Tevye (Topol) is a Russian Jew, eking out a meagre living as a milkman in the early 20th century, in what is now the Ukraine. He is married with five children and wishes to marry them all off as well as he can, given he has no money for the sort of dowry that would secure the most eligible (i.e. wealthy) suitors. But the times are changing and each of his eldest three daughters have other ideas, setting their sights on a poor but kind tailor, a “modern” intellectual with seemingly fanciful notions of development and even revolution and (horror of horrors) a non-Jew Ukrainian. As all of the match-making progresses, Tevye must also reckon with a further spectre hanging over him and his family, the prospect of the entire village being moved on and displaced by increasingly inhospitable and anti-Semitic forces within Tsarist Russia.
*****
Fiddler on the Roof (like West Side Story before it, which is also enjoying a big anniversary Bluray release this month) was already much-loved and well-known before getting the cinematic treatment. It had enjoyed successful runs at the theatre in America and the UK and indeed Topol (impeccably cast as the loving, candid and charismatic Tevye) had already played the lead character on stage. Rather than messing with a settled and familiar product, it was simply tweaked slightly to suit it better for the big screen and off it went.
At a time when the popularity of musicals was emphatically on the wane (director Norman Jewison had successfully pitted his excellent In the Heat of the Night against Doctor Dolittle at the Oscars in the late 1960’s, when that bloated musical did not fare well at all), Jewison took a great risk in attempting to stage a big production, shooting outside Zagreb in what was then Yugoslavia (now Croatia) and releasing a relatively old-fashioned 3-hour musical to audiences which, especially in the US, were beginning to encounter the first crests of the increasingly independent (or at least independently-minded) films of the early 1970’s. Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde had been and gone, The French Connection and The Godfather and Mean Streets were all on their way and what Jewison was giving us here was therefore very much going against the grain.
Having said that, what Jewison gave us was entirely successful, utterly memorable and not only iconic but moving, important and heart-warming. As the patriarch, Topol is simply perfect, by turns warm, affectionate, witty, frustrated, wise, angry and frustrated. Leonard Frey plays the tailor whose heart is set on Tevye’s eldest daughter and is clumsy, shy, but utterly endearing. The three eldest daughters (there are two further girls, but they rarely feature) work splendidly together, very different in their characters and aspirations, but unmistakably a family.
Every supporting player, from the suitors for the daughters, through the village Rabbi and his son, the butcher, the elderly matchmaker and the Russian constable who must eventually oust the Jews for fear of losing his job (or worse) are perfectly cast, all essaying their roles impeccably. Eventually, the film loses much of its “musical-ness”, much of which winds up ultimately being associated with the earlier, thematically lighter elements of the narrative, as the spectre of eviction grows more threatening the mood darkens, the singing mostly stops and the shadow of the holocaust begins to fall. As the townsfolk are ordered to move on, they discuss their destinies, one family heading to Chicago, another to New York. One lady is going to Israel, one couple are off to Warsaw, Poland. Though nothing is spelled out (thank heavens, it would have been terribly trite in an otherwise very subtle film), but you cannot help put wonder if they would find themselves displaced once again a couple of decades later, this time to Auschwitz, or somewhere similar.
It is a film that manages that seemingly impossible task of marrying a relatively light-hearted tale of a man trying to find husbands for his daughters with a story about Jews and their seemingly endless battle to find and keep a home in this world, without becoming tonally shaky or incoherent. Songs like Tradition and If I Were a Rich Man are now embedded in our consciousness and we have this to thank. It is a film that is an utter, utter success and comes highly recommended. You can catch it here and if you haven’t before, you really should.
[Rating:4.5/5]
Extras: Lots and lots. Jewison and Topol sort of team up for a commentary track, though they were clearly not in the same room and so although it is well-edited together, there is some repetition in their recollections and anecdotes. A one hour-long documentary on Norman Jewison as a film-maker, shot mostly while the film was being made is mostly fairly interesting, though a shorter, more recent doc covering Jewison’s more considered reflections on the film with the benefit of a little more hindsight is a better watch.
Short featurettes on the three daughters (with up to date contributions from the actresses), John Williams’ re-working of the score, the songs of the film and the production design are all very welcome, as is a 30 minute storyboard to film comparison, a delete scene and a fully-colourised version of a dream sequence from the film. Trailers and TV Spots round out this 40th anniversary re-release. Oh and the HD transfer is perfect.
[Rating: 4/5]
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc’]
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw’]
