Category Archives: Documentary

My wife, Meryl, is a wonderful mixed-media artist, using a combination of black and white photography, hand-dyed silks, and acrylic paints to create beautiful portraits of nature. But she would like to sell her creations, and there’s the rub. Although monetary rewards are not her primary motivation, she, like all artists, seeks validation of her craft and selling her work is an expression of that affirmation. This is the core narrative of Somewhere in the Middle, an engaging look at five very talented artists who have succeeded in their own idiosyncratic way to make a living doing the things they love.

Nathan Ives, the director, does not think the true artist is seeking fame and financial success alone. Most artists, those in the middle, simply want personal satisfaction by following their occupational dream. The artists interviewed in the film include Jasika Nicole, an actress who has a recurring role in the TV series “The Good Doctor,” painter Dan McCaw, paper sculptor Jeff Nishinaka, guitarist Aaron Tap, and folk-rock musician Griffin House.

Griffin House shares an incident that implicitly reminded him of his “middle-of-the-road” predicament. He had played to a sold-out crowd of 300 people at the City Winery venue in New York City when a couple approached him after the show. They said: “We just love your music and we know you’re going to make it someday.” When House heard this, he realized that fans did not realize that he had been working as a musician for two decades. He remarks: “I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I’ve got two kids, a house in Nashville, and I support my family.”

Ives, the director, said that this observation of House’s “really got me thinking about what success means as an artist, and how the general public views success as an artist.” The artists in the movie are not celebrities in the conventional sense, but they are not starving artists either. They are somewhere in the middle.

As a Jewish educator, Shulman brings God into the discussion, asking yourself if God has a great plan for you, or what is my mission in this world? The journey to finding the answer to those questions begins with one step. Shulman writes: “When the Jews were trapped between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, one man – Nachshon Ben Aminadav – stepped into the sea and it split. To see the sea split in our own lives, we have to take that first step to implement the idea we believe in. By clarifying to ourselves what we are passionate about, we open channels of possibility. However, we only see change happen when we are willing to make that first uncomfortable step. Doing that one action – however inconsequential it may seem in achieving your dream – is what will help the sea split.”

Michael Shulman, a Jewish educator, writes about getting your dream job, a job that you truly enjoy and that enables you to make a living. He recalls his own confusing search for a vocation when he thought “If I am a unique individual, there must be some unique job that I am supposed to do. If I can get clarity on what I’m passionate about, perhaps my dream job will appear.” After some soul-searching, he concluded: “The limits of our belief in what we can do, limits the job we eventually find. When we dare to believe, we create our own job possibility.”

The artists featured in Somewhere in the Middle all made courageous decisions to take risks with regard to their vocational future. They did it because they did not define success in traditional terms, but in personal terms. When they came to the proverbial fork in the world, they took the less traveled path and that made all the difference in their lives.

I have been a moviegoer since childhood. Movies were pure escapism that allowed me to imaginatively travel to different places and different times to vicariously experience the larger world of which I was a citizen. I became an aficionado of Netflix in the early 2000s when I was living in Denver. I rarely went to a movie theatre, but became enthralled with the idea that movies could be delivered regularly to my home where I could keep them for several days before returning them in the mail. So it was with great interest that I watched Netflix vs. the World, which describes the company’s origins and its amazing financial trajectory into the 21^st century.

Netflix’s initial niche strategy was to mail DVDs to your home, thus avoiding the trips and late fees associated with Blockbuster Video, a giant in the video rental business and their major competitor. Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings were the visionaries who transformed their little DVD rental company into the major player in the movie streaming business, which changed the way most people enjoyed the cinema experience. A good deal of the film describes the conflict between Netflix and Blockbuster, with Blockbuster eventually not surviving. To be privy to the executive thinking of top management of Blockbuster as it tried to stay afloat financially in the face of an aggressive and savvy competitor is a lesson in economics that is worth contemplating.

