Page 2 - Devorah Baum News Today

Documentary about writer and her spouse is a real-life comedy

Documentary about writer and her spouse is a real-life comedy

Docu-comedy follows married directors Josh Appignanesi and Devorah Baum to New York in a subtle follow-up to The New Man

The first English-language biography of Joseph Roth brings the novelist to life, from his unpaid bar bills to his elegance and wit

​ '   Christabel Stewart is arts editor at TANK. Josh Appignanesi is a filmmaker whose work includes the acclaimed feature documentary The New Man, with Devorah Baum, award-winning comedy The Infidel and the playful thriller Female Human Animal co-devised with the novelist Chloe Aridjis. Here, he shares a cautious hagiography of John Berger himself, as the credits roll on The Seasons of Quincy.     The Seasons of Quincy is available to stream as part...

About how, perhaps, you know, humanity had never reached a greater point of darkness. and you can do that through a joke. so, you have to deconstruct the individualjoke and say, "whats the target? whats going on? "whats the semiotics?" basically. could you bear to? ill tell that joke, if you like. a very shortjoke... ok, ill tell thisjoke. ..which people will then decide whether they find it funny or offensive. go on, do it. i doubt theyll find it offensive. some people might not find it funny. ...

One that is profound and says something about how, perhaps, you know, humanity had never reached a greater point of darkness. and you can do that through a joke. so, you have to deconstruct the individualjoke and say, "whats the target? whats going on? whats the semiotics, basically?" could you bear to? ill tell that joke, if you like. a very shortjoke... 0k. ill tell this joke. ..which people will then decide whether they find it funny or offensive. go on, do it. i doubt theyll find it offensiv...

Joke is you can tell a very horrible, mean, racist joke about the holocaust or you can tell an innocuous joke about it, or you can tell one that is profound and says something about how, perhaps, you know, humanity had never reached a greater point of darkness. and you can do that through a joke. so, you have to deconstruct the individualjoke and say, "whats the target? whats going on? "whats the semiotics?" basically. could you bear to? ill tell that joke, if you like. a very shortjoke... ok, i...

This joke, by a jewish literary academic called devorah baum. id never heard the joke before. it concerns a holocaust survivor who after the war dies and goes to heaven. and when he gets to heaven, god asks the survivor to tell him a holocaustjoke. so, the survivor does, and god says, "thats not funny." and the survivor says, "well, i guess you had to be there." what i love about thatjoke and its profundity is it says something which i personally, you know, im an atheist... i dont believe in god...