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Remembering Siskel and Ebert’s great debate: Mel Brooks or Woody Allen?
Of the great debates in film history, a few dominate. How much of Citizen Kane did Orson Welles really write? Is the auteur a film’s true author? And, the one that will never be resolved, can we separate the art from the artist?
In 1980, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert devoted an episode of their PBS review series Sneak Previews to the following question: Who’s funnier, Mel Brooks or Woody Allen?
The camps fall out as one might expect. Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Chicago Sun Times, whose work spoke to the everyman, preferred Brooks.
“Mel Brooks satirizes old movies, he plays off of our own shared sense of movie history because we know these cliches and stereotypes as well as he does,” Ebert, who died in 2013, argued. “That’s part of the fun, we’re in on the joke.”
He laid out his evidence in the form of his favorite gags: A man punches a horse (Blazing Saddles); Gene Wilder gets smooshed in a revolving book case (Young Frankenstein); and Burt Reynolds is lathered up by Brooks, Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise (Silent Movie).
Siskel, the stuffier, Ivy-educated writer for the Chicago Tribune, championed Allen’s films, praising the filmmaker’s perennial theme of “his difficulty, every man’s difficulty, in establishing a long-lasting relationship with a woman.” (Siskel died in 1999, the year of Sweet and Lowdown, Allen’s jazz-inflected riff on La Strada.)
He made the case that Allen’s oeuvre, from Take the Money and Run through to Annie Hall, showed a personal and artistic evolution. “Watch how he grows more competent as a lover, and as a filmmaker.”
It’s a kind of odd proposition for considering comedy, and, depending on your views of Allen, may give you pause today.
Yes, Alvin Starkwell’s reliance on voiceover to express his feelings for a love interest is different from Love and Death’s Boris, who is different from Alvy Singer and his assertive request that Annie Hall kiss him now to “get it over with and then we’ll go eat.”
The scenes Siskel curates by way of argument are not the funniest moments, but taken together they signal what is most unsettling in some of the films. That is to say, they are uncomfortable, or to borrow a term from Claire Dederer, “urpy,” because Allen casts himself as a mostly hapless lover, who only aspires to possess, in the words of his later character from Manhattan, where these problematic glimmers become plot, the “coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.”
1980 was an inflection point in the careers of both Brooks and Allen. Brooks, following the rave response to Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, had more measured — if not quite tepid — notices for Silent Movie and his Hitchcock sendup, High Anxiety.
Allen’s previous two films were Interiors, his attempt at a serious picture in the mode of Ingmar Bergman, and Manhattan.
Both Ebert and Siskel saw “danger signs” ahead in these artists’ filmographies.
Siskel thought Brooks was repeating himself and straying to a more niche mode of parody.
He was right, and after High Anxiety, Brooks could be said to have officially entered his flop era with History of the World Part I. Siskel also diagnosed a generally-agreed-upon development in the work to come: Brooks giving himself starring roles, and the proportional decline in quality corresponding to his screentime.
But it’s Ebert’s view of Allen that seems most prescient, however unwittingly.
Ebert likens Brooks and Allen to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In Keaton he sees a man who remained true to himself and the persona he sought to perfect — this, one infers, is analogous to Brooks. In Chaplin, come The Great Dictator, there was a “creeping seriousness.”
I have to say, I stopped listening after “creep,” aware, as I am, that Chaplin, at age 54, married Oona O’Neill, a month after her 18th birthday.
Manhattan, and later Allen’s relationship with his now wife Soon-Yi Previn, echoes such an age gap. But Ebert’s issue with Manhattan, and he is not alone in this indulgence, isn’t with the film’s tacit approval of Isaac Davis’ relationship with a 17-year-old (played by a 16-year-old), it’s with its pretensions.
Out is Alvy Singer’s relatable, late-night campaign against a spider in his ex-girlfriend’s bathroom. In is black-and-white film stock and Isaac’s defense of Bergman as “the only genius in cinema today.”
“You can see Woody Allen there slipping away from his all-purpose comic persona that he developed in those other movies and into a character who might be a lot closer to life, but he’s also a lot less funny,” Ebert said.
Ebert’s forecast was astute. As Allen became ever more a caricature of himself, there have been both bright spots — Hannah and Her Sisters, Zelig — and diminishing returns — the run from, say, 2009 to the present, where actors including Larry David and Wallace Shawn have served as his surrogate.
