March 2, 2021
Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles (2019) ****
Amazon Prime
Free
Wildcard
“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles
I was afraid that God would frown
But like he did so long ago, at Jericho
God just made a wall fall down”
I spun the Tiny Decisions wheel to pick another 2020 movie today, deciding not to start watching all of those different Emmas all in a row, which might make me crazy, and it popped up a horror comedy called Come to Daddy.
I wasn’t really feeling it, but neither could I think of anything different, so I went over to Prime and what popped up on the first page was Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, because I recently put it on my watchlist when I was reminded that I had planned on seeing it in 2019 and then completely forgot about it! So, perfect timing.
For me, Fiddler on the Roof is Zero Mostel. I even saw him play Tevye onstage when I was a kid, because he toured that thing forever. Also, there is a great book by his wife, Kate Mostel, about her life and Zero’s, and Jack and Madeline Gilford, called 170 Years of Show Business, and it is one of my favourite books of all time, and of course there is a lot about Fiddler in it. And the blacklist, of course.
Zero was blacklisted, Jerome Robbins, director of the original production of Fiddler, was a friendly witness. For awhile I thought they weren’t going to go there in the film, but they they did devote a small amount of time to it, which I am glad about.
I always resented the fact that Topol did the movie instead of Zero, and when I saw it I did NOT like it. But seeing the clips in this film, it looks really good, and Topol is great! And much more grounded than Zero would have been. I should give it another shot.
Many years ago I read a wonderful book about the making of the original production called The Making of a Musical. In fact, I stopped after typing that sentence and bought it used online for eight bucks. Looking forward to reading it again!
Now, this documentary is not only about the original production but also about subsequent productions and the movie and the recent production in Yiddish (which was directed by Joel Grey, a thing I did not know!), and it’s just as interesting as that book was, even more so, because it is able to take a longer perspective.
Great works of art are universal, because that is how they speak to so many people, and sometimes a great work of art is very specifically about a time and a place and particular experiences, but is still universal, and we see these stories in our lives and our history, even if we aren’t a Russian Jewish family on the shtetl in 1905.
At one point, one of the writers tells the story about how they went to the first production in Japan, and at the interval they said to him, “Do they understand this show in America? It’s so Japanese!”
This is a terrific documentary about a terrific show. I might make a point to watch more theatre docs, I can think of several that I have never seen and want to. So, yesterday I saw Emma and was like, “Moar Emma!” Today I see a theatre doc and I’m like, “Moar theatre docs!” What will tomorrow bring?
365 Films in 365 Days 