DOCSLIB.ORG

The Shtetl on the Silver Screen: Two Recent Films

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Shtetl on the Silver Screen: Two Recent Films ilms figure with increasing frequency facilitated in Jewish studies—as teaching tools, multiple HE HTETL ON Fas subjects of research, or as points vicarious T S of entry, often arising serendipitously in journeys to the conversations with students and colleagues. shtetl, whether THE SILVER SCREEN: Feature films and documentaries not only in stagings of provide a source of widely shared literary classics TWO RECENT FILMS information on the Holocaust—easily the (e.g., the 1928 Jeffrey Shandler most frequently filmed chapter of Jewish film Durkh history—they also deal with Israeli life, the trern, based on Sholem Aleichem’s Motl into the shtetl. As is often the case with place of Jews in modern societies around stories) or in escapist musical comedies memory projects, their analysis ultimately the world, and sometimes touch on issues (Yidl mitn fidl, filmed on location in tells us more about the rememberer than of religious practice or even Jewish Kazimerz na Wislu in 1936). the remembered. mysticism. Whether or not scholars are The two recent shtetl films in question are Indeed, despite their shared topic, these happy with the images and information in something quite different. Whether made two films offer divergent conjurings of the these films (often they are not), these in situ or on sets erected in the New Jersey shtetl. As its title intimates, Moi Ivan, toi works’ prominence at the very least Abraham offers a multicultural view of the demands scholarly shtetl. The film’s plot attention as phenomena of centers around the Jewish vernacular culture friendship of its two and as points of reference eponymous in public discussion. characters—Ivan, a Therefore, our students’ Russian Roma literacy in film, which is (Gypsy) boy often more developed than apprenticed to a their fluency with the kinds Jewish family, whose of texts that scholars in youngest member is Jewish studies typically deal Abraham. Characters with, should not be in their anonymous disparaged; instead, it shtetl variously speak should be seized as a Yiddish, Russian, strategic opportunity for Polish, and Romani; engaging students in these languages analytic exercises. delineate ethnic Consider, for example, two divides and class French films portraying tensions as well as evince cultural shtetl life on the eve of the Production still from Moi Ivan, Toi Abraham, directed by Yolande Zauberman, 1993. Holocaust: Moi Ivan, toi hybridity and social Abraham (Ivan and Abraham), directed countryside (e.g., Yankl der shmid, 1938), fluidity. Ivan, for example, speaks Yiddish by Yolande Zauberman (1993), and Train Yiddish films of the interwar years draw on with his Jewish employers. de Vie (Train of Life), directed by Radu living memory, however attenuated, of The film’s image of shtetl life is gritty, Mihaileanu (1999). Their subject has, of Jewish life in Eastern Europe’s small brooding, and earthy. Characters are course, been a primary locus of Jewish towns, where millions of Jews still resided. repeatedly shown clinging to one another memory culture since the latter half of the A half century after World War II, efforts and are often sitting or lying on the nineteenth century, when Jews began to set a film in the shtetl face the daunting ground or floor, suggesting their leaving small market towns both task of reenacting a lost quotidian. rootedness in the shtetl milieu. Filmed in geographically and ideologically. In Moreover, they are works of memory that black and white, Moi Ivan, toi Abraham addition to an extensive corpus of rely not so much on recollections of actual recalls interwar photographs such as the literature, the shtetl has also been treated experience as on the received work of Alter Kacyzne or Roman Vishniac, in memoir writing, works of visual art, remembrances of others, encoded in which presented the shtetl through the eye music, theater, and—especially in the narratives and images produced by of an observer from outside, drawn to its decade preceding World War II—film. The previous generations. By virtue of their exoticism and decadence. The aura of interwar Yiddish cinema in the United elaborate scale, these films epitomize decay—crumbling buildings, shabby States, Poland, and the Soviet Union postwar efforts to imagine one’s way back clothes—pervades the shtetl of the film. 15 The vulnerable marginality of its setting is 1990s (including La Vita e Bella [Life is While ostensibly transporting viewers back established at the beginning by a title Beautiful, 1999] and Jakob the Liar to the same time and place, these two films locating the action “somewhere at the [1999], the English-language version of offer complementary visions of the shtetl Polish border during the 1930s,” the film, Jakob, der Lügner [1975]), Train on the eve of the Holocaust. Moi Ivan, toi culminating with the shtetl’s destruction de Vie relates a fantasy of Jewish ingenuity Abraham evinces a desire to remember the by antisemitic vandals at the film’s end. and pluck in outwitting Nazi persecution, shtetl as a site of