Running through the discussion is a subtext of Jewish particularism. Allen’s voice is so personal, so dialed in to New York neuroses, that his departure to WASPs in Interiors sounded a symphony of false notes. In contrast is Mel Brooks, who brands his comedy not as Jewish, but “New York humor,” and whose main inspiration has always been the wider province of popular culture.
That Siskel, a Jew with a snobbish streak, should favor Allen and Ebert, a Catholic and the real film lover of the pair, Brooks, perhaps says it all.
But baked into everything is the unspoken question of legacy — who would fare better in the long-term. In a way it’s a tossup. So many of Brooks’ references were locked in place and time, even as they parodied older films. A young viewer today may need footnotes to get the joke behind the profusion of Johnsons (Howard, Olsen and Van) in Rock Ridge.
In this formulation, Allen skews (mostly) evergreen. Except when he doesn’t because of where the culture, and his reputation, is now.
For their closing arguments, Ebert and Siskel each selected a scene from their preferred filmmaker. One of them holds up today.
Ebert brought a scene from The Producers, where Leo Bloom has a meltdown over Max Bialystock’s suggestion they break the law. While this timid CPA is hyperventilating, Bialystock crosses the room to get him a glass of water — and douses him with it. Leo: “I’m hysterical and I’m wet.”
It’s timeless.
Siskel’s pick is from Annie Hall. It’s when Alvy Singer recalls his second-grade classroom.
“In 1942,” he says, “I had already discovered women,” a curious word choice for what follows. Alvy, 6, kisses a classmate (definitively a girl).
The girl cries out for the teacher, who scolds Alvy for his precocious sex drive. “6-year-old-boys don’t have girls on their minds.”
In comes the adult Alvy, cramped in a child-sized desk, to insist he had no latency period. He then gets the child actors to report on where they are a few decades later. The boys name their careers, and in one case, addictions. One girl, in glasses and a Peter Pan collar, simply says “I’m into leather.”
Is it funny? Such things are subjective, in the end. Given what we know now of Allen, the allegations of sexual abuse against him by his daughter Dylan Farrow (which he denies) and his proven and unrepentant association with Jeffrey Epstein, it’s harder to watch.
Without knowing it, Siskel chose the exact wrong clip.
As for Brooks, the baggage, and the ambition, may seem lesser, but in fact point to something unimpeachable.
“I think what Mel Brooks wants, when he walks past a theater that has one of his movies playing into it, is the sound of laughter coming from inside,” Ebert said. “That’s what I want when I go to a Brooks movie is to laugh. I can defend his career on that basis. That he wants to amuse me, that’s enough. I’m satisfied.”
To that, I say, Dayenu.
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Trump urges Iran to make a deal after Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time in 2 months
(JTA) — Iran fired multiple barrages of missiles toward northern Israel on Sunday night local time, in the first direct fire from Iran on Israel since early April.
No one was immediately reported injured in the barrages, according to Israeli media, and the Israeli military said it shot down all the missiles aimed at the country on Sunday night.
The attack came hours after a stabbing attack by an Israeli Arab on Jews in central Israel killed one person and left several others injured.
The Iran salvo added to the turmoil for Israelis living in the north, who have been under constant fire from Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and upsetting an uneasy quiet in the rest of the country. Schools across Israel will be closed on Monday.
Iranian officials said the barrage was a response to Israel’s strike earlier Sunday on a Hezbollah installation in the suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli army said targeted a command center used to direct attacks on its troops.
Hezbollah last week rejected a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that would have halted Israeli strikes in Beirut, saying that it could not abide by terms that would have required it to exit southern Lebanon.
During a five-week war that Israel and the United States initiated against Iran on Feb. 28, at least two dozen Israelis were killed when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at the country in near-daily barrages. Active hostilities involving Israel ended when U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a ceasefire on April 8. He and Iran have not yet agreed to terms that would permanently end the war.
Trump said he was “not happy about” Israel’s strike in Beirut and signaled that he did not see Iranian barrage as an impediment to a future deal.
“It’s certainly not going to help negotiations,” he told Fox News. “We’re very close. I would say an agreement would be signed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. And now this takes place.”
Addressing Iran directly, Trump said, “You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond publicly to the Iranian attack on Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner, as Jewish Democrats withhold support
Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner on Tuesday to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most important Senate races this year. But a series of recent domestic violence allegations and controversies surrounding Platner could become a major political problem for the party in its effort to regain control of the Senate.
