The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 267 Days to go: 261
Movie #110: Fiddler on the Roof
I was in a production of Fiddler on the Roof in high school (not as a named character — my mother always told me I was an awful singer, so I was terrified to ever audition for anything other than chorus). Drama was actually my favorite class the one year it was available, and my participation in our school theater productions was the only thing I really cared about in high school, so Fiddler on the Roof holds a special nostalgic place in my heart. And while I understand and appreciate the film’s (and original stage musical’s) ruminations on faith and tradition, and the mindless, pointless persecution of Jews going back years before the Holocaust, for me the film will always be about a girl pulling away from her parents, forging her own path, and marrying the man she loves. Okay, technically it’s about three girls doing that, but you get the idea.
Tevye (Topol) is the patriarch of his family in Anatevka, Russia, early in the 20th century, before WWI and the Russian Revolution. Their town is split between Jews and Christians, with both sides steeped in culture and tradition. One of the traditions is that of matchmaking, where the woman assigned the role of Matchmaker (Yente, played by Molly Picon) will try to find husbands for the eligible daughters of the town. Tevye and his wife Golde (Norma Crane), as it happens, have five daughters. In the playful and iconic song “Matchmaker,” the three oldest daughters — Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava (played by Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh and Neva Small) — sing first of their romantic ideal of a husband: “For Papa, make him a scholar, for Mama, make him rich as a king. For me, well, I wouldn’t holler if he were as handsome as anything!” The song turns, then, to the harsher realities of matchmaking — that they have no choice in the man, that he may be old or fat or abusive or a drunk, or all of the above. The lyrics become hesitant and wary as the girls hope the Matchmaker remembers they are still young, still have years before they need to marry. “Playing with matches a girl can get burned.” They resolve that they don’t want any match at all, unless he is their perfect match. Unfortunately, the Matchmaker has other plans.
Over the course of the movie, each of the three oldest daughters approaches her father with the man she loves, asking his permission to marry. Tzeitel, it turns out, had pledged to marry the tailor Motel (Leonard Frey) over a year earlier, and while this insults Tevye’s position as the head of the household and the traditions of their culture, he wants his daughter to be happy. He knows that Motel is a poor man, but a good Jewish one, and he will take care of Tzeitel. So he gives his permission and gets Tzeitel out of Yente’s plan for her to marry Lazar Wolf (Paul Mann) via elaborate dream sequence that involves Lazar’s deceased first wife threatening to kill Tzeitel from the grave. (Poor Lazar Wolf, relegated to living the rest of his life in loneliness because of Tevye’s machinations.)
Each progressive daughter, however, pushes the limits of Tevye’s indulgence. Hodel wants to marry a poor student revolutionary (Perchik, played by original Starsky, Paul Michael Glaser) who has no occupation or means of support at all. But at least he’s a man of faith, and a learned one at that. When he gets arrested and sent to Siberia, Hodel leaves to find work there and live by his side. She gives up everything for love, but Tevye finds there’s more to give. Chava gives up even her own faith and family when she falls in love with a Christian and Tevye forbids her marriage outside their faith. Chava disobeys him and elopes with Fyedka (Raymond Lovelock), and Tevye disowns her completely. She is dead to him.
I may not have ever defied my parents to that extent, or even been held to such a standard, but I know well the driving need for a girl to come into her own, to find her own way and to live her own life. And to be honest, I’ve sympathized but never supported Tevye over the affront to his ideals — certainly not as a teenage girl, but even now as a parent, I can’t condone his treatment of Chava. My role as a parent is to help guide my children into adulthood, to help them live their best lives, not to hinder them. And my love as a parent, my hope for my children’s happiness, trumps any other hopes or desires I have for their futures. Obviously I would never think of dictating who my children marry — it’s a different time now, completely — but I also would never force them into a specific career or faith or lifestyle. All I want is for them to be good people, productive individuals, healthy and happy and fulfilled. What more could any parent want?
As a movie, though, I will always love Fiddler on the Roof. I will love the music and the struggle and the love Tevye expresses when he wishes “God be with you” to Chava and Fyedka as they leave for Krakow. And knowing the events that will come to Krakow and all of Poland in the coming years, I hope beyond hope that Chava and her family, and Tzeitel and her family (not to mention Hodel and her family in Siberia), all make it to New York one day to reunite with Tevye and Golde and the younger girls who, now that they’ve been forced out of their little Jewish community, (“Chicago, America? We’re going to New York, America. We’ll be neighbors!”) might not have to marry the boys the Matchmaker set for them either.
It may be silly to get this invested in a movie, but I’m always hoping girls in films (and, by extension, the girls in real life who will be influenced by what they see in the world around them) will strive for more, will fight for independence, will find a way to live the lives of their choices, rather than the choices others make for them. It’s my greatest passion.
“The world is changing, Papa.”
Viable Option 