Musical Mondays Week 96 Fiddler on the Roof

[Cameron H. 23786]

It’s Monday, and you know what that means. It’s...

 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

It’s Monday, and you know what that means. It’s...

 

All day long I would comment on the movie, if I were a wealthy man.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

Ok, deep breath...
 

So this movie has fascinated me for a long time. It definitely pairs with the other movie adaptation of a spiritually focused musical directed by Norman Jewison in the early 1970s, Jesus Christ Superstar. The latter is definitely a much lower budget endeavor which puzzles me considering such a monster hit Fiddler on the Roof Was. I think in college I was looking up what were the most successful movies in big, important years in cinema and I was shocked to see what a phenomenon Fiddler was. A year before The Godfather, two years after Easy Rider supposedly made old Hollywood ideas (like epic musicals) extinct, was this, to me, an anomaly of a film. I know the Broadway musical was a smash, but a three-hour musical about pogroms, poverty, and the conflict between tradition and modernity in late Tsarist Russia seemed so unlikely to me. Plus, one of the most challenging and rewarding classes I took in college, around the time I discovered this movie, was a History of Russia class, much of which focused on this exact time period.

Structurally, I think this musical is interesting from the get-go because it kind of has an "I want" song in "Tradition," but what Tevye wants is for things to stay the same as they always have been, just if he could maybe have a little more money and have to work a little less hard. Especially considering how much his family and his entire life are upended by the end of the film, our protagonist is actively opposing progress throughout the movie (though he's more open to change than a lot of his fellow villagers). Tevye is our window into this world, but what fascinated me about him is that he's just a bit beyond an Everyman character: he's a little smarter, a little wiser, a little funnier, has a little more perspective, works a little harder, has a little more of an active relationship with God, and is willing to bend the rules a little more than his fellow villagers. Not a lot, but a little. And all of those little bits make him, to me, a hero. So by the end, even when it takes his entire family yelling at him for him to acknowledge his daughter again, even if only for a moment, we see him carting all his belongings through the mud with a rope over his shoulder, he is a hero.

Sure, we'd like him to be heroic enough to accept his daughter with open arms at that moment, but in this moment in history, in this movie, that is just a bridge too far. Tevye's life has been entirely upended by these gentile Russians; his daughter's wedding was ruined, his family is displaced, and his ancestral home destroyed. And now his own child is married to one? FUCK.

I think that's a wonderful illustration of the theme of Tradition introduced in the opening song. It's tradition that this town, this community, this religion, has survived for millenia, living through pogroms and crusades and genocide. Their entire existence lives on the precipice of destruction (like that Fiddler), so of course this community depends on tradition to keep it together and alive. It is to Tevye's credit that he is able to recognize the damaging, or at least not useful, elements of that tradition and let it go, so his daughters can find happiness. Sure he grumbles about God and his fate, but he comes around eventually. Musically, the film stands out as it embodies that tradition with its orchestration and instrumentation. It combines 20th century modes of storytelling (the Broadway/big film musical) with sounds and rhythms of traditional Jewish music and culture. We are listening to the give and take of progress vs. tradition that is going on in Tevye's own mind.

I know a lot of people are bothered by the tonal shift after the intermission, but I actually find it thematically appropriate. I think it is indicative of the life of Jews in Eastern Europe for much of the last, well, millennia. That is, existing on the edge between livable misery and intolerable trauma, going from where one is able to joke about one's living conditions in order to suffer through it, to tragedy so severe it constitutes a landmark break from everything one knows and cherishes. They lived that edge-of-the rooftop existence every day for generations.

