美国国家公共电台 NPR Movie: Director Joshua Weinstein Explains The Story Behind 'Menashe'

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

There's a new film out called "Menashe" about a widower¹ who's trying to regain² custody³ of his son. It's set in New York City, specifically in Borough⁴ Park, Brooklyn. And you will probably need the subtitles⁵ to follow it. It's in Yiddish.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MENASHE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, singing in Yiddish, laughter).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Yiddish).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Yiddish, laughter).

SIEGEL: It's about Hasidic Jews, people we tend to place in the broader group of ultra-Orthodox Jews. And the actors in "Menashe" are Hasidic Jews, or Hasidim. Documentarian Joshua Weinstein directed the movie. He is neither a Hasid nor a Yiddish speaker. And he joins us now. Welcome to the program.

JOSHUA WEINSTEIN: Oh, thank you so much. This is a big honor.

SIEGEL: And first, we should clarify who the Hasidim are. Who are these people that the movie's about?

WEINSTEIN: So Hasidism, it's interesting because it is actually the liberal movement of Orthodox Judaism from a few hundred years ago in Eastern Europe. But the interesting thing about them is that once they liberalized, they then have not changed in the few hundred years. So literally⁶ whenever something new comes about like the advent⁷ of the telephone, telephones are banned because if things are not like they were when it was founded, they don't want to have that part - as part of their culture.

SIEGEL: Well, tell us how you became interested in doing the story that involves your star of the movie, Menashe Lustig.

WEINSTEIN: So ever since I was a child and I'd come back to Brooklyn to hang out with my grandparents, I remember just going through these communities that here they were filled with Jews, but they looked nothing like me and my family. And at the same point, I just loved the way - how they observed the mysticism, seeing these big communal⁸ celebrations. But it was always off limits 'cause these people purposefully act as a world apart.

And I remember one day me and Yoni, who's one of the producers and who I shot the film with, we went there during Purim, which is kind of like Jewish Halloween. And here we were. We were into people's houses, drinking with them, chatting with them. And all of a sudden this closed community suddenly seemed very, very open and alive and just humanized in a way I'd never seen portrayed⁹ before. And it was immediately then that me and Yoni started discussing that we had to make a film. It took us maybe seven years later before we actually finished it. But that was the initial discussion.

SIEGEL: But this isn't a documentary. This is a dramatic movie. And the actors are all Hasidim. And I gather some of them had never seen a movie before.

WEINSTEIN: Yeah. You know, it was incredible. This is a community of hundreds of thousands of people, but only 60 people showed up for auditions¹⁰. So I would do these improv games with them where I wanted to understand who they were, what their quirks¹¹ were. And the performances were incredible. Each one was really that person. There was very little self-consciousness about how they performed. And, you know, we somehow brought the whole thing together like a high school musical.

SIEGEL: Well, let's listen to one moment in "Menashe" when his rabbi is explaining to him why not having a wife - he's been widowed - and why that means that he can't have custody of his son.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MENASHE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As Rabbi, speaking Yiddish).

SIEGEL: I got a couple of those phrases, by the way. As the Gemora says or the Talmud says, a man needs three things - a nice wife, a nice home and nice dishes. And he doesn't have a nice wife.

WEINSTEIN: (Laughter) And neither - a nice home or nice dishes either.

SIEGEL: (Laughter) Neither of those. And so the question is his boy, his son, is living with Menashe's brother-in-law. And the tension of the movie is will he get his - will he get his son back? Something like this actually happened to the actor Menashe Lustig.

WEINSTEIN: Exactly. When I found Menashe, here was this Charlie Chaplin-esque comedian¹² who had this deep sadness about him. And I was just blown away by his command - just raw ability to act. And then he told me two things about his life. One was he was a widower, and two, that his son lived three blocks away from him and he lost custody of him. And then we used the emotional truth of that aspect of his life and created this fictional¹³ story around it.

SIEGEL: Now, in that clip that I just played, I could follow the (speaking Yiddish). I was lost after that. I gather your Yiddish isn't much more than mine. How do you direct people making a movie in a language that you don't know?

WEINSTEIN: Yeah, it was almost impossible and incredibly difficult. And scenes that should take only, you know, a quarter day to film would take us an entire day to film. We'd first show up and we would rehearse the scenes in English, would block them so all the actors and me were on the exact same page.

And also, then, when the actors finally went to Yiddish because they're non-actors, you know, they can't repeat themselves. Like, a regular actor is trained that they can repeat the same performance over and over again. Non-actors, everything they do is a one-time event. So when they went to Yiddish it was like a first time for them. And then we had translators who were live translating. So they were constantly recording¹⁴ what was being said, and one of the producers was listening just to make sure that the actors didn't go so much off-book.