Once Netflix won the battle of dominance in the DVD rental arena, they became a financial powerhouse that could also dominate the next technological frontier in the entertainment industry:  digital streaming of movies and developing its own original content. The watershed moment was its successful production of House of Cards, a series that debuted in 2013.

Bob Diener, author of Biblical Secrets to Business Success and founder of Hotels.com, writes about entrepreneurship and the ingredients for starting a successful business, ingredients that were part of the management DNA of Netflix founders Randolph and Hastings. First, Diener recommends doing your homework. Make sure you understand all the issues and take nothing for granted. Second, have a high level of customer service. In Biblical terms, he says “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) refers to putting yourself in the shoes of the customers and treating them the way you desire to be treated. Super customer service almost inevitably leads to building a long-term customer base. Third, when making a mistake, admit it to your customers. Hiding a problem will lead to erosion of the customer’s belief in the company’s honesty and integrity.

These basic pillars of a quality company were evident in the way Netflix management dealt with problematic issues. For example, before launching their own DVD rental service, they did their homework. They investigated the Blockbuster operation to determine what they could do to challenge their dominance. One area that emerged was the large amount of movie choices that they could make available through the mail, not relying on brick and mortar stores. Another area that highlighted Blockbusters’ vulnerability was the issue of late fees, a major irritant to Blockbuster patrons. By sending DVDs through the mail and allowing customers to keep the DVDs for long periods of time, the major irritant of late fees was removed for Netflix users. Moreover, the convenience of home delivery of DVDs to one’s home mailbox was extremely attractive. No more trips to the store and waiting in line to check out.

What is impressive about the Netflix story is the total commitment of the founders and management to create a new paradigm for the consumption of mass entertainment. Indeed, a guiding light for them was the idea that they were providing people with enjoyable entertainment and that was a worthy goal. In many ways, there were ahead of the curve. Because of that, they were able to chart their own distinctive path rather than merely respond to the challenges of others.

 In 1965, an uncle of mine, a serious audiophile, gave us a wedding gift of a high fidelity sound system with stereo speakers. After listening to music on monotone speakers for much of my life, the surround sound effect of this new technology was amazing. I could hear sounds not just in front of me but emanating from the sides of the room as well. It truly was an enveloping experience. Which is why I was fascinated by the documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound.

The film is an engaging history of the power of sound in movies. Telling the story are the sound engineers who create the film’s soundtrack and the famous directors with whom they collaborate to bring the audience the best of immersive film experiences. The narrative begins with archival footage of silent movies and takes a nostalgic look at early cinema before moving gradually into the era of sound. Through film clips and interviews with legendary directors and sound designers, the creative process behind this often overlooked part of moviemaking is revealed.

Directors interviewed include, among others, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, David Lynch, and Ang Lee. All of them discuss their collaboration with their sound designers and how it made their movies better. Steven Spielberg tries to frame their contribution with the following observation: “Our ears lead our eyes to where the story lives.”

Particularly engaging is Barbra Streisand’s request to record her voice live for A Star is Born to create a more heartfelt rendition of a song rather than dubbing the voice after the scene is shot. Steven Spielberg’s discussion of the opening of Saving Private Ryan is instructive. He details the cacophony of the sounds of battle as heard from the perspective of the soldiers at the Normandy beach landing. The percussive noise of bullets and bombs gives the viewer a sense of being in the middle of a life and death conflict. Spielberg’s analysis of the integration of sight and sound gives one a sense of how valuable is the work of the sound mixer and editor.

The movie considers sound from three perspectives: music, sound effects, and voice. These three elements are then subdivided into smaller units creating what the film’s narrator calls a “circle of talent” that will give the viewer an immersive cinematic experience. The ability of sound to create a total visceral experience for the listener is embedded in the Jewish tradition of sounding the shofar on Rosh HaShanah.