I have MANY more thoughts on this film, but I will end this rant by saying that this movie connects to me even on a spiritual level. The tableau at the end of the film, with the villagers, now refugees, staring starkly and longingly into both the camera and their grim future, breaks my heart. These images echo every Jewish refugee in history, from ancient Babylon to the Holocaust, and the Boomer generation that made up much of the audience for this film, whose own familes barely escaped or were victims of that genocide, it must has been harrowing. Me being Catholic, it affects me in a different way; in that I am reminded of all the refugee crises America has ignored since then, from Syria to those at our own border. It's reprehensible and tragic on a global scale and, personally, it's against everything I believe in to ignore people in such poverty and pain. The Bible is full of Jewish refugees that it frames as heroes, not just the many mentioned in Fiddler on the Roof, but also that one Jesus guy. So any Christian who would ignore these people, or participate in their destruction, makes me just so fucking angry. There's a panoply of movies about global crises of the present or the past, but maybe it's the smallness of the scale of this film combined with the scale of the music that makes it connect with me so deeply. 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I watched a different movie.  I watched one about the Japanese village of Anatev-kyo.

Then there was the followup in Anatoledo.

[Cam Bert 8145]

1 hour ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

Ok, deep breath...
 

So this movie has fascinated me for a long time. It definitely pairs with the other movie adaptation of a spiritually focused musical directed by Norman Jewison in the early 1970s, Jesus Christ Superstar. The latter is definitely a much lower budget endeavor which puzzles me considering such a monster hit Fiddler on the Roof Was. I think in college I was looking up what were the most successful movies in big, important years in cinema and I was shocked to see what a phenomenon Fiddler was. A year before The Godfather, two years after Easy Rider supposedly made old Hollywood ideas (like epic musicals) extinct, was this, to me, an anomaly of a film. I know the Broadway musical was a smash, but a three-hour musical about pogroms, poverty, and the conflict between tradition and modernity in late Tsarist Russia seemed so unlikely to me. Plus, one of the most challenging and rewarding classes I took in college, around the time I discovered this movie, was a History of Russia class, much of which focused on this exact time period.

Structurally, I think this musical is interesting from the get-go because it kind of has an "I want" song in "Tradition," but what Tevye wants is for things to stay the same as they always have been, just if he could maybe have a little more money and have to work a little less hard. Especially considering how much his family and his entire life are upended by the end of the film, our protagonist is actively opposing progress throughout the movie (though he's more open to change than a lot of his fellow villagers). Tevye is our window into this world, but what fascinated me about him is that he's just a bit beyond an Everyman character: he's a little smarter, a little wiser, a little funnier, has a little more perspective, works a little harder, has a little more of an active relationship with God, and is willing to bend the rules a little more than his fellow villagers. Not a lot, but a little. And all of those little bits make him, to me, a hero. So by the end, even when it takes his entire family yelling at him for him to acknowledge his daughter again, even if only for a moment, we see him carting all his belongings through the mud with a rope over his shoulder, he is a hero.

Sure, we'd like him to be heroic enough to accept his daughter with open arms at that moment, but in this moment in history, in this movie, that is just a bridge too far. Tevye's life has been entirely upended by these gentile Russians; his daughter's wedding was ruined, his family is displaced, and his ancestral home destroyed. And now his own child is married to one? FUCK.

I think that's a wonderful illustration of the theme of Tradition introduced in the opening song. It's tradition that this town, this community, this religion, has survived for millenia, living through pogroms and crusades and genocide. Their entire existence lives on the precipice of destruction (like that Fiddler), so of course this community depends on tradition to keep it together and alive. It is to Tevye's credit that he is able to recognize the damaging, or at least not useful, elements of that tradition and let it go, so his daughters can find happiness. Sure he grumbles about God and his fate, but he comes around eventually. Musically, the film stands out as it embodies that tradition with its orchestration and instrumentation. It combines 20th century modes of storytelling (the Broadway/big film musical) with sounds and rhythms of traditional Jewish music and culture. We are listening to the give and take of progress vs. tradition that is going on in Tevye's own mind.

I know a lot of people are bothered by the tonal shift after the intermission, but I actually find it thematically appropriate. I think it is indicative of the life of Jews in Eastern Europe for much of the last, well, millennia. That is, existing on the edge between livable misery and intolerable trauma, going from where one is able to joke about one's living conditions in order to suffer through it, to tragedy so severe it constitutes a landmark break from everything one knows and cherishes. They lived that edge-of-the rooftop existence every day for generations.