doomed Jewish Train de Vie, set in indigeneity, imbricated another unnamed town, WHILE OSTENSIBLY TRANSPORTING VIEWERS BACK TO THE among other east also deals with the shtetl Europeans. Train de near its demise. The SAME TIME AND PLACE, THESE TWO FILMS OFFER Vie offers a vision of action takes place during the shtetl as playful, the summer of 1941, as COMPLEMENTARY VISIONS OF THE SHTETL transcendent, a mythic Germans are murdering locus of guileless the Jewish populations ON THE EVE OF THE HOLOCAUST. Jewish resilience. of small towns across Watching these films eastern Europe. Despite this grim setting, in which the town’s Jews flee en masse on together, or comparing them with prewar, Train de Vie offers a light, whimsical a train they acquire, masquerading as Yiddish-language shtetl films or works of shtetl; colorful, playful, and almost Germans. At the film’s center is Shlomo, shtetl literature (from Sh. Y. Abramovitsh exclusively Jewish in its population, it is as the self-proclaimed village idiot who to Jonathan Safran Foer), provides rich indebted to Fiddler on the Roof (1971), as concocts the escape plan. Whereas Moi opportunities to consider the range and Moi Ivan, toi Abraham is to the fiction of Ivan, toi Abraham is defined by the dynamics of shtetl remembrance, Isaac Babel or Isaac Bashevis Singer. And dynamic of its two youthfully naïve demonstrating the mutability of memory like Fiddler, Train de Vie offers postwar protagonists, Train de Vie has at its center in response to the changing relationship audiences a more accessible shtetl. Rather an adult naif. Both films thus facilitate an between the shtetl and those who wish to than simulating its complex innocence of the imminent consequences recall it. multilingualism, the characters in Train de awaiting their towns, providing audiences Vie all speak French, inflected with the entrée to the shtetl as if they were unaware Jeffrey Shandler is Assistant Professor in the occasional Yiddishism. One of a spate of of its fate. Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers “Holocaust comedies” made in the late University. DEPARTMENTS OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE PROFESSIONS AND TEACHING & LEARNING JOINT APPOINTMENT ASSOCIATE/FULL PROFESSOR The Steinhardt School of Education seeks an established scholar to direct a doctoral program in Education and Jewish Studies. The candidate must have a doctorate and an outstanding scholarly record in such fields as curriculum, teaching and learning, school leadership or disciplinary-based educational research, and at the same time, must be knowledgeable with respect to the current realities and needs of the field of Jewish education. Responsibilities of the position include research, teaching, program development and administration, grant development and mentoring students. Please send letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and contact information for three references to: Richard Arum, Chair, Jewish Education Search Committee, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions, New York University, Steinhardt School of Education, 246 Greene Street #300W, New York, NY 100003-6677. NYU appreciates all responses, but can only respond to qualified can- didates. Review of applications will begin immediately and will con- tinue until the search is completed. NYU is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. 16.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Charles University, Faculty of Arts East and Central European Studies
    Charles University, Faculty of Arts East and Central European Studies Summer 2016 Jewish Images in Central European Cinema CUFA F 380 Instructor: Kevin Johnson Email: [email protected] Office Hours: by appointment Classes: Mon + Tue, 12.00 – 3.15, Wed 12.00 – 2.45, H201 (Hybernská 3, Prague 1) Course Description This course examines the portrayal of Jews and Jewish themes in the cinemas of Central Europe from the 1920s until the present. It considers not only depictions of Jews made by gentiles (sometimes with anti-Semitic undertones), but also looks at productions made by Jewish filmmakers aimed at a primarily Jewish audience. The selection of films is representative of the broader region where Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian, Ruthenian, Ukranian, German, and Yiddish are (or were historically) spoken. Although attention will be given to the national-political context in which the films were made, most of the films by their very nature defy easy classification according to strict categories of statehood—this is particularly true for the pre-World War II Yiddish-language films. For this reason, the films will also be examined with an eye toward broader, transnational connections and global networks of people and ideas. Primary emphasis will be placed on two areas: (1) films that depict and document pre-Holocaust Jewish society in Central Europe, and (2) post-War films that seek to come terms with the Holocaust and the nearly absolute destruction of Jewish culture and tradition in the region. Weekly film screenings will be supplemented by theoretical readings related to the films or to concepts associated with them.
