I never get mistaken for Jewish. I have had a full beard like I lived in a shtetl but people then people think I’m a biker. Unless I wear a suit and then suddenly people are very polite to me but they nobody said anything about me being Jewish. Once people think I’m Jewish for some other reason I’ll get comments about they thought so but weren’t sure. Then I’ll tell them I’m not Jewish which bewilders everybody. I know several Italians who people said looked Jewish, and some who think they may have Jewish ancestors who converted.
Anyhoo… about the Bradley “the Jew” Cooper, I think makeup would have been sufficient to improve his resemblance to Bernstein.
I’m thinking this is less about the nose and more about casting a non-Jewish actor in the role. These past few years there have been complaints regarding the ethnicity/race/sexual identity/etc., etc. of the actor versus the character. There were complaints that Ruby Rose wasn’t “gay enough” to play Batwoman on television, criticism of Helen Mirren playing Golda Meir, and the question of whether trans characters must be played by trans actors. But it’s not a new problem, there were complaints about casting British actress Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hare, but Southerns were just happy she wasn’t a Yankee. To what degree should an actor be similar to the character they’re playing?
Edit: I’m not really sure. I’m comfortable saying Julia Roberts shouldn’t be cast as Harriet Tubman, but I’m not sure where to draw the line.
Here’s an article on fakes noses in movie performances.
Portrayals of real people by actors using fake noses include Steve Carell in Foxcatcher, Will Smith in Ali, Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours and Anthony Hopkins in Nixon.
It probably was bigger, most peoples’ noses, especially the fleshy part, grow as they age. I wonder if that isn’t the nose that his children are remembering.
The problem with Cooper’s prosthetic is made worse by his big chin. Bernstein had a nice regular-sized chin, Cooper’s is much bigger and projects much further from his lower lip (assuming that is his natural chin). Somehow, the combination of that nose and that chin seems to make up a face that is a caricature of a stereotype. Stereotypes can hurt, even if they are not intentional. And he could certainly “be” Jewish with his regular nose. So best case for me is that it is a poor choice on someone’s part.
Leonard Bernstein’s nose got much larger and more prominent at he aged. Most of us who remember him, remember him as he was later in his life, because that’s when he was prominent in our lifetimes.
And then there are the tap dancing noses from Shostakovich’s opera The Nose, based on Gogol’s story. https://youtu.be/YotMwwixPsw
Saw this in Berlin and it was wonderful.
I would agree, but I’ve seen this argument used with increasing frequency in recent years. It’s the reason Dr. Hibbert’s voice on The Simpsons is weird now.
It definitely seems to be a thing for people to overreacting to unimportant shit in movies now. From nonsense such as actors can’t play anyone but themselves leading to the basic advocation that only straight people can play straight people (because only gay people should play gay people). It leads to the ludicrous position that only the person themselves, or direct descendents can be in biopics which will also lead to some very bad acting roles.
The usual internet shit about being bored, and while never dealing with real issues, making a whole bunch of pointless shit to be mad at.
For instance, I have quite a large nose by any standards. Does that mean I can play a jewish person who had a large nose? I’m not jewish though, and can’t act, but somehow that doesn’t seem to matter much anymore.