I have MANY more thoughts on this film, but I will end this rant by saying that this movie connects to me even on a spiritual level. The tableau at the end of the film, with the villagers, now refugees, staring starkly and longingly into both the camera and their grim future, breaks my heart. These images echo every Jewish refugee in history, from ancient Babylon to the Holocaust, and the Boomer generation that made up much of the audience for this film, whose own familes barely escaped or were victims of that genocide, it must has been harrowing. Me being Catholic, it affects me in a different way; in that I am reminded of all the refugee crises America has ignored since then, from Syria to those at our own border. It's reprehensible and tragic on a global scale and, personally, it's against everything I believe in to ignore people in such poverty and pain. The Bible is full of Jewish refugees that it frames as heroes, not just the many mentioned in Fiddler on the Roof, but also that one Jesus guy. So any Christian who would ignore these people, or participate in their destruction, makes me just so fucking angry. There's a panoply of movies about global crises of the present or the past, but maybe it's the smallness of the scale of this film combined with the scale of the music that makes it connect with me so deeply. 

I liked it because the one guy was called Laser Wolf*

*yes I'm aware it's spelled differently

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

You better fucking believe I love me some laser wolves!

[Cam Bert 8145]

1 hour ago, Cinco DeNio said:

I watched a different movie.  I watched one about the Japanese village of Anatev-kyo.

I get how to a country that probably doesn't really know what Judaism is beyond its name it would be hard to market a movie like this so they play up the romance angle. However the choice to focus not only on the Perchik and Hodel romance in picture and in tagline in the top corner makes me wonder how confusing the movie must have been. They even give away he gets hulled off to Siberia. 

[grudlian. 4725]

Has anyone seen the play of this? Imdb says the play is more comedic. I was wondering how the tone worked especially with the more serious second half. Also, did that weird dream sequence work in the play?

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

JAMES BOND CONNECTIONS!

The most prominent is Topol (oh Topol, what a lovable charmer), who plays Milos Columbo in For Your Eyes Only

Vernon Dobtcheff, who plays the black-suited Russian official who appears menacingly right before the wedding, played Max Kalba in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Cinematography by Oswald Morris who photographed The Man With the Golden Gun.

Set decoration by Peter Lamont who did set decoration, art direction, and production design for 18 James Bond films

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

13 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Has anyone seen the play of this? Imdb says the play is more comedic. I was wondering how the tone worked especially with the more serious second half. Also, did that weird dream sequence work in the play?

I have not seen the play, but yeah, even considering how much of a fan I am of this film, the "dream" doesn't work. Too long and unfunny.... and it's filmed like a dream when it's just totally made up... which makes it seem like the movie thinks it's funny?

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Want to see our "hero" as he was a few years before the movie?

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I don't know a way on Dailymotion to start clips at a certain point so I will suggest several timestamps.  The clip is the entire episode (from 1966) of The Danny Kaye Show where Topol was one of the guest stars.  At the time he was playing Tevye in a production in London.

1st spot: Around 41:15 where Topol and Danny sing L'Chaim in Yiddish.

2nd spot: Around 36:56 where Danny interviews Topol and Senta Berger.

3rd spot: Around 29:15, where Topol first comes on in a sketch

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Cinco DeNio
Corrected 2nd time stamp.

[Cameron H. 23786]

8 hours ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

Plus, one of the most challenging and rewarding classes I took in college, around the time I discovered this movie

While I was aware of its existence, my first real exposure to this film was also in college. One of my professors would constantly, and I mean constantly, bring up this movie and its themes when discussing literature. Shouting "TRADITION!" at the top of his lungs. 

  

[Cameron H. 23786]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does Tevye ever blame their misfortune on his compromises? If not, that's a really interesting aspect of the story. It would be easy for him to say, "Well, if we hadn't broken tradition, none of this would have happened!" but as far as I can recall, he never does. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the bad things happened *because* he capitulated, but it would be totally understandable if he were to attribute their misfortune to his breaking of tradition. ("I let my daughter convince me to break my oath to another person, and then her wedding was ruined; I allowed my middlest daughter to marry without my permission, and her husband got thrown in jail and she is forced to move to Siberia to be with him; my daughter marries a Christian, and now we are set adrift as diaspora. ")  

    

