A story of immigrants
February 4, 2022
OUTREACH: The Wanda Gallery, which explores film history gallery, describes the impact of people of color in filmmaking.
Ms. Michelle Crincoli is the film and creative writing teacher at Shalhevet and General Studies facilitator at Shalhevet Scottsdale.
BOILING POINT: What do you see as having been the role of Jewish creators, producers, writers, agents, and other talent in building the motion picture industry we call Hollywood?
MS. MICHELLE CRINCOLI: I really think the really cool aspect from the film history point of view when it comes to the Jewish community really is the immigrant story. It’s the people who came here from another country. I think like Samuel Goldwyn, he was one of the big producers back in the day, a Jewish immigrant. He basically is one of the founders of Hollywood. And it’s really the immigrant story, it’s the American story, and I think that’s really cool. Jewish people were the founding of Hollywood — these people who came from other countries, and basically started an industry from scratch. — Michelle Crincoli
Also, when you think of almost like Jewish films, like there are mostly no overt Jewish films, but if you look at a film like Dirty Dancing –– what a great example of a film about Jewish culture, but it isn’t a Jewish film. So for me, those contributions are what are really important, and specifically that immigrant story: people coming to this country in the 1920s, some of them fleeing Europe, and kind of starting some of them garment working, and then starting this film industry that people really don’t want to be a part of in the beginning. And they created this community — and all of a sudden, just starting this from scratch, this business that today is obviously part of all of our lives.
So I think that’s it — that angle of the immigrant story and the true American dream story is written all over the Jewish story connected to film. Of course, Jewish people were the founding of Hollywood. These people who came from other countries, and basically started an industry from scratch.
I think a lot of the Jewish artists were part of vaudeville, which was thought of at that time as kind of cheap, and no one wanted anything to do with it. And those people transferred their talent there into filmmaking, and obviously film history as we’re here now.
BP: In your mind, what are the top five Jewish film contributions to Hollywood?
MC: Dirty Dancing is a quintessential Jewish film, without it being “this is a Jewish film!” But I think it’s more the directors, like Spielberg. Someone like Steven Spielberg is amazing at not only Jewish film, but bringing the history to life. Spielberg’s movie Amistad [about a slave ship bringing Blacks to America] was probably one of the only movies that actually showed the slave ships. We have the trope of the plantation worker, but to see what actually happened to African slaves when they came over is heartbreaking — like we don’t see that. So his contribution is one to shine a light on history for film.