“This fake nose is anti-Semitic” – Corriere.it

LONDON – You needed to get your nose out of the actor Bradley Cooper To make it look like a musician Leonard Bernstein? about the movie Perfects – Coming out at the end of the year on Netflix – A case broke out. Creating the protagonist seemed to many an attempt to give the actor more Jewish physical characteristics. Disputes that have been flowing for several days, in the United States as well as in Great Britain, over the work produced by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

The three children of the famous American composer and conductor, author of the soundtracks for West Side StoryHe wanted to defend the project: “It breaks our hearts – Jamie, Alexander and Nina emphasized – that Cooper’s work can be misunderstood. Bradley used the prosthesis to look more like our dad and we’re fine with that. We are sure that even our father would have approved.”

Not everyone thinks the same way. Daniel Feinberg, television critic forHollywood Reporters, the fake nose is called “problematic”. said Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust, a charity set up in the 1990s to protect the UK’s Jewish community from antisemitism and other threats. He claims Cooper’s prosthesis is exaggerated. The reaction of Benjamin Gilbert, spokesperson for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism: Â, is similar  “It is important for the director and producers to understand why there is a problem with the nose.”He asserted that the case calls for clichés and parodies that “we thought were outdated”.

As happened with the white actors who were chosen to represent characters of different races, Some are now wondering, as with Cillian Murphy and the role of nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, why a Jewish actor wasn’t cast.. “His Jewishness was a pillar of Bernstein’s identity,” Al guardian Leora Reese, Director of Stop Anti-Semitism – So why wasn’t a Jewish actor cast? If Cooper, former star of the A star is born And American extortionwas able to translate the Elephant Man (in theatre, in 2014), a monster of Bernard Pomerance’s piece that, without prostheses, could have slipped into the shoes of a Jewish musician without correcting its face.

The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Bernstein became the youngest music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1958. When it was suggested that he change his surname to “Burns”, for simplicity but also to disguise his origins, he emphasized He preferred to work under his real name or not to work at all.

The project also appealed to actor Jake Gyllenhaal, to score the Jewish record, who attempted to obtain the rights from Bernstein’s heirs in 2018. Cooper, who is the screenwriter and director as well as the film’s star, favored Spielberg. from Schindler’s List It remains one of the most important films about the Holocaust.