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Is "Dirty Dancing" the "Most Jewish Movie"?

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Is "Dirty Dancing" the "Most Jewish Movie"?

POSTED: Friday, September 25, 2009, 4:08 PM

Carrie Rickey, Film Critic

Baby (Jennifer Grey) learns to soar with the help of Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze)

While it would be one of many of my nominees, this affectionate appreciation from Julie Klausner might persuade others to vote for Dirty Dancing as what the author calls "most Jewishest movie."

In honor of the High Holidays, let Jewish and Gentile cinephiles offer their thoughts on the subject.

In the animation category): Prince of Egypt (1998, with the voice of Ralph Fiennes as Moses) and The Rugrats Passover. In the classics category: Counsellor at Law (1933, with John Barrymore as the attorney who suspects his wife of anti-Semitism). In the the comedy category: Annie Hall (1977, with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton) and In Her Shoes (2005, despite the fact that Shirley MacLaine is cast as a Jewish nana). In the drama category: Enemies: A Love Story (1989, with Ron Silver as the Holocaust survivor leading a triple life) or Munich (2005, with Eric Bana and Daniel Craig as an agent sof Israel's Mossad) or Defiance (2008, with Daniel Craif and Liev Schreiber as Jewish Nazi-fighters during World War II). In the musical category it's Dirty Dancing (1987, with Jennifer Grey as the Jewess attracted to Gentile dancer Patrick Swayze) and Marjorie Morningstar (1958, Natalie Wood as the Jewess attracted to Gentile dancer Gene Kelly). Upcoming is the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, a serious candidate for the honor.

Spike Lee once told me that he just "didn't get" Enemies and shrugged, "Maybe you just have to be Jewish." I don't know that that's true. But I was reminded of his perplexed reaction to the movie as I was walking out of (the very fine) A Serious Man and buttonholed Gentile colleague Lou Gaul and asked, "Is this understandable to a non-Jew?" Lou nodded, answering, "Oh, it's so Catholic." Yom tov to members of the tribe, a good weekend to everyone else ... and your nominee?

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Comments (26)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:23 PM, 09/25/2009

P.S. A colleague sent me this great link http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-10/200910-Great_Jewish_Films.html that includes films like "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" and "The Plot Against Harry." If we're considering docs, there's a great movie called "Debating the World."

— carrierickey

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:15 AM, 09/26/2009

great post! not only clever but also really enjoyable,as are the other "nominations" posted by readers. l'shana tova.

— sabelotodo

Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:23 AM, 09/27/2009

I'm not sure if it's the most Jewish, but I love Keeping the Faith. I believe Ben Stiller made an excellent Rabbi.

— allison811

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:37 AM, 09/27/2009

I have to quibble about "Dirty Dancing," a film I like very much but one which I find to be very anti-Jewish (as opposed to anti semetic). Except for Baby (and possibly her mother), there isn't one likable Jewish character in it - with Jerry Orbach's being the most unctous of the lot.

— Pash

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:19 AM, 09/28/2009

Speaking as a Gentile, my vote goes for Fiddler on the Roof. Incidently, when the show was taken on tour to Japan, audiences there asked the writers, "Did you have Japan in mind when you wrote this?" That only underscores that while the story is Jewish, the feelings are of humanity.

— jonc

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 5:59 PM, 09/28/2009

I have to mention "Gentleman's Agreement" - in part because it's such a perfect example of an old school "problem movie" (in this case, of course, anti-Semitism), but even more so because of the scenes with John Garfield talking about how it feels to be on the receiving end of that problem. Then, you could widen the focus from close-up to panorama by showing "Exodus." And, finally, you could deflate all the seriousness by showing anything by the Brothers Ritz or Marx.

— wwolfe

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:43 PM, 09/28/2009

I don't think I've ever seen the word "Jewess" used seriously outside of novels published in the 1940s. It is considered not only archaic but derogatory, right up there with "Negress."

— whitecat

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:59 PM, 09/29/2009

Diary of Anne Frank

— iodine

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:27 PM, 09/29/2009

I would go with "The Life and times of hank Greenberg" and "Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg," along with the super 8mm film of my Bar Mitzvah.

— movieirv

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:48 PM, 10/09/2009

As mentioned above, Avalon might be the best of them all. After their brother is beaten, as all the brothers sat together and discussed how this would never happen in the old days...and the classic "you cut the turkey without me" finale...and the first reel in which they came to the US on July 4 and thought the fireworks were for them...it reminded me of my great uncles (one of whom covered the ponies for The Bulletin) and their two sisters in a way that touched me to my core. One of Levinson's great works along with Rain Man, Tin Men and Bugsy.

— Scott B.