Coen Brothers to tackle Chabon’s “Yiddish Policeman’s Union”
Oh Yes. The Coen Brothers, the masters of modern movie Noir are set to direct Michael Chabon’s latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.
Set in an alternative universe where the Jews lost the War of Independence and set up shop in Sitka,Alaska, the novel is about Meyer Landsman, an alcoholic homicide detective who investigates the murder of a junkie chess player on the eve of the ‘Reversion’ of the Alaska territory to America following the end of its sixty-year authorization of the Jewish homeland.
This is the greatest fit ever. I can’t picture any other director tackling this book and doing it right. What a great fit. Yiddish Noir!!!
via Slashfilm (the greatest movie blog ever)
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Just finished it. Enjoyed the characterization and the story, overcoming my initial incredulity at first discovery of the plot in the marketing of the book. The idea of a Yiddish culture, free of outside influences, was extremely enticing; I wanted to live there, despite hating cold weather. Chabon masterfully portrayed this culture, from its department chains to its childrens’ cartoons.
It was disturbing to find myself unable to choose sides in the conflict: whether to side with the detectives or the cause of the villains. It was hard for me to see the bad guys as evil, even though they believed in “the ends justify the means.”
I’m really looking forward to this movie. The visual of hasids and Zionist scenesters hobnobbing below the immense firs and high mountain glaciers of the Sitka peninsula is going to be beautiful and mind bending. A Jewish homeland in the Pacific NW is not so ridiculous… Jews were the earliest pioneers in Seattle and Portland. Seattle’s first mayor, Bailey Gaetzert, was Jewish. Sitka is not that cold, but it is rainy. And Harry en Ziva, the best lox in the world, think about it… Now if they could only get some Yiddish into the movie, that would be even better. Oy gewalt!