Nathan Silver On Between the Temples

The line between life imitating art and art imitating life is a fine one, and it’s one that writer/director Nathan Silver has become quite familiar with throughout his life and career. Silver’s films tend to dive right into the complexities of human emotions, relationships and the chaos that ensues. Between the Temples, the comedy-drama which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2024, is no exception.

“My mother was in all of my early movies, and then there was one movie I made with her where we cut her scene out, and she just wouldn’t forgive me,” Silver says. In 2019, Silver made the docuseries, Cutting My Mother, about his mother, Cindy Silver, and their efforts to move past this event in their relationship. While shooting a scene at the temple where Cindy attended services, Nathan learned that his mother was getting a late in life Bat Mitzvah. “My parents were culturally Jewish, but not at all religious,” Silver says. “So the fact that she even joined the temple was one thing, but we discovered that she was getting her Bat Mitzvah.” This revelation about his mother’s late-life religious engagement planted the seed for Between the Temples. “A few weeks later, I was at a party and I ran into my old publicist, Adam Kersh,” Silver says. “I related this to him, that my mom was getting a late-in-life Bat Mitzvah. And he’s like, ‘Oh my God, there’s like a movie there.’” Between the Temples follows Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman, Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limited), a cantor who is grappling with the loss of his singing voice, faith and purpose after the sudden death of his novelist wife. Ben’s two doting mothers, Meira (Caroline Aaron, Sleepless in Seattle, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Judith (Dolly DeLeon, Triangle of Sadness, Ghostlight), along with his Rabbi (Robert Smigel, Marriage Story) are all eager for him to re-engage with life and find a new love, setting him up with any young Jewish woman they can find. However, it is the unlikely reappearance of Carla Kessler (Carol Kane, Annie Hall, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Ben’s middle school music teacher, who joins Ben’s B’Nai Mitzvah class, that gives Ben a meaningful connection that sparks his journey toward healing.

Silver and his co-writer, C. Mason Wells, with whom he had previously collaborated on Thirst Street (2018), got to work on a script, and from the beginning, they only had one person in mind for the role of Ben Gottlieb. “The script was written with Jason in mind,” Silvers says. While Silver had never met Schwartzman, he had a connection through a close friend, actor Damien Bonnard, who appeared in Thirst Street and worked with Schwarztman on Wes Anderson’s 2023 film Asteroid City.  “So he spent like a summer hanging out with Jason in Spain,” Silver says. “They formed a friendship, and so when the script was ready, Damien put in a good word and told Jason, ‘You need to look out for this. You and Nathan would get along very well,’ and he listened to Damien, then read it and we talked. And we hit it off.”

The next step was finding the right person for the pivotal role of Carla, and this came about in a much more serendipitous manner.  “I was on my honeymoon. I had Covid, and I was in a feverish sleep, and suddenly Carol Kane popped into my brain,”  Silver says. The producing team immediately agreed that the acclaimed actress, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1975 for her role in Hester Street, was the perfect choice. As it turned out, Kane had long wanted to work with Schwartzman, and as such, it wasn’t difficult to get her onboard the film.

Between the Temples can be described as a film about faith, though it’s rooted as much in the  the faith that are person places in others and themselves as it is religious faith. Silver’s upbringing in a secular household gave him a unique perspective on the subject. “For me, the movie is about human connection, about these two characters connecting,” Silver says. “But I think Judaism and its core is about questioning everything. It’s in Talmudic scholarship of living. So these characters are questioning their lives, and that’s a very Jewish thing, and I think it’s about answering a question with a question. So we should question everything in front of us at all times so that we can try and live a better life and make life better for others.”

As hilarious as it is touching, Between the Temples exemplifies Nathan Silver’s talent for turning life’s unexpected moments into powerful storytelling, weaving together both personal and universal themes into a comedic tapestry. As Silver continues to explore life and art, Between the Temples stands as a testament to his unique vision.

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