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At first, I had trouble accepting this musical, because it was very unusual. But in the end, it gets my respect, and it can't be compared to other musicals. The ending in Fiddler is very sad, as the Jews are forced from their homes. The other sad ending in musicals is West Side Story, but that is not as sad. The Sound of Music has some sadness to it, but is overall happy. Other than that, most musicals are happy.
In Fiddler, a family with five daughters lives in poverty. And the three oldest fall in love and get married all in the wrong way, breaking with tradition, in increasing measure. That is interesting, although somewhat repetitive. I was actually thankful that the father rejected the last engagement (which was to a Gentile), because it broke the repetition of the movie, where he would give in and bless the marriages. Although it was sad that he treated his daughter as though she was dead.
The music is catchy, although there are a few bad songs, which is normal for musicals. There are a few gems of songs - Matchmaker, If I Were a Rich Man, and "Tradition". The acting was good.
And I appreciate the emotion of the movie. In some areas, it failed to seem real, with the fake snow, or acting/dancing, or whatever. But at some points I was deeply touched by what was happening. I think film is the best way to communicate injustice, because characters are developed and I love them, and then when injustice happens to them, it affects me. Wheras, if injustice happens in a newspaper in real life, I am disconnected from the people, and not affected emotionally. I feel ashamed to live in a world where people treat each other in the way depicted in Fiddler on the Roof. And these are events that really happened, and these types of things still happen.
Fiddler is one of my personal favorites. I have a CD with the original Broadway Tevye (Topol.) I prefer the Zero Mostel characterization of Tevye much better than the Topol version, as Mostel more accurately portrays the difficulties of serf life and attitudes. His appearance in the movie, the timbre of his voice, and his overall demeanor are much more that of the land-worried serf than Topol, who flips between flippant and morose, neither of which are well suited to the Russian Jew and his circumstances of the time, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteAnd, unlike Daniel, I can almost understand the point at which the father disowns his daughter for wanting to marry a Christian boy.
Don't get me wrong, we are all the same when we are pared down to our souls, and love conquers all at that point. But having seen racial prejudice firsthand (my first son was of mixed race, and one day his mother and I weren't allowed to take him home because he "couldn't be ours.") I understand at a very deep level how "tradition" is important to those of older eras, and for us to discount their feelings can be a slap in the face, nothing that any of us (hopefully) would do out-of-hand.
Racial, cultural, and ethnic purity are still tremendously powerful issues today. Fiddler shines the light right back onto the core issue of "is sameness better than difference."
My answer is "yes." Not "it depends on the situation" or "are children involved?" The answer is the same. Neither sameness nor difference is better. The keys are in tolerance and love. Without either, there will always be differences, no matter the skin color or what book of the bible at which one stops reading.