Zach Braff's Garden State as Jewish Cinema

GardenState (2004) marked the directorial debut of Zach Braff, a young Jewish director born in South Orange, New Jersey in 1975. Although born over forty years after Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet, and Paul Mazursky, Braff's film deals with some similar Jewish motifs. Andrew Largeman (Braff), a want-to-be actor living in Los Angeles, receives a phone call notifying him that his mother has died. The movie deals with his return home to New Jersey and the struggles he has trying to feel "at home."

During his four days back Largeman hangs out with friends from high school and meets Sam (Natalie Portman), a quirky girl with epilepsy. Andrew's relationship with his father Gideon (Ian Holm) is also examines after not seeing each other since Andrew was sixteen. GardenState looks at some Jewish tropes in greater depth than others. In American Jewish Filmmakers David Desser says that with "the increased presence of film and television stars and the notion of Jews behind the camera and in executive offices, show business remains a viable aspect of American Jewish life and art" (302). The idea of alienation/assimilation, psychoanalysis, and the education of the "shiksa" are main features in the film while show business and Judaism/Jewishness are on the periphery. It is interesting to study whether Braff handles these motifs in the same ways as the older Jewish directors do.

Many Jewish directed films deal with a character assimilating to a culture that views him/her as an outsider. Mel Brooks uses racial alienation as a major focus in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Barry Levinson does similarly (although not as wildly comic) in LibertyHeights (1999). The idea of being alienated because of ethnic background resonates throughout the works of older Jewish filmmakers. Desser writes that "The question of assimilation verses alienation has resolutely and firmly been answered by the facts that Jews are accepted in virtually every walk of American life" (300). GardenState shows alienation in a different way.

Instead of being ethnic or racial, the isolation Zach Braff uses has more to do with growing-up and finding direction in the world. An interesting scene occurs near the beginning of the film that suggests a strange sort of alienation. While working at a Vietnamese restaurant, Largeman must dress as a Vietnamese person and wear eye shadow. After showing up late for work, his boss threatens to fire him and replace him with a different struggling actor as he waves a head-shot of a viable candidate. When he actually takes the order, in a room full of rich "fad" seekers, a young lady asks him to bring out some bread. Andrew replies that the restaurant does not serve bread. "How can you not have any bread?" the girl asks and Largeman replies, "Because we are a Vietnamese restaurant." She rudely says, "But you aren't Vietnamese" showing that he is not accepted by his boss or people of his similar age group with probably similar aspirations.

Even when the characters of Brooks, Allen, and others felt alienated, they still had a group which accepted them. Usually this group was considered the family, or at least the only thing resembling a family that the character had. In Radio Days (1987) Diane Wiest is continually rejected by prospective husbands, but her family continues to support her. Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) in Diner (1982) is constantly drinking and rejected, but finds comfort in his friends, which act as his family. Andrew Largeman seems to be alienated from everyone, especially his relatives. At his mother's funeral he stands by himself listening to his aunt serenades the crowd with "Three Times a Lady." Another instance is when Andrew talks to his father. The first time they speak in his office they are never shown in the same frame and Andrew constantly fidgets around uncomfortably. He also does not come in further than about a foot away from the door.

A major difference arises when Largeman is even alienated from his "friends." He has not seen these people in a few years and doesn't relate to them well. At a party Andrew takes some ecstasy and sits on the couch, by himself, while the others play spin the bottle. When the bottle lands on him, Andrew is kissed provocatively by a young lady, but never even moves from the couch. His alienation, then, seems to be more self-imposed than forced in some situations. Some of this might have to do with the large amounts of Lithium he has taken over the years, prescribed to him by his psychiatrist, who also happens to be his father.

In most films psychoanalysis allows characters to share their problems with others and give them a sense of fulfillment and sanity. Annie Hall (1976) even gives the characters another reason to argue after Annie (Diane Keaton) goes to analysis for the first time. Braff's film, however, cites his medication received from psychotherapy as the main source for his lack of feelings. Instead of being given an opportunity to share problems and concerns his medicine causes more alienation and doubt. As he tells Sam later, he didn't even cry at his Mom's funeral. Even though he wanted to cry, nothing happened. When he visits another doctor about occasional headaches Largeman announces his decision to stop medication while at home.

Garden State, in a strange way, shows analysis as an inhibitor and not a comforting release. After a few days off of medication Andrew falls in love with Sam and finally holds a conversation with his father. The most obvious scene that reveals Largeman's ability to "feel" again is near the boat at the bottom of a large quarry. He walks up on top of a crane and screams across the canyon for no apparent reason. Andrew no longer feels nothing, but feels everything. As he tells his dad, "And for me...what I want more than anything in the world is for it to be okay with you...for me to feel something again. Even if it's pain."

Like many Woody Allen films, the "shiksa" plays a part in GardenState. There are a few clues that show Sam is not Jewish. The first is the Christmas tree that has been in her living room for almost a year. The second is a short conversation that takes place in her bedroom. Andrew compares Sam's little blanket to the "Wailing Wall" in Israel and Sam says, "So you're like really Jewish" indicating that she is not. Andrew's response is even more telling of his "Jewishness." He says:

I'm Jewish, but I'm not really Jewish. I don't do anything Jewish. I don't go to temple or anything. But I don't know any Jews that go to temple. The Jews I know, they go on one day. It's Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance...Did you know that most temples are built with moveable walls...so that on the one day of the year when everyone comes to repent...they can actually make the room big enough to hold everyone?

He separates being Jewish and Judaism and he falls in love with a non-Jew much like the earlier generation of film directors.

But, unlike them, he never encounters any problems with dating a "shiksa" and never receives rejection from other Jews. The generation difference has changed the outlook in some ways, as David Desser writes, because "the intermarriage ration approaches 50 percent, which has done much to eliminate the need for the image of the shiksa" (300). The "shiksa" is no longer an object of forbidden desire, but inter-ethnic dating is fueled more by actual attraction and fondness for each other.

The Jewish directors born from 1928-1935 established many motifs that continue to appear in the next generation of filmmakers. Although the tropes may still be acknowledged, they have been modified in certain ways. Alienation is more a generational desire than racial or ethnically charged and assimilation may be considered "selling-out." Psychoanalysis, so prominent for Jews in the 60s and 70s has become an object of angst rather than release. The "shiksa" is not a socially unacceptable date, but another woman that has relationship potential. What comes out of Garden State, in terms of Jewish relations with the world, seems to be that the Jewish experience is no longer solely their own. The problems Andrew Largeman faces are typical of many young men growing up in stressful homes with high expectations. Desser writes that "Jewish issues seem more tangential than central, more universal than personal, and more casual than causal" (318). It seems that the new age group of Jewish directors and writers recognize the themes of previous generations, but transform them to fit with the changing cultural landscape.