• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 

Film Screening

The Silent Treatment
Hosted by Kenneth Turan
A Child of the Ghetto (1910) Directed by D.W. Griffith
East and West (1923) Directed by Sidney M. Goldin and Ivan Abramson
APRIL 21, 2007 9:00 PM
BILLY WILDER THEATRE, UCLA HAMMER MUSEUM

Presented in partnership with UCLA Film and Television Archive and Yiddishkayt LA
FREE: For reservations call Yiddishkayt LA at 323-692-8151

Film critic Kenneth Turan hosts an evening of Jewish silent films accompanied by live music. In D.W. Griffith's short A Child of the Ghetto, the director of Birth of a Nation ventures into the Lower East Side to chronicle the struggles of a young seamstress. Accused of stealing from her boss, Ruth escapes to the countryside where she falls in love with a young farmer. Trading places is also the theme of the feature East and West, in which American Jews return to Galicia for a family wedding. Yiddish film and stage sensation Molly Picon plays Mollie, an all-American girl set loose in the old country, where she ducks services, teaches villagers the latest dances, and eventually upends the life of a young yeshiva student.

KENNETH TURAN is film critic for The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio's Morning Edition. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide and the Times' book review editor. He teaches film reviewing and non-fiction writing at USC and is on the board of directors of the National Yiddish Book Center. His most recent books are Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made, Never Coming to a Theater Near You, and Now in Theaters Everywhere.