Carol Kane, Between the Temples (photo by Presley Ann/Shutterstock for Sundance)
By Matthew Eng
There's a scene early in Nathan Silver's Between the Temples where Ben (Jason Schwartzman), a grieving cantor unable to sing, describes Carla (Carol Kane), his grade-school music teacher who also happens to be his newest and unlikeliest bat mitzvah student, as a different kind of funny. It's an apt way to describe the multifaceted delights of Kane's performance in this odd-couple comedy, now in theaters after debuting in competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
The film offers a refreshing change of pace for an actor who has tended to be typecast as daffy eccentrics and motormouthed imps. Kane's long and eclectic career is certainly full of indelible comedic characters. But just as memorable are the heart-quickening dramatic performances in which Kane conveys the enormity of a character's internal state by freezing a single expression of fright, wonder, distress, or ecstasy across a porcelain face that could have easily made her a silent movie star. (Recalling how Kane was nearly cast in Yentl [1983], Barbra Streisand marveled in her recent memoir at the actress' antique countenance, which made her look like someone from another century. )
Kane is as hilarious as audiences have known her to be in Between the Temples, while at the same time finding layers of valor and vulnerability in a character whose elaborate history, myriad idiosyncrasies, and generosity of spirit are given a proper showcase. Kane's voice - still high-pitched though grown huskier, even fuzzier, with time - remains a singular instrument capable of making mesmeric and mercurial music out of the plainest of prose. But the actor is just as potent here during moments of speechless sorrow and uncertainty, as when Carla is chastened into quietude as her beastly adult son mocks her impending bat mitzvah. It is a testament to the ardor and sensitivity of Kane's performance that Carla's dream is never reduced to comic fodder but emerges as a sincere and abiding dream, long nurtured and suddenly attainable.
I met with Kane in Manhattan a few days prior to the release of Between the Temples to talk about the unique artistic opportunity of Silver's film, the evolution of her acting process, the enduring inspiration of her nonagenarian mother, and rejecting the pigeonholing tendencies of the industry in which she remains a stalwart.
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Carol Kane, Between the Temples (photo by Presley Ann/Shutterstock for Sundance)