    [Show full text]
  • A List of Talks
    A List of Talks Down to the sea in ships The Life and Times of Albert Ballin Ports and Port Jews The Myth of the Jewish Pirate Bad Mazel Jews and Food Ashkenazi Style Jews and Food Ashkenazi StyleThe Musical Jews and Sport 606 Kosher Foxtrot Jews and Jazz Jews and Jazz Too The Life and Times of Eddie Rosner Jews and Music. A feast of Trivia Jews and Film PORTS AND PORT JEWS The Port City was the gateway to settlement for Jews on their many migrations. Sometimes they stayed and settled, often they moved on to the hinterland. Before the advent of the aeroplane Port Cities were vital for the continuance of Jewish life. They enabled multi-continental networks to be set up, as well as providing a place of refuge and an escape hatch. Many of the places have now faded in our collective memory, but remain a vibrant part of the history of the last 2000 years. Tony will show you how those Port Jews adapted, survived, and even flourished. Including • The merchants of antiquity • The Atlantic triangle • Port Jews – Hull and Charleston • Odessa and Trieste – the Free Ports • City of Mud and Jews • The fishermen of Salonika - and Haifa • The last Port Jews The Myth of the Jewish Pirate Over the past few years an industry has grown up around the myth of the Jewish Pirate. There has been an exhibition in Marseille; a book called Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean; there are guided tours in Jamaica, and Jewish speakers regularly give talks on the subject.
    [Show full text]
  • YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS DATES November 14, 1991 - January 9, 1992
    The Museum of Modern Art For Immediate Release May 1991 FACT SHEET EXHIBITION YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS DATES November 14, 1991 - January 9, 1992 ORGANIZATION Adrienne Mancia, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art; Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director, The National Center for Jewish Film, located at Brandeis University; and J. Hoberman, author and film critic, The Village Voice. SPONSOR Supported by a grant from The Nathan Cummings Foundation. Funding for the accompanying publication was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The gallery exhibition is made possible by the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation in memory of Gladys and Saul Gwirtzman. CONTENT This first major retrospective of Yiddish cinema comprises films made in the United States and Europe from the 1920s through the 1980s. The exhibition includes melodramas, farces, tragedies, musical comedies, and documentaries that capture the talents of such international stars as Ida Kaminska, Lila Lee, Solomon Mikhoels, Molly Picon, and Maurice Schwartz. While only a fragment of the once vibrant world of Yiddish theater and cinema survives, these films depict the concerns and values of Yiddish culture and preserve the nuances of the Yiddish language. Chronicling the struggle for Jewish identity on both sides of the Atlantic, the exhibition features Yiddle with His Fiddle (1936) and The Dybbuk (1937), from Poland; Jewish Luck (1925) and The Return of Nathan Beck (1934), from Russia; East and Hest (1923), from Austria; and Uncle Moses (1932), Tevye (1939), and God, Man, and Devil (1950), from the United States. Several recent films, including Brussels Transit (1980), from Belgium, and If They Give, Take (1983), from Israel, offer a contemporary glimpse of Yiddish-language drama.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Experience on Film an American Overview
    Jewish Experience on Film An American Overview by JOEL ROSENBERG ± OR ONE FAMILIAR WITH THE long history of Jewish sacred texts, it is fair to characterize film as the quintessential profane text. Being tied as it is to the life of industrial science and production, it is the first truly posttraditional art medium — a creature of gears and bolts, of lenses and transparencies, of drives and brakes and projected light, a creature whose life substance is spreadshot onto a vast ocean of screen to display another kind of life entirely: the images of human beings; stories; purported history; myth; philosophy; social conflict; politics; love; war; belief. Movies seem to take place in a domain between matter and spirit, but are, in a sense, dependent on both. Like the Golem — the artificial anthropoid of Jewish folklore, a creature always yearning to rise or reach out beyond its own materiality — film is a machine truly made in the human image: a late-born child of human culture that manifests an inherently stubborn and rebellious nature. It is a being that has suffered, as it were, all the neuroses of its mostly 20th-century rise and flourishing and has shared in all the century's treach- eries. It is in this context above all that we must consider the problematic subject of Jewish experience on film. In academic research, the field of film studies has now blossomed into a richly elaborate body of criticism and theory, although its reigning schools of thought — at present, heavily influenced by Marxism, Lacanian psycho- analysis, and various flavors of deconstruction — have often preferred the fashionable habit of reasoning by decree in place of genuine observation and analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Fact Sheet
    The Museum of Modern Art For Immediate Release May 1991 FACT SHEET EXHIBITION YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS DATES November 14, 1991 - January 9, 1992 ORGANIZATION Adrienne Mancia, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art; Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director, The National Center for Jewish Film, located at Brandeis University; and J. Hoberman, author and film critic, The Village Voice. SPONSOR Supported by a grant from The Nathan Cummings Foundation. Funding for the accompanying publication was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The gallery exhibition is made possible by the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation in memory of Gladys and Saul Gwirtzman. CONTENT This first major retrospective of Yiddish cinema comprises films made in the United States and Europe from the 1920s through the 1980s. The exhibition includes melodramas, farces, tragedies, musical comedies, and documentaries that capture the talents of such international stars as Ida Kaminska, Lila Lee, Solomon Mikhoels, Molly Picon, and Maurice Schwartz. While only a fragment of the once vibrant world of Yiddish theater and cinema survives, these films depict the concerns and values of Yiddish culture and preserve the nuances of the Yiddish language. Chronicling the struggle for Jewish identity on both sides of the Atlantic, the exhibition features Yiddle with His Fiddle (1936) and The Dybbuk (1937), from Poland; Jewish Luck (1925) and The Return of Nathan Beck (1934), from Russia; East and Hest (1923), from Austria; and Uncle Moses (1932), Tevye (1939), and God, Man, and Devil (1950), from the United States. Several recent films, including Brussels Transit (1980), from Belgium, and If They Give, Take (1983), from Israel, offer a contemporary glimpse of Yiddish-language drama.
