Fiddler on the Roof
Jun. 27th, 2014 05:33 pmPreamble
Before I knew this, I knew basically nothing about it other than being a famous Jewish film that Liv thought was good but was totally sick of.
In fact, I vaguely had the impression that it was set in New York about not-very-observant Jews, probably a young couple who moped a lot because they hadn't met yet until one of them heard the other playing a fiddle on the roof. That was REALLY REALLY WRONG!
Things I did not know about Fiddler on the Roof:
* It's a musical.
* It's set in 1905 eastern europe, at the time part of imperial russia, where jews were required to live.
* It's based on a series of stories in yiddish by the famous author with the pen name Sholem Aleichem.
* The title comes from a painting "The Fiddler" by Marc Chagall, one of many surreal paintings of Eastern European Jewish life, many including a fiddler.
* The eponymous fiddler is not a character, but is an allegory for finding joy in a very precarious situation.
Other thoughts
It's spooky seeing things I'm familiar with from Jewish friends, but probably wouldn't have noticed before I met Liv, existing much the same in a small poor jewish town that is a very different culture to most jews I know: covering your eyes when reading in the sabbath; wearing fringed garments; shouldering the Torah scrolls to carry them.
It's also interesting seeing a jewish culture when there were regional differences, but hadn't yet experienced major denominational schisms. Where wearing fringed garments, and black hats, and special beards, and keeping the sabbath fairly strictly and so were things just EVERYONE did, some learned, some devout but not very educated, some educated but not very observant. As opposed to now, when traditional clothing and attitudes have become associated with some denominations, and send I'm-very-serious-about-this messages.
And of course, the film ends with the Tsar throwing everyone out of the town, and emigrating... somewhere, wherever they could, with barely anything but the clothes on their backs and the torah scrolls. I know that's basically the story for the last 3000 years, but it's still always heartbreaking :(
Musicals
I'm reconfirmed in my idea that I like musicals a lot better when the songs actually involve progressing the plot or interacting with each other (eg. Buffy's Once More With Feeling, Wicked), rather than people spontaneously standing around explaining their feelings.
It's not a matter of realism -- I think musicals are a good artistic conceit, like "accepting the actors or on a stage, not really in a different country", and rarely cause any of the problems that inconsistent abstractions cause. I just don't like alternating between "plot" and "music", I like both at once :)
Before I knew this, I knew basically nothing about it other than being a famous Jewish film that Liv thought was good but was totally sick of.
In fact, I vaguely had the impression that it was set in New York about not-very-observant Jews, probably a young couple who moped a lot because they hadn't met yet until one of them heard the other playing a fiddle on the roof. That was REALLY REALLY WRONG!
Things I did not know about Fiddler on the Roof:
* It's a musical.
* It's set in 1905 eastern europe, at the time part of imperial russia, where jews were required to live.
* It's based on a series of stories in yiddish by the famous author with the pen name Sholem Aleichem.
* The title comes from a painting "The Fiddler" by Marc Chagall, one of many surreal paintings of Eastern European Jewish life, many including a fiddler.
* The eponymous fiddler is not a character, but is an allegory for finding joy in a very precarious situation.
Other thoughts
It's spooky seeing things I'm familiar with from Jewish friends, but probably wouldn't have noticed before I met Liv, existing much the same in a small poor jewish town that is a very different culture to most jews I know: covering your eyes when reading in the sabbath; wearing fringed garments; shouldering the Torah scrolls to carry them.
It's also interesting seeing a jewish culture when there were regional differences, but hadn't yet experienced major denominational schisms. Where wearing fringed garments, and black hats, and special beards, and keeping the sabbath fairly strictly and so were things just EVERYONE did, some learned, some devout but not very educated, some educated but not very observant. As opposed to now, when traditional clothing and attitudes have become associated with some denominations, and send I'm-very-serious-about-this messages.
And of course, the film ends with the Tsar throwing everyone out of the town, and emigrating... somewhere, wherever they could, with barely anything but the clothes on their backs and the torah scrolls. I know that's basically the story for the last 3000 years, but it's still always heartbreaking :(
Musicals
I'm reconfirmed in my idea that I like musicals a lot better when the songs actually involve progressing the plot or interacting with each other (eg. Buffy's Once More With Feeling, Wicked), rather than people spontaneously standing around explaining their feelings.
It's not a matter of realism -- I think musicals are a good artistic conceit, like "accepting the actors or on a stage, not really in a different country", and rarely cause any of the problems that inconsistent abstractions cause. I just don't like alternating between "plot" and "music", I like both at once :)