FILMMAKER - A Mendelssohn in Hollywood
The filmmaker Henry Jaglom is a descendant of the great German-Jewish thinker

by SIMONE KUSSATZ, special guest writer

"Moses Mendelssohn is my great, great, great, great great great grandfather and Felix-Mendelssohn Bartholdy is my great, great, great, great uncle", Henry Jaglom said proudly. For the past four years, the Los Angeles based filmmaker and actor has been working on his memoirs THE THIRD STONE In THE SECOND ROW (A FAMILY MEMOIR AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE). In December 2004, he started shooting his new film HOLLYWOOD DREAMS.

Henry Jaglom was born in London in 1943. Shortly after the Nazis came to power, his family emigrated there. In 1945, when Henry was a year and a half, the Jagloms moved to the United States.
Jaglom, who took the words of his best friend Orson Welles seriously "Never depend on Hollywood", established himself as an independent filmmaker in 1969, when he edited the legendary roadmovie EASY RIDER. He has also directed and written the screenplays of films, such as A SAFE PLACE (1971), SOMEONE TO LOVE (1988), VENICE, VENICE (1992), DEJA VU (1999) and FESTIVAL IN CANNES (2002), in which he worked with Jack Nicholson, Maximilian Schell, Anouk Aimee and Greta Scacchi. Schell, who Jaglom affectionately calls "Max" became a very good friend of his. While working on his own projects, Jaglom has been helping his friend "Max" to promote the film MARIA SCHELL (2002), which came into the Los Angeles movie theaters last year.

Jaglom's films often deal with women's issues – but not in the usual Hollywood manner. "Hollywood so neglects women's real stories and real lives and indulges in male fantasies about women that have little to do with the reality of women's lives," the filmmaker said. He rather wants to sensitize his audience to what women truly feel. Unusual for a man, in GOING SHOPPING for example, which will come to the theaters in late Spring 2005, he emphasizes the complex relationship that women have towards the purchasing of clothes.

Henry Jaglom learned about his relationship to the Mendelssohns, when he started working on his memoirs. His mother Marie Stadthagen was born in 1908 in Berlin. She was the granddaughter of Marie Mendelssohn, who had married Ephraim Stadthagen, a lumber merchant. They had four children, one of them Jaglom's grandfather, Emil, born in 1871.

During the Weimar Republic Jaglom's father Simon was involved in the German-Polish import-export business, where he held a leading position. His economic role was so important that financial chief advisor, Hjalmar Schacht wanted to reward him with the title "Ehrenarier", or "Honorary Aryan". However, Jaglom's father gratefully declined this offer and preferred to prepare his emigration first to England and then to the U.S.

When Jaglom starts talking about his ancestors he turns very enthusiastic. He proudly refers to Moses Mendelssohn as the "Jewish Luther" and "German Socrates". It doesn't seem to bother him that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a Christian. "Although he was a converted Christian, he still remained Jewish", Jaglom said.

Henry Jaglom, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Victoria Foyt and his children Sabrina Marie and Simon Orson, is planning on visiting his ancestor's hometown soon. So far he has only been in Berlin once, in 1983, when his film CAN SHE BAKE A CHERRY PIE was shown during the Berlin Film Festival. "I have very deep emotional ties to the city of Berlin", he said.

Will his family memoir eventually become a film? "No", Jaglom said short and determined: "My films are not such epic, historical extravaganzas, I leave that to others. It will simply be a book".