    [Show full text]
  • AJS Review Cinema Studies/Jewish Studies, 2011–2013
    AJS Review http://journals.cambridge.org/AJS Additional services for AJS Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Cinema Studies/Jewish Studies, 2011–2013 Naomi Sokoloff AJS Review / Volume 38 / Issue 01 / April 2014, pp 143 - 160 DOI: 10.1017/S0364009414000075, Published online: 02 May 2014 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0364009414000075 How to cite this article: Naomi Sokoloff (2014). Cinema Studies/Jewish Studies, 2011–2013 . AJS Review, 38, pp 143-160 doi:10.1017/S0364009414000075 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/AJS, IP address: 128.95.104.66 on 26 May 2014 AJS Review 38:1 (April 2014), 143–160 © Association for Jewish Studies 2014 doi:10.1017/S0364009414000075 REVIEW ESSAY CINEMA STUDIES/JEWISH STUDIES, 2011–2013 Naomi Sokoloff In an era of massive university budget cuts and pervasive malaise regarding the future of the humanities, cinema and media studies continue to be a growth industry. Many academic fields have been paying increasing attention to film, in terms of both curriculum development and research. Jewish studies is no excep- tion. Since 2011, a boom in publications has included a range of new books that deal with Jews on screen, Jewish themes in cinema, and the construction of Jewish identity through film. To assess what these recent titles contribute to Jewish cinema studies, though, requires assessing the parameters of the field—and that is no easy task. The definition of what belongs is as elastic as the boundaries of Jewish identity and as perplexing as the perennial question, who is a Jew? Conse- quently, the field is wildly expansive, potentially encompassing the many geo- graphical locales where films on Jewish topics have been produced as well as the multiple languages and cinematic traditions within which such films have emerged.
    [Show full text]
  • The Museum of Modern Art
    The Museum of Modern Art For Immediate Release October 1991 YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS November 14, 1991 - January 12, 1992 The first major exhibition of Yiddish films made in Europe and the United States from the 1920s through the 1980s opens at The Museum of Modern Art on November 14, 1991. The films featured in YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS depict the concerns and values of Yiddish culture and preserve the nuances of the Yiddish language. The exhibition continues through January 12, 1992. YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS includes melodramas, farces, tragedies, musical comedies, and documentaries that capture the talents of such international stars as Ida Kaminska, Solomon Mikhoels, Molly Picon, Ludwig Satz, and Maurice Schwartz, America's foremost Yiddish actor. Chronicling the struggle for Jewish identity on both sides of the Atlantic, the exhibition features many classics of Yiddish cinema: Yiddle with His Fiddle (1936; starring Molly Picon) and The Dybbuk (1937), from Poland; Jewish Luck (1925) and The Return of Nathan Becker (1932), from the Soviet Union; fast and West (1923), from Austria; and Uncle Moses (1932; starring Maurice Schwartz), Tevye (1939), and God, Man, and Devil (1950), from the United States. Several recent films, including Brussels Transit (1980), from Belgium, and Everything's for You (1989) and Hester Street (1975), from the United States, offer a glimpse of contemporary Yiddish-language drama. While only a fragment of the once vibrant world of Yiddish theater and cinema survives, these films are invaluable for their representation of a - more - 11 West 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019-5498 Tel: 212-708-9400 Cable: MODERNART Telex: 62370 MODART 2 popular culture that flourished in the period 1911 to 1948 in Poland, the Soviet Union, Austria, and the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jester Press Release
