Encore: Bringing back some of the hottest documentaries for an encore presentation.
On the surface, Alan Zweig’s When Jews Were Funny
is just a comedic take on the history of Jewish humour
in North America. But like most of Zweig’s films,
it is so much more. Born out of Zweig’s curiosity
for the prevalence of Jewish comedians in the 1950s
and 60s—a surprising trend since the Jewish
community was largely marginalized and encouraged
to assimilate during these decades—the doc
investigates America’s fascination with Jewish comics.
Through interviews with some of the industry’s greats,
including Shelly Berman, Shecky Greene, David
Steinberg and Bob Einstein (a.k.a. Super Dave Osbourne),
Zweig examines how Jewish humourists succeeded in
a homogenized market and helped build the foundations
of modern-day American humour. Zweig’s deadpan
questioning often leads to some hilariously comedic
give-and-take moments, illuminating, not only the roots
of Jewish humour, but ultimately what it means to be
Jewish. Robin Smith, Hot Docs