(FILM REVIEW) “Art will give you crowns in heaven and laurels on earth, but also, it’ll tear your heart out and leave you lonely,” is the defining message of Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.” 

Sammy Fabelman — a stand-in for Spielberg himself — receives that advice from his visiting Uncle Boris in a powerful conversation. 

It’s such a powerful conversation, in fact, that it’s officially been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Judd Hirsch, who plays Uncle Boris, was nominated for Actor in a Supporting Role, one of seven nominations given to the movie. 

“The Fabelmans” has also been nominated for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay, Actress in a Leading Role, Original Score and Production Design.

“Family, art,” Uncle Boris additionally tells Sammy, “it will tear you in two.”

Family and art are undoubtedly centerpieces of this turbulent drama, but Judaism is a close companion to it all. Spielberg rarely speaks about his Jewish upbringing, but “The Fabelmans” emphasizes how much it was part of the legendary director’s life — for better and worse. 

A Jewish family spanning generations

The movie begins at the onset of Hanukkah, and it establishes — after establishing a life-changing cinema experience — the ways in which the family is set apart. The Fabelmans’ house is identified as the only dark one on the block; for Hanukkah, Sammy asks for Christmas lights so their house can be decorated like the ones around them. 

Largely, as Jewish co-writer Tony Kushner put it in a talk at the Toronto International Film Festival, there’s an “easy way that Jewishness lives in this movie.” The Fabelmans observe Jewish ritual, pray Jewish prayers and eat Jewish meals. When Sammy’s mother brings home a monkey to keep as a pet, the family briefly debates over dinner — whether or not it’s kosher. 

The portrayal is an accurate one, if not somewhat downplayed in the movie. 

Spielberg, whose father came from a family of Orthodox Jews, was born a year after the end of World War II. Over a dozen of his family members were killed in the Holocaust. 

Spielberg told NPR about a vivid memory from his childhood, when his grandmother was teaching English to Holocaust survivors living in America:

“One man in particular, I kept looking at his numbers, his number tattooed on his forearm,” he said. “He would point to the numbers. And he would say, that is a two. And that is a four. And then he'd say, and this is an eight. And that's a one … That's really how I learned my numbers for the first time.”

Uncle Boris was real, too, though the wise words he imparts in the movie may not have been so wise: Spielberg told Hirsch that when his uncle talked to him, he couldn’t understand a word because of his uncle’s thick Eastern European accent. 

Bullies who made Spielberg ‘actually feel ashamed of being Jewish’

When the Fabelmans move away from New Jersey for Burt’s work, they regularly point out the absence of Jewish families near them. When they move to California, there are hardly any other Jewish families. Sammy, entering a new high school, immediately becomes the target of antisemitic bullies who call him “bagel man” and other slurs.   

Spielberg has pointed out that this was a reality for himself and his family. As they moved, they lost a large part of their Jewish community, and Spielberg was regularly on the receiving end of antisemitic bullying. 

“I was ashamed of a lot of things, and they actually managed with enough chiding and bullying to make me actually feel ashamed of being Jewish,” Spielberg said of his childhood bullies.

Love and faith

What brought Spielberg back to the faith? His wife Kate Capshaw, who converted to Judaism before they married in 1991. 

“This shiksa goddess has made me a better Jew than my own parents,” he said in an interview for the book “Stars of David.”

“The Fabelmans” also contains the story of a girl bringing Spielberg to faith, though it’s a markedly different one. 

Monica is at once a sympathetic ear and a buffer against the antisemitic bullies. She loves Jewish guys because she’s a fanatic Christian — and Jesus was, after all, a nice Jewish boy. She invites Sammy to her house the first day they meet to talk about their differences in faith and “pray” together, and the extent of Monica’s religious fervor is revealed. 

A huge crucifix hangs over her bed, and the wall is covered with pictures of hot guys Monica likes: movie stars, singers and Jesus. Lots of Jesus. 

They pray that Jesus will enter Sammy’s heart (Monica shoots out a rapid-fire prayer while Sammy listens), Monica breathes the spirit of Jesus into Sammy’s soul (they kiss) and then they really kiss.  

Monica doesn’t encourage him to embrace his Judaism much, but she does remind him of his passion for filmmaking — even if their teenage romance does end in heartbreak. 

Spielberg’s Jewish movies

It’s these things that make “The Fabelmans” one of Spielberg’s most Jewish projects. Usually, his movies contain a family component reminiscent of his own life but little about his religion. 

There are of course exceptions to this, namely “Munich” and “Schindler’s List.”

“Munich,” a 2005 drama that was nominated for five Oscars, follows the aftermath of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September’s attack on the 1972 summer Olympics. The movie is more political thriller than religious revelation, though it calls into question what it means to be Jewish and the nature of loyalty.

More well-known is the 1993 epic “Schindler’s List,” which was nominated for 12 Oscars and won seven, including Best Picture and Directing. It’s regarded as the definitive on-screen representation of the Holocaust.

Spielberg said in the HBO documentary “Spielberg” that “Schindler’s List” also helped him come to terms with his Jewish roots: “It made me so proud to be a Jew.”

The “Indiana Jones” franchise also deals with religious and spiritual artifacts — the Ark of the Covenant from the Bible in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” for example — and are notably set with WWII as a backdrop. 

When directing the Nazis who serve as the primary villains of the series, Spielberg told actors to cross their fingers behind their back while making the “heil Hitler” salute. 

Though Jewish identity has not always played an active role in Spielberg’s life or work, he’s clearly remained conscious of its influence in the world and his life. That’s why it’s so great that “The Fabelmans” is such a personal movie: it allows Spielberg to reflect on his family and art, yes, but beyond that, it allows him to reflect on his Jewishness in a way he hasn’t before on screen. 

Jillian Cheney is a contributing culture writer for Religion Unplugged. She also writes on American Protestantism and evangelical Christianity and was Religion Unplugged’s 2020-21 Poynter-Koch fellow. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.