The controversy extends beyond questions about electability. Jewish Democratic organizations have withheld support from Platner over his past Nazi-linked tattoo, criticism of Israel and rhetoric that some Jewish leaders view as troubling, even as top national Democrats rally behind his candidacy.
The primary was effectively decided weeks ago when former Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign after lagging in polls and struggling to raise money. Mills never formally withdrew from the ballot, leaving open the possibility that some Democrats will use Tuesday’s primary as a protest vote against Platner
The dilemma facing Democrats is unusually stark.
Maine, considered a purple state, is widely viewed as one of the party’s clearest opportunities to flip a Republican-held Senate seat. Collins, 73, is running for a sixth term, though critics argue her image as a political moderate has diminished in recent years. In her last reelection campaign in 2020, Collins defeated her Democratic challenger 51-42. Sara Gideon, who is married to a Jewish lawyer, ran a competitive race and drew support from Maine’s estimated 15,000 Jewish voters and outside Jewish Democratic groups.
The 41-year-old Platner, an oyster farmer and former Marine, appeared to be the kind of insurgent candidate Democrats dream about. He led Mills by a significant margin and consistently ran ahead of Collins in public polling.
But the past two weeks have left Democrats struggling with his candidacy.
Reports about explicit messages sent to women while married and allegations from former partners describing threatening and troubling behavior, along with scrutiny of past online posts, put the Platner campaign on defense.
For Jewish voters, Platner’s rise and the party’s embrace of him were already hard to swallow. Platner faced backlash last year after acknowledging that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi symbol. He has since covered it up. In past posts on Reddit, Platner defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who impersonated a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.
A New York Times story last week cited an ex-girlfriend who said Platner knew for years that the tattoo on his chest was associated with Nazi imagery, an allegation he has forcefully denied.
Also troubling to Jewish Democrats, Platner has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and suggested the U.S. should cut off all aid to Israel. Last week, Platner accused Collins of taking money from AIPAC and being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”
Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in an April interview that her group was not prepared to back Platner. JDCA had endorsed Mills in the primary before she suspended her campaign. On Sunday, Soifer said the group continues to stand by its endorsement of Mills, signaling that voters who remain uneasy about Platner still have the option of casting a vote for the former governor, whose name remains on the ballot.
“If he were running in Jersey, he’d either be thrown off the ballot or buried under the Meadowlands,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat from New Jersey, said on Friday.
Top Democratic strategists told Politico that Platner could face pressure to drop out of the race if Mills receives a significant amount of votes.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., has so far continued to show support for Platner. After meeting with Platner last week in Washington, D.C., Schumer told reporters that defeating Collins remains a top priority for Democrats seeking to reclaim power in the Senate.
The likely result is a question Democrats increasingly cannot avoid: If Platner wins Tuesday as expected, how much longer can national Democrats continue treating him as their standard-bearer and excuse conduct they would condemn in a Republican candidate? Jewish Democratic organizations, having already distanced themselves from Platner, will also have to decide how to respond if he becomes the party’s nominee, as other nominees are also coming under scrutiny for past remarks and associations with antisemitic influencers.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in an interview Sunday on Fox News, was asked whether he’s concerned that his party “has an antisemitism problem,” citing Platner’s rhetoric and that of other Democratic candidates.
Platner is “going to have to speak for himself, and that’s what any candidate, particularly in a high-profile race, is going to be called upon to do,” Jeffries said. He added that the effort to crush antisemitism is an “American issue” and shouldn’t be a partisan issue. “It can’t be a red or blue issue. It’s a red, white, and blue issue.”
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Some Jewish Republicans say Tucker Carlson is no longer a threat. Others worry he’ll run for president.
(JTA) — At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gala last November, much of the discussion centered around right-wing antisemitism. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned that there was “an existential crisis in our party” as figures such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes built their online audiences, while right-wing firebrand Rep. Randy Fine of Florida slammed Carlson as an antisemite.
At the RJC’s “America 250” gala six months later, the mood was cheerier, and the cautionary words gave way to declarations that emerging antisemitism on the right was being dealt with properly.
Fine reminded the audience at the RJC event held in Manhattan on Sunday that in his speech to the RJC in November, he’d called Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America.” Now, he said, “I don’t know that that’s true anymore.”
Fine and other Republicans at the RJC gala told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that enough Republicans had spoken out against Carlson – most significantly, President Donald Trump – and his ilk to damage their image and dampen the threat they might pose. They also pointed to major GOP critics of Israel who had lost their seats in recent months.
