Bald Ambition: Natalie Portman’s Latest Role as a Betrothed Hasid
By Joe Manning
“New York, I Love You,” which opened October 16, sees Natalie Portman star as a Hasidic bride in director Mira Nair’s (“Monsoon Wedding”) short. Portman’s portrayal of Rifka, an Orthodox 20-something, is a highlight of producer Emmanuel Benbihy’s (“Paris Je T’aime”) patchwork film, made up of eleven New York based romantic vignettes.
Rifka is feisty, self confident and independent. “We don’t come to 47th Street to chit-chat,” she tells diamond seller and Gujarati Jain, Mansuhkhbai (Irrfan Khan), after traveling to midtown Manhattan to haggle prices. Yet the two enjoy a brief cross-cultural intimacy, flirting over their respective dietary restrictions, before Rifka removes her sheitel revealing her bald head, shaved in preparation for impending marriage.
After this unexpected onscreen moment Portman goes behind the camera to make her directorial debut. In a short set in Central Park she focuses on the daughter of a mixed-race couple and a case of mistaken identity amongst New York’s nanny-hiring class.
It is interesting that Nair, a non-Jewish director, looks at ethnicity and endogamy by depicting an Orthodox wedding, whilst Portman analyzes racial stereotypes not traditionally associated with Judaism. Cross-cultural intimacies, indeed.
Watch a clip from “New York, I Love You” below:
October 27, 2008, 12:59pm
Yid Vid: Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones Address the Economic Crisis
By Daniel Treiman
While Barney Frank and Ben Bernanke have been working on addressing the economic crisis, two younger, slightly more glamorous Jews are thinking of some outside-the-box solutions.
What do Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones think we should be doing? Watch and learn:
Hat tip: Gothamist
July 30, 2008, 12:45am
Yid Vid: Natalie Portman Gets Subcontinental
By Daniel Treiman
Natalie Portman takes a page from Bollywood in a video from her bohemian beau Devendra Banhart (who is, no doubt, by now the object of loathing from jealous young Jewish men the world over):
I’m waiting for the inevitable backlash from the Hindu circles that don’t take kindly to such acts of artistic appropriation. In the meantime, the Desi Hits blogger seems to be taking it in stride.
Hat tip: Jewlicious
February 25, 2008, 2:04pm
Natalie Portman Says She and Scarlett Johansson are the ‘Hot Knishes’
By Daniel Treiman
Natalie Portman speaks at length with the Times of London about a variety of topics, including her dating patterns, why being an only child made her career possible and why Stephen Fry was her all-time favorite co-star.
She also touched on her Jewish identity. Asked whether her ethnic background has been a stabilizing influence, she replies:
Absolutely. I identify very strongly as Jewish, but I could be Indian, Puerto Rican … Anything that gives you a cultural identity makes you know who you are and grounds you, even as a young girl trying on identities.
Portman is, of course, starring with fellow Jewish starlet Scarlett Johansson (Jewish on her mom’s side, Danish on her dad’s) in the upcoming “The Other Boleyn Girl” — a project that is certain to stoke an unprecedented level of interest in the 16th-century British monarchy among young Jewish men. Her interviewer noted that when Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek co-starred in a movie they were dubbed the “hot tamales” (weirdly, since Penelope Cruz is Spanish, not Mexican), and asked Portman what the media would call her pairing with Johansson. Portman’s answer: “The Hot Knishes.”
September 25, 2007, 1:13pm
Natalie Portman in the Flesh
By Aram David
Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman will join director Wes Anderson in the Apple Store SoHo tonight for a special screening of his new short film “Hotel Chevalier,” which is related to his upcoming feature “The Darjeeling Limited” and will be available for free on iTunes.The film is a prequel that takes place in a Paris hotel room and presents background information about Schwartzman’s character in “The Darjeeling Limited.” Wes Anderson’s goal, he said in a statement, is to “get every person who goes to [‘The Darjeeling Limited’] to see [‘Hotel Chevalier’] first.” But beyond the buzz it generates for Anderson’s feature film, the short also promises to deliver something sure to delight many young Jewish males, an “extended nude scene” by Portman, The Wall Street Journal reports.
For skeptical accounts by Internet nerds on message boards (featuring some colorful reactions to the news) click here.
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