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from the issue of February 24, 2005
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Shapiro's stories about American Jews basis for film
BY TOM HANCOCK, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
English professor Gerry Shapiro has a sharp eye for the condition of secular Jews in the United States. Now his observations, fleshed out in his short story collection "Bad Jews and Other Stories," are the basis of King of the Corner, a film starring several of today's most accomplished actors.
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| | | Gerry Shapiro's Bad Jews was the basis for a new film.
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King of the Corner, has been shown at film festivals but is getting its theatrical debut at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center from March 4-17 with a gala event on March 5.
The central character in the film is Leo Spivak, who at age 50 is undergoing a crisis of confidence. The movie follows the life of Spivak (Peter Riegert), his family and his world. Spivak's father (Eli Wallach) is dying, his daughter (Ashley Johnson) is growing up too fast, his protégé (Jake Hoffman) is after his job, his wife (Isabella Rossellini) is running out of patience with Spivak, and an old flame resurfaces (Beverly D'Angelo). Spivak proves to be his own worst enemy, but through a twist of fate and the help of an unorthodox rabbi (Eric Bogosian), he redeems himself.
Riegert, who co-wrote the screenplay with Shapiro, also directed and stars in the film. He won a best first feature award as the film's director in a recent festival.
An "opening night" gala will be held March 5 with Riegert and Shapiro in attendance. The gala is open to the public for the regular movie admission price of $8 for general admission and $6 for students, seniors, children, and members of the Friends of Ross. The screening is set for 7:30 p.m. There will be a reception and book signing afterwards in the Van Brunt Visitors Center next to the Ross. The University of Nebraska Press, which recently reprinted Bad Jews, is co-hosting the reception. Other sponsors are The Friends of the Ross, the Harris Center for Judaic Studies, The Jewish Federation of Lincoln and the English Department at UNL. Jean Cahan is the current director of the Harris Center for Judaic Studies.
The stories in Bad Jews are linked by recurring characters and themes, which Shapiro describes as creating a "dramatic arc." The screenplay is based primarily on the stories "Worst-Case Scenarios" and "Bad Jews," which both have Spivak as the main character. Some material outside of the stories has been added, Shapiro said. The book title comes from the final story in the collection in which Spivak has to come to terms with his father's death.
It's difficult to create a screenplay from a collection of stories, said Shapiro, and it was made more difficult since he hadn't written a screenplay before. The challenge was a welcome one, however.
"It was especially enjoyable to work in a genre that I had never worked in before," Shapiro said. "It was good to see if I could stretch myself as a writer and explore a new way of telling a story."
Stretching himself meant thinking more purely in a visual way and finding substitutes for the narrative tools that are easy to use in written work but less so in a screenplay.
"I wanted to try to write a screenplay without using any of the narrative tools that I used in writing over 30 years," he said.
"If you are a short story writer, you have to forget most everything you know about telling a story. You have to learn the new language of the camera," Shapiro said. "So I had to start at square one."
Shapiro is a professor of English and teaches creative writing and literature at UNL. He is also the chair of the Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies. He worked in advertising between receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in 1973 and his master of fine arts degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1987. He came to UNL in 1987.
Shapiro has taught Jewish-American fiction for many years. Since subject matter such as the Holocaust can be grim, Shapiro has shown a movie during the last class of the semester called Crossing Delancey, a light-hearted film that stars Riegert and Amy Irving and is set in 1990s New York City.
Shapiro has written three collections of short stories and novellas: From Hunger (1993), Bad Jews and Other Stories (1999) and Little Men (2004). He received the Ohio State University Short Fiction Prize for Little Men.
Ironically, Shapiro's Bad Jews book came to Riegert's attention while Riegert was in Lincoln and Shapiro was in New York City.
In the spring of 2001 Shapiro learned that Riegert was coming to Lincoln to show a short movie that he had directed, "By Courier," which was nominated for an Academy Award.
"I was excited because I had been using his work in my Jewish-American fiction class and wanted to meet him," Shapiro said. Unfortunately, Shapiro and his wife, UNL English professor Judith Slater, had tickets to a play in New York City on the weekend Riegert was going to be in Lincoln.
Shapiro left a card and a copy of Bad Jews for Riegert as a way to thank him.
When Shapiro returned home, there was a message from Riegert, who had read the book on the flight home to New York.
"He asked if I wanted to write a screenplay," Shapiro said. "I told him I had never written a screenplay."
Riegert was encouraging, however, telling Shapiro that his facility with dialogue would stand him in good stead for writing a screenplay.
The timing was good for Shapiro since he was taking sabbatical in the fall of 2001 to write and he figured he would have time to try his hand at the screenplay. Riegert liked what Shapiro had done and optioned the screenplay for two years. Funding was eventually obtained in late 2002 and the film was shot in spring of 2003.
GO TO: ISSUE OF FEBRUARY 24
NEWS HEADLINES FOR FEBRUARY 24
Shapiro's stories about American Jews basis for film
Real Nebraska night at the movies March 3
Research Service-Learning connects students with communities
A Piece of University History
Celebration of Graduate Student Work is March 4
Eating Disorders Awareness Week
Symposium looks at collectors, museums and artists
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