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

13 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does Tevye ever blame their misfortune on his compromises? If not, that's a really interesting aspect of the story. It would be easy for him to say, "Well, if we hadn't broken tradition, none of this would have happened!" but as far as I can recall, he never does. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the bad things happened *because* he capitulated, but it would be totally understandable if he were to attribute their misfortune to his breaking of tradition. ("I let my daughter convince me to break my oath to another person, and then her wedding was ruined; I allowed my middlest daughter to marry without my permission, and her husband got thrown in jail and she is forced to move to Siberia to be with him; my daughter marries a Christian, and now we are set adrift as diaspora. ")  

    

He doesn't, and that's one of the strengths of his character, and what makes him such a great ambassador to this world for the audience. He doesn't blame anyone for his own misfortunes, except God, and even then, it's more like, "God, You say the poor are the most blessed. So I could stand a little less blessing maybe?" [not an exact quote, but you get the idea]. He acknowledges his misfortunes, but moves forward and is still able to celebrate "To Life!" He's even admiring when he sees that attitude expressed in his eldest daughter and her husband, the tailor. "They are so happy, they don't know how miserable they are!"

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

I know no one in here is a big Hamilton fan but maybe, after viewing Lin-Manuel Miranda and his father-in-law's creativity, maybe give the show a 2nd chance?

 

[grudlian. 4725]

5 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

Want to see our "hero" as he was a few years before the movie?

So, this kind of confirms the makeup on this movie is fantastic. Watching this, I was shocked that Topol was 35. I don't know how old he is in this picture but I'd guess 40 at the absolute max whereas I would have guessed 50 minimum for Fiddler.

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

1 hour ago, grudlian. said:

So, this kind of confirms the makeup on this movie is fantastic. Watching this, I was shocked that Topol was 35. I don't know how old he is in this picture but I'd guess 40 at the absolute max whereas I would have guessed 50 minimum for Fiddler.

Agreed. Old age makeup is something that is rarely done convincingly, but it's done exceptionally well in Fiddler. This is Topol from For Your Eyes Only, made 10 years later, but he still looks younger than Tevye.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

15 hours ago, grudlian. said:

So, this kind of confirms the makeup on this movie is fantastic. Watching this, I was shocked that Topol was 35. I don't know how old he is in this picture but I'd guess 40 at the absolute max whereas I would have guessed 50 minimum for Fiddler.

The picture is from a TV episode about 5 years before the movie was released so Topol is around 30 in the picture.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Question: Who is making the dairy products that Tevye sells?  I understand him and his family milking the cow and him selling the raw milk, but the cheeses?  If it's Tevye, where is he getting the time if his deliveries take all day?  Besides, shouldn't he be in good stead with God?

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

@Cam Bert and I just finished watching Hamilton for the first time.  I cried at the end once Eliza came on.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

@Cam Bert mentioned the Got Milk? commercial.  Here's the original then some others.

Here's "Aaron Burr" (Leslie Odom, Jr's) recreation.

https://ew.com/article/2015/05/20/hamiltons-aaron-burr-recreates-famous-got-milk-commercial/

 

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

So before we do the Pick Thread for next week, I just wanted to thank everyone for indulging me in this particular film, as it's one I love quite a bit. Also, sorry if my big rant at the beginning took things a bit... seriously. I didn't mean to kill the fun mood or anything, it's just the movie makes me think about serious topics and I just find myself taking shit kinda seriously lately. So yeah, thanks everyone!

[TheeCupcakeKid 25]

My dad's uncle passed away recently and he has hundreds of vinyl records. I already posted that I saw his The Jazz Singer Record and told my dad, I have to have this no matter what. I also have the original musical Fiddler record, and I am keeping that along with the original Sound of Music and other musicals! I am so excited to listen to them all! 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

20 hours ago, TheeCupcakeKid said:

My dad's uncle passed away recently and he has hundreds of vinyl records. I already posted that I saw his The Jazz Singer Record and told my dad, I have to have this no matter what. I also have the original musical Fiddler record, and I am keeping that along with the original Sound of Music and other musicals! I am so excited to listen to them all! 

Sorry about your dad's uncle's passing.