by Sam Juliano
The Sixth Annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival will launch this coming Saturday, May 28th, with an opening salvo by project founder Jamie Uhler. Ten people have enlisted for the noble project, which will continue until Monday, June 6th. The day-to-day schedule was printed on last week’s MMD, and the writers have been sending on their fabulous submissions since days prior. Many thanks to those who will be taking a seat to follow this always-fascinating endeavor, and to Jamie, whose original idea has proven to have remarkable resilience.
My work on Irish Jesus in Fairview continued this week, and while I am not maintaining the pace I had hoped to, I am still making modest progress. I have given myself a deadline, so that I can begin the editing process.
The Spain/Portugal Film Polling will conclude tomorrow at 5:00 P.M. Deepest appreciation to those who have cast ballots and others who have been keen to follow all our international pollings. Next up will be the Best Films of Africa and the Middle East, which will launch on Saturday, the same day the AFOFF begins.
Lucille and I watched two recent films this past week and both were solid. The “making of” the 1971 film musical landmark Fiddler on the Roof revisited many associated with the work Pauline Kael called “the most powerful movie musical ever made,” especially director Norman Jewison, who was both revealing and funny. The man who also directed In the Heat of the Night related that everyone thought he was Jewish because of his name, which implies he was “a son of a Jew.” yet this non-Jew was a force in created the quintessential Jewish-themed musical, a film that 51 years later is as wonderful and deeply-moving as it was upon its first release. I loved Zero Mostel, but the soulful Israeli actor Topol is the definitive Tevye, and his performance was every bit as great in its own way as the one by Gene Hackman that won the Oscar.
The German prison drama, Great Freedom was a riveting work, both disturbing and trenchant.
Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles **** 1/2 (Vimeo)
Great Freedom **** 1/2 (Amazon Prime)
Wishing everyone a wonderful week!
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Wonders in the Dark 
Sam,
I saw FIDDLER in 2020 (part of the JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival that year) and pronounced it one of the best pictures I had seen that year. I hope you won’t mind if I reproduce my capsule review of it here; I really think everyone, especially fans of musicals, should see it:
For my money a best of the fest, FIDDLER: A MIRACLE OF MIRACLES is a packed 92 minutes of intellectual stimulation and emotional fulfillment. Director Max Lewkowicz doesn’t miss a thing in this definitive look at the development of the phenomenally constructed and wildly successful musical Fiddler on the Roof, which premiered on Broadway in 1964. He deftly covers the source material from Sholem Aleichem, even burrowing into the Yiddish writer’s antipathy for matchmakers in a close reading of the underlying brutality of the song “Matchmaker”; a clip from Alexis Granowsky’s JEWISH LUCK (1925), a film based on Aleichem’s sinister creation, Menakhem Mendl, shows that Mendl’s “matchmaking” scheme amounted to trafficking Jewish women to brothels in Argentina. He threads us through the production numbers from the beginning of the musical to the end, using excerpts from various productions and the 1971 Norman Jewison film, and commentary from a wide variety of luminaries: actors, including three Tevyes (Michael Bernardi [son of former Tevye Herschel Bernardi], Danny Burstein, and Chaim Topol); Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock, and Joseph Stein, the writers of the lyrics, music, and book, respectively; and even the obligatory appearance of Hamilton phenom Lin-Manuel Miranda, who, for once, actually contributes something meaningful to a documentary about something he wasn’t part of. We learn that the title and set design were strongly influenced by the paintings of Marc Chagall. We learn that unwritten reviews of the first out-of-town tryout in Detroit—not written due to a newspaper strike—would have been bad; and how much reworking the show went through under the talented, but tyrannical, rule of director Jerome Robbins. We see parts of a Japanese production and learn that the Japanese team wondered whether an American audience could understand a work that was so Japanese in feeling. The amount of information that is skillfully conveyed is truly breathtaking, but more astonishing is the depth of feeling communicated through the performances and interviews. Topol tearing up when remembering the last scene he shot in Jewison’s movie—saying good-bye to Hodel (Michele Marsh) in “Far From the Home I Love”—had me choking up as well. I’m really only scratching the surface of what this documentary offers. You may not think you need to know more about Fiddler on the Roof, but, trust me, you do.
Marilyn, you asked me if “I mind?” OMG I am so so thrilled you posted this magnificent review, which is as thorough and comprehensive as my few words are not. Just what i wanted to read as well, having just watched this superlative documentary over the weekend. You appear to have nailed it in every sense! I didn’t realize or somehow had forgotten that you issued such effusive praise for it, but I have to say I am with you on every beat. That goodbye to Hodel (by Topol) was one of the most tearful scenes in all movies. FIDDLER is one of my favorite musicals of all-time, and having seen the ordinal run as a grade-school student, I can say without reservation that the film does it full justice and more. Reading your affectionate scholarship here has me smiling and nodding! Thank you so much my friend!
Sam, as always, you are a gracious host of WiTD. As for not remembering this review, it was done for Cine-File, which you may not follow as closely as you did Ferdy on Films. I smiled when I saw you had seen this – so glad the film is available to everyone on Vimeo.
Today would be the ideal day to duck into an old fleapit revival house and watch a double bill of, say, I Married a Witch and The Ghost Goes West. But moviegoers here in the provinces can’t because those comforting dives have been replaced by sleek soulless multiplexes showing Marvel movies in continuous rotation. Sigh.
Inconceivably, unbelievably Peggy Lee’s “Johnny Guitar” was NOT nominated for an Oscar
Happy birthday to her.
Happy birthday, Peggy, my favorite singer.