In Exodus (20:15), it says: “And all the people saw the sounds and the flames, the sound of the Shofar and the mountain smoking, and the people saw and shuddered and stood at a distance.” Rabbi Avigdor Bonchek cites Rashi, the pre-eminent Torah commentator, who writes: “They saw that which is ordinarily heard, that which is impossible to see otherwise.” Rabbi Bonchek explains: “Rashi is telling us to take the word see (in Hebrew ‘ro’im’) literally. They literally could see the sound waves of the voice of God as He spoke. In modern psychology, this is called synesthesia, when the sense experience crosses over to another psychological space. Seeing the sounds becomes a miraculous event.”

The Lubavitcher Rebbe amplifies this idea. He observes that seeing enables us to gain a clear perception of the physical world. However, hearing has an advantage over seeing in the sense that it enables us to relate to ideas, abstract concepts and spiritual feelings. These cannot be understood by sight but rather by hearing.

Rabbi Doniel Baron relates this to the sound of the shofar: “The sound of the shofar begins with a simple breath, and ends with a note, broken or straight, depending on the required sound. In describing those sounds, the Talmud uses metaphors of crying — a protracted sighing cry and uncontrollable broken weeping. That primal cry of the shofar reveals its secret. Mystical sources explain that the shofar spiritually expresses places in a person that words cannot reach. It penetrates the core of a Jew’s existence, and taps into the essence of the Jew. It is the primal cry of the soul, an existential scream.”

Making Waves reminds us that sounds convey a message that goes beyond mere words. It allows us to experience the world on multiple levels, and we emerge from the film appreciating the technicians who enable the movies to touch our hearts as well as our heads.

Watch this movie on Amazon.com.

I was not much of a student in high school; but when I entered college at Yeshiva University, I had an intellectual awakening. Because I wanted to avoid math courses at all costs, I became a history major and serendipitously became exposed to cutting edge writers and thinkers whose opinions seemed to matter in any discussion of world affairs. One of those was James Baldwin.

Moreover, during the current pandemic quarantine, I read Chronicles, Volume One, an autobiographical account of the early creative years of Bob Dylan, one of the foremost singer/poets of the 20^th century. Although not formally educated in college, Dylan had an insatiable curiosity for philosophy and literature in addition to his avid interest in folk music. Many of the songs, artists, and writers mentioned in his autobiography were familiar to me because I, like Dylan, experienced epiphanies of learning in the 1960s. We both lived in New York City at the time and read the same writers.

Although Dylan did not consider himself a prophet of protest, many of his lyrics spoke to the racial inequities of the time. I was, therefore, ripe to watch the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript entitled “Remember This House.” The book was intended to be a personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his dearest friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, none of whom lived to the age of 40. The film gives voice to the thirty pages of text that remained after Baldwin’s death in 1987.

All three men, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, had different approaches to correcting the systemic racism that they witnessed and experienced in America. What is particularly disturbing is the footage that portrays the prejudice against blacks in the United States. Some of it is archival and some of it is taken from the present day, indicating that old problems are still with us in spite of many people with good intentions who desire to write a new history for blacks in America. The film uses Baldwin’s own language, narrated effectively by Samuel L. Jackson.

What stands out is Baldwin’s use of visceral language to describe the cultural maladies of the day. He is clearly an exceptional chronicler of the American condition. To highlight the movie’s message, Raoul Peck, the filmmaker, employs powerful contrasting images to highlight the way blacks and whites experience America. For example, juxtaposed with the sweet image of a singing Doris Day is a scene of black men being lynched by a white mob. The impression left is that vast numbers of Americans are in denial of the cruel realities of racism, preferring to live in their bubbles of comfortable isolation rather than going out and addressing the lack of civil rights for the outsider that exist in the body politic.

Baldwin reminds people that the stranger, the one who is different from you, should not be dehumanized. It is one of his important observational truths worth pondering. Furthermore, his intellectuality makes him a foe of American consumerism, in which success is only measured in material wealth.