But others have warned that it’s a mistake to celebrate too soon, or think Carlson’s star has really faded, especially amid speculation that he might launch a presidential run as a Republican.
Fine told JTA in a text that he now believes the country’s “most dangerous antisemite” is Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s anti-Zionist mayor. In contrast, he said, Carlson’s impact had only plummeted in the past half-year.
“I think that brand has been destroyed [in] the last six months,” he wrote, attributing the change to politicians like himself calling Carlson out, as well as “the damage he has done to himself.”
A number of speakers at the RJC who lauded Republicans’ response to antisemitism in the party also pointed to the recent primary defeat of outspoken Israel critic Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. Brooks said to loud applause that the group spent $5 million in that race, and called the effort “a fight worth having and a victory worth celebrating.”
Speakers also recounted the resignation from Congress of Marjorie Taylor Greene in January, maintaining that the Republican Party is squashing its anti-Israel voices, while the Democratic Party is electing them.
“Being anti-Israel in today’s Republican Party is not — unlike the Democratic Party — a path to success,” said RJC CEO Matt Brooks during his remarks. Brooks later told JTA that Carlson, Owens and Fuentes’ “influence and credibility is less than it’s ever been” and that “they don’t represent” the mainstream of the MAGA movement.
But the Anti-Defamation League warned that it would be a mistake not to see the audience and impact of Carlson in particular as worthy of continued concern.
Oren Segal, the ADL’s vice president of counterextremism and intelligence, said in an interview with JTA that his organization’s biggest worry regarding Carlson is “not merely his relationship with any conservative or elected officials” but also the “normalization” of his views.
Segal pointed to the accusation that an Israeli attack on an American spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War was intentional — used by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Jewish state cannot be trusted — despite U.S. investigations determining that it was a mistake.
“No one’s been a bigger boon to the USS Liberty Conspiracy of late than Tucker Carlson,” he said.
Segal added that it would be “absurd” to count out anyone as a potential presidential contender, while several political observers have speculated that Carlson may be weighing a run.
New York University professor Scott Galloway recently said on his New York Magazine podcast “Pivot” that the former Fox News host could be a serious contender. There is an “enormous lane,” he assessed, for a candidate who, like Carlson, has “very conservative values, an enormous media platform, an enormous army of acolytes that he could weaponize right away, and is anti-Trump and anti-the war on Iran.”
Some of Carlson’s allies are gunning for a campaign. Speaking Thursday on Russian state television during a trip to St. Petersburg, Owens said she personally did not plan to run for office but said Carlson would be a great candidate for president.
“I would love for him to run,” she said, adding, “I would gratefully get behind someone like Tucker Carlson.”
Back in March, TV host Piers Morgan asked Carlson whether he has White House ambitions. Carlson said that politics is “not what I do,” adding, “The whole idea of, ‘I’ve been a successful cable news host, I should be president!’ — that whole way of thinking is disgusting to me.”
Asked about the possibility of Carlson running for president, Brooks told JTA in a statement that the RJC would continue to push back against Carlson and similar anti-Israel figures.
“There is only one party where American Jews can be proudly pro-Israel, and it is the Republican Party — and those who imperil that will have to come through the RJC first,” Brooks said.
Others who attended Sunday’s RJC gathering felt the possibility of a Carlson candidacy was overblown. Shabbos Kestenbaum, a prominent Jewish conservative activist who sued Harvard University over alleged antisemitism, dismissed concerns that Carlson could be a serious presidential candidate.
In an interview, he pointed out that Carlson’s support of Massie and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Casey Putsch did not yield electoral success. Putsch, who has a history of dog whistling to neo-Nazis, received 17.5% of the vote in Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial primary. Unlike Massie, Carlson did not issue an endorsement for Putsch, but he did host Putsch on his podcast last year.
“His endorsements mean absolutely nothing, and outside of the ‘Podcastistan’ universe, his words carry very little weight,” Kestenbaum said of Carlson.
Brooks said in an interview with JTA that he feels “very pleased” with how the party has responded to voices like Carlson’s. President Donald Trump has publicly cast Carlson aside since his former ally sharpened his objections to the administration’s war in Iran.
“It’s been marginalized,” Brooks said of the party’s anti-Israel wing. “They tried to hijack the term MAGA. Groups like ours, but equally important, the president, has made it clear they are not MAGA.”
Asked about Vice President JD Vance, who has not offered a condemnation of Carlson to some Jewish Republicans’ chagrin, Brooks said, “When you have the president speaking, that’s the voice that matters right now.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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