Awkward interview with the Jewish Chronicle

Here's an interesting one. This interview between Charlie K. and Jason Solomons starts on a bit of a downer...

I venture, for a film as depressed as Anomalisa, nominated in the animation category, winning an award might have seemed, well, counter-intuitive.

"No, it would have suited us to win, believe me", he retorts about his remarkably realistic stop-motion animation, which follows a miserable motivational speaker in a soulless Cincinnati hotel. "There's nothing pleasant about losing, especially after we'd been through a long process of continued losing throughout the awards season. But it makes it worse when you've created something like Anomalisa and then Woody the Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear are on stage introducing your category at the Oscars."

... and then gets a little uncomfortable when Solomons tries hard to connect Charlie's work to his Jewishness, despite Charlie's obvious skepticism:

The mention of Woody Allen leads to my inevitable question of Jewishness in his work. "I don't know what you're talking about," is Kaufman's snap response and I can't tell if he's joking, at all. "I mean, you know, I am who I am," he continues, stuttering a bit, and playing with his beard. "I was raised sort of Jewish but secular, you know, I'm not from a religious family, but certainly Woody Allen was very important to me growing up, but then so was Monty Python, and I don't think any of them were Jewish?" (Source)

I can understand where Solomon's coming from--he's writing for the Jewish Chronicle, after all--but Charlie's irritation is just as understandable.

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