In a thoughtful article by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller, a Jewish educator, she quotes Lev Baruch Perlow, a black sergeant in the Israeli army who lived for many years in Chicago. Perlow offers advice about one way to help stamp out racism. He observes: “At the end of the day we’re people. We’re not more special than another person – we’re the same as you. We have the same rights, the same everything – just a different skin color. We should remember to be kind to the one who is different. Be sensitive. Don’t joke about other people’s differences or try to taunt them. Look at others as fully realized people, not simply as walking embodiments of the color of their skin. It’s pretty simple: treat a black person like you treat yourself, like you treat any other person.”

Perlow’s straight-forward advice resonates in these tumultuous times of racial tension and racial divide. I Am Not Your Negro presents the problem and the challenge. The next step to take is ours.

Jewish law requires one to recite a blessing before eating. But it is not the same blessing for all foods. Each food has a unique blessing reflecting the reality that God created an abundant variety of foods to eat, not just one type of food. Indeed, we appreciate God more when we realize that He provides more than just nourishment for his creations. He also provides variety, and that is a testament to the divine complexity within nature. The Biggest Little Farm is a fascinating documentary that highlights this message.

John and Molly Chester make a decision to move out of the city and purchase 200 acres in the foothills of Ventura County, one hour north of Los Angeles. They plan naively to build a farm in harmony with nature, where they can grow a large diversity of crops and raise a wide range of farm animals.

Their initial problem: the land they bought is devoid of nutrients and suffering the effects of a long-term drought. The Chesters, however, are optimists; and, in spite of the challenging reality they face, they plant 10,000 orchard trees, over 300 different kinds of plants, and provide a home for an assortment of animals.

As time moves on and the ecosystem begins to reawaken, they realize that they need more knowledge to achieve their utopian vision. The teacher of that wisdom is Alan York, a guru of plant biodiversity, who teaches them that nature is cyclical. His message: what seems destructive today will, over time, be positive and enhance the harmony within nature.

Under his guidance, the land comes back to life. However, the Chesters’ experience of living in their self-made utopia comes to a standstill two years into their project. The rude awakening came in the form of pests. Birds eat fruit, causing a huge loss in farm revenue, snails eat tree trunks, gophers attack tree roots, and coyotes prey on chickens. Much of the farm labor spends time cleaning up the mess that is left, thus reducing time for crop tending and harvesting. When the Chesters begin questioning the practicality of their project, guru York is there advising patience, informing them that the ecosystem, like life, is cyclical and will eventually find its balance. York terms it “the rhythm of things.”

When York dies of cancer in the middle of the Chesters’ idealistic initiative, the Chesters have to figure out for themselves how to deal with the unpredictable vicissitudes of farming. Rain and wind do not come gently into farming life, and sometimes the consequences of rain and wind create major problems for harvesting crops. Over the long haul, however, their dreams are realized, perhaps not in the total way they envisioned; but their dream is basically actualized in the real world of sustainable, regenerative farming.

In The Biggest Little Farm, there are many life lessons. All the well known patriarchs of Judaism, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the greatest prophet of all, Moses, experienced failure of one sort or another in their lives, yet failure was not terminal for them. They learned from these mistakes, and grew to be better leaders because of them. So, too, is it with farming. Failure is a teacher, not the end of learning and growing and realizing one’s goal.

There is a lot to learn from farming failures. At the end of the day, the Chesters leave a legacy for the future for children, born and yet unborn. Here are some of the messages implicitly articulated for the next generation. There is a dance of co-existence in nature. For example, coyotes kill chickens, which seems to be a bad thing, yet when coyotes kill gophers, it seems to be a good thing. The key in nature is balance, which expresses a complicated web of life, representing a divinely ordained diversity measured over a very long period of time. Our planet and its ecosystem work with a comfortable level of disharmony, which creates a complex world with infinite possibilities.

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