But, you know, I'd been working in documentaries for over 10 years. And I've worked in Hindi, Mandarin¹⁵, Tagalog. And I'm used to - you know, it's how people say something. It's not what people say. It's what their eyes do. It's how their - it's how their hands move. And so much of the film is just about base expressions. And that's what really kept us driven.

SIEGEL: I was wondering whether feature film directors would envy you having a cast of actors, some of whom had never even seen an actual movie. You know, you're working with raw talent there, let's say, people who haven't been - they haven't been ruined by experience.

WEINSTEIN: You know, for Menashe, he had never been in a movie theater in his entire life. And he told us before Sundance that was the first time he was in a movie theater. And the thing was the whole time we're making the film Menashe kept on saying, Josh, I don't get this. Why would people care about the most mundane¹⁶ moments of my life? Why do they want to see how I wake up? Why do they want to see how I pray? Why do they want to see how I bag groceries?

And I said, Menashe, these moments are incredible. You're an amazing performer. And you're captivating. People just want to watch you. And at Sundance, people were laughing. People were crying. And it was kind of like a Meryl Streep moment for Menashe where he felt so validated¹⁷ that people understood his pain and really drew a connection with him.

SIEGEL: What did Menashe make of the movie itself when it was finally all shot and edited? What did he tell you?

WEINSTEIN: First of all, you know, the film doesn't have a big Hollywood ending. And he wasn't used to that. He thought it should be better that a film is more concrete. You know, we know what happens. But now he loves the ending because it feels like his own life. His life hasn't hasn't been decided¹⁸ yet, so why should the film have an ending, too?

SIEGEL: Joshua Weinstein, thank you very much for talking with us about your new film, "Menashe."

WEINSTEIN: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much.

SIEGEL: And "Menashe" is out this weekend.

1 widower   

n.鳏夫

参考例句：

• George was a widower with six young children.乔治是个带著六个小孩子的鳏夫。
• Having been a widower for many years,he finally decided to marry again.丧偶多年后，他终于决定二婚了。

2 regain   

vt.重新获得，收复，恢复

参考例句：

• He is making a bid to regain his World No.1 ranking.他正为重登世界排名第一位而努力。
• The government is desperate to regain credibility with the public.政府急于重新获取公众的信任。

3 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

4 borough   

n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇

参考例句：

• He was slated for borough president.他被提名做自治区主席。
• That's what happened to Harry Barritt of London's Bromley borough.住在伦敦的布罗姆利自治市的哈里.巴里特就经历了此事。

5 subtitles   

n.说明字幕，印在外国影片上的对白翻译字幕，译文对白字幕；小标题，副标题( subtitle的名词复数 )；（电影的）字幕

参考例句：

• subtitles for the deaf and the hard of hearing 为耳聋和听力不佳者打出的字幕
• a Polish film with English subtitles 附有英语字幕的波兰影片

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 advent   

n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临

参考例句：

• Swallows come by groups at the advent of spring. 春天来临时燕子成群飞来。
• The advent of the Euro will redefine Europe.欧元的出现将重新定义欧洲。

8 communal   

adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的

参考例句：

• There was a communal toilet on the landing for the four flats.在楼梯平台上有一处公共卫生间供4套公寓使用。
• The toilets and other communal facilities were in a shocking state.厕所及其他公共设施的状况极其糟糕。

9 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 auditions   

n.（对拟做演员、歌手、乐师等人的）试听，试音( audition的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Find modeling auditions, casting calls& acting auditions, all in one place. 找一个立体感试听，铸造呼叫和表演试听一体的地方。 来自互联网
• We are now about to start auditions to find a touring guitarist. 我们现在准备找一个新的吉他手。 来自互联网

11 quirks   

n.奇事，巧合( quirk的名词复数 )；怪癖

参考例句：

• One of his quirks is that he refuses to travel by train. 他的怪癖之一是不愿乘火车旅行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All men have their own quirks and twists. 人人都有他们自己的怪癖和奇想。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

12 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

13 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

14 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

15 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

16 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

17 validated   

v.证实( validate的过去式和过去分词 )；确证；使生效；使有法律效力

参考例句：

• Time validated our suspicion. 时间证实了我们的怀疑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The decade of history since 1927 had richly validated their thesis. 1927年以来的十年的历史，充分证明了他们的论点。 来自辞典例句

18 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。