisemitism in Alec Guinness’s portrayal of Fagin that the film was with held from release in Americauntil cuts had been made.Yet twenty years later, in Carol Reed’s musical version of the film, the character had been sufficiently rehabilitated to win Ron Moody an Oscar nomination. This talk will explore the challenges of playing Fagin from the Lean film of 1948 to the Roman Polanski adaptation of 2005.

Dr Jonathan Munby (Lancaster University and Du Bois Institute, Harvard University)   

Sir Christopher Frayling (Royal College of Art, London; Churchill College Cambridge)

Sergio Leone’s massive gangster epic ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984) was the result of fifteen years of preparation. It told of the rise and fall of a gang of Jewish hoodlums from the Lower East Side in New York, over a forty year time span. Leone was determined not to make a film about the usual Italian or Irish gangsters - but instead to focus ona community which had more rarely been featured inHollywoodthrillers. When the film opened inAmericait was severely cut and…

Dr Rachel Garfield (University of Reading) 

A lecture series organized by the Leo Baeck Institute and the Wiener Library.