When he's not crafting lavish Hollywood features like Rain Man, Bugsy, or the misbegotten Sphere, Barry Levinson occasionally makes highly personal films (the so-called "Baltimore series" of Diner, Tin Men, Avalon, and Liberty Heights). The latter, a 1999 release that disappeared all too soon from theaters, finds the aging Levinson working in a vein of pure memory: lyrical, mystical, forgiving. Ben Foster and Adrien Brody star as the middle-class Jewish sons of a shrewd burlesque operator (Joe Mantegna) running a petty numbers racket on the side. Set in the mid-'50s, the story finds the boys restless within the confines of their tight-knit community and unwilling to be restrained or rejected by anti-Semitic barriers or other racial and class prejudices.
Before the film is over, the young men's pursuit of the unattainable will include a troubled WASP princess (Carolyn Murphy) to a remarkable African American girl (Rebekah Johnson) kept on her family's short tether. Levinson provides generous glimpses of a nation undergoing re-invention, from white discovery of rock & roll to racial integration in classrooms. There's lots of broad satire (Jewish shock at being fed something called "luncheon meat" by a Gentile friend), some delicate comedy of manners (a touchingly chaste relationship between two key characters), suspense (a kidnapping), and shattering passages of pure yearning. Levinson is in top form with Liberty Heights, his instincts acute, his skills at the service of beauty, his purpose clear. --Tom Keogh
(15 votes)
2.
Returning once again to the Baltimore of his youth, director Barry Levinson adds another installment to his Baltimore Trilogy (DINER, TIN MEN, AVALON), tackling the emotionally charged subjects of anti-Semitism and racism--in addition to his standard themes of family, friendship, and loyalty--in LIBERTY HEIGHTS. In 1954, Ben Kurtzman (Ben Foster), a Jewish teen from Baltimore, is intrigued by the new girl in his class. The problem? Sylvia (Rebekah Johnson) is one of the first African American students to attend his school. While Ben and Sylvia pursue a forbidden friendship in the early days of desegregation, Bens older brother, Van (Adrien Brody), is smitten with Dubbie (Carolyn Murphy), a beautiful wealthy WASP who may as well live in another world. As the Kurtzman brothers struggle with their budding relationships and new cultures, their father, Nate (Joe Mantegna), is busy dealing with his own problems. His failing burlesque show is a front for running numbers, and he owes a huge payout to Little Melvin, a small-time African American drug dealer who is certain that Nate is trying to stiff him because of the color of his skin. Levinson once again employs a subtly entertaining visual style that allows the terrific dialogue and serious story lines to play out with realism and depth.
(15 votes)
3.
Acclaimed filmmaker Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Homicide: Life On The Street) returns to his hometown of Baltimore, the setting of Diner, Avalon, Tin Men and Homicide. The result is Liberty Heights, a warmly funny, semi-autobiographical tale told with an uncompromising eye for period detail and an eye-filling scale that includes 4,000 extras.
The year is 1954, a season of dramatic social flux that Levinson explores through the eyes of a Jewish family, the Kurtzmans (Adrien Brody, Ben Foster, Joe Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth). Friendship, romance, rock n' roll, courage, racism, Cadillacs, Halloween (should a nice Jewish boy dress up as Hitler?): The times are indeed changing. The Kurtzmans and America will never be the same.
(15 votes)
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