Director Nathan Silver has been making arts about Jewish mothers for a while.
It all started with Cindy Silver, his own mother. She has been in quite a few of his films, and is the subject of “Cutting My Mother,” a documentary series about her journey studying for an adult bat mitzvah. That series was the inspiration for the fictional “Between the Temples,” about Carla Kessler, who decides to have her own adult bat mitzvah in her 60s.
Carol Kane plays the free-spirited character in “Between the Temples,” and she has spoken about how she drew inspiration from her own Jewish mother, Joy. When Joy was 55, she moved from Ohio to Paris and reinvented herself as a legendary music teacher, living in a small bathroom-less hotel room, following her dreams in the French capital.
Now, in Silver’s latest short film “Carol and Joy,” produced by Natalie Portman, he turns his camera to the special mother-daughter relationship between the actor and her now 98-year-old mother.
The film paints “a portrait of the ‘Hester Street’ star and her 98-year-old mother Joy, an active music teacher, former dancer and lifelong Francophile who live together on New York’s Upper West Side,” according to a synopsis. “In this intimate vérité documentary shot on 16mm in the tradition of nonfiction classics from the ’60s and ’70s, Silver visits Carol and Joy in their home for an afternoon of music and friends and stories, covering decades of family, history, art and a truly special mother-daughter relationship.”
The film is supposed to make you feel like you’re spending the afternoon with this dynamic duo. You walk into their shared apartment and witness their creative cooperative overlap; we get a glimpse at the teeth marks on the ivory of Joy’s piano, drink coffee with them (Joy takes her with Ensure), glimpse the cozy but humble daybed where Carol sleeps — even though she owns another apartment in the Upper West Side building. And once in a while, the afternoon is interrupted by the constraints of filming on 16mm: the tape runs out.
Silver’s newest film allows the audience to spend 39 minutes in the quaint, magical world of Carol and Joy. It’s filled with music, love and the perfect amount of chaos.
“Carol and Joy” debuts exclusively on the Criterion Channel on Dec. 1, 2025.