    The Lown Building 102, MS 053 Telephone: (781) 899-7044 National Center Brandeis University Fax: (781) 736-2070 for Waltham Massachusetts Email: [email protected] Jewish Film 02454-9110 www.jewishfilm.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lisa Rivo 781-736-8600 [email protected] World Premiere of the Newly-Restored 1937 Yiddish Feature Film THE JESTER at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, July 16 Film Includes Rare Color Toned Scenes WALTHAM, MA (26 June 2008) -- The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) announces the 35mm film restoration of the 1937 Yiddish-language feature film THE JESTER (Der Purimspiler). The newly-restored print will have its World Premiere at the Jerusalem International Film Festival on Wednesday, July 16 at 6:00 pm at Beit Shmuel, 6 Eliahu Shama St, Jerusalem. (Confirm screening details at www.jff.org.il) Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director of NCJF, located at Brandeis University, will present the film in Jerusalem. The premiere of THE JESTER will be the 18th consecutive year that NCJF has brought a film from its collection to the Jerusalem International Film Festival. THE JESTER is the 37th Yiddish feature film restored by NCJF. Following its world premiere, the film will be available for festival and public performance screenings and dvd purchase. ABOUT THE JESTER (Der Purimspiler) Poland, 1937, 90 minutes, b&w/sepia tone/blue tone, Yiddish w/ new English subtitles Set in a Galician shtetl before World War I, this musical comedy is rich with itinerant performers and star- crossed lovers. Negotiating the romantic rapids are a lonely jester, a circus performer, and Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, whose poor father tries to marry her into a prominent family.
    [Show full text]
  • Cinemascope Cinemascope
    YEAR VI Issue 14 January-June 2010 CINEMASCOPE independent Film journal _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________ www.cinemascope.it [email protected] Molly Picon and the Cinematic Archetype of a Jewish Woman by Jérôme Segal and Monika Kaczek The scene took place in Vienna, in November 2009, in the Metrokino, one of the oldest cinemas in the city, which has been used as a theatre since 1920. An actress was on stage, alone with a pianist, part of the programme of the seventeenth Vienna Jewish Film Festival. Caroline Koczan, the actress, was devoting a whole show to her American idol, Molly Picon (1898-1992), in a crowded cinema. She showed two extracts from Picon’s films. Who’s Molly Picon, appearing boyishly, in pants and a cap? Why have so many people come? Do they know Molly Picon? After a brief glance at her biography and the specific characteristics of Yiddish theatre and cinema, the paper will focus on three aspects of Picon’s archetypical femininity: its influence on the migration discourse, the gender issue and the preservation of the Yiddish language. I – An American-Jewish Actress with Yiddish Background According to Deborah Felder and Diana Rosen, Molly Picon ranks among the Fifty Jewish Women Who Changed The World ... together with another actress, Barbra Streisand (born in 1942). Molly Picon is described as ‘One of the few actresses to successfully make the transition from the Yiddish theater to the Broadway stage and Hollywood films.’ (Felder and Rosen 2003, 145) She was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on 28 February 1898 as Margaret Małka Opiekun, daughter of Clara Ostrow, a wardrobe mistress, and Louis Opiekun, a poor shirt-maker who soon left his wife and daughters (Molly was very close to her sister Helen).
    [Show full text]
  • Helen Beverley Press Release
    Lown Building 102, MS 053 Telephone: (781) 736.8600 Brandeis University Email: [email protected] Waltham, MA 02454 www.jewishfilm.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lisa Rivo, Associate Director NCJF [email protected] or 781-736-8600 Helen Beverley, star of the Yiddish films Green Fields, The Light Ahead and Overture to Glory dies at age 94 WALTHAM, MA (26 July 2011)--It was announced this weekend that actress Helen Beverley died on July 15 in Los Angeles. She was 94. NCJF extends condolences to Ms. Beverley’s family. Ms. Beverley began her career in her late teens on the Yiddish stage at the Yiddish Art Theatre on 2nd Avenue on New York City’s Lower East Side. Under the direction of Maurice Schwartz, she played opposite some the greats of the Yiddish theater—Samuel Goldenberg, Isadore Cashier, Anna Appel, Stella and Luther Adler. She toured with the Yiddish Art Theater in The Brothers Askenazi, Tevye and other plays throughout the US and Canada and in Paris and London. It was during this period that director Edgar Ulmer cast her in his first Yiddish film, Green Fields (USA, 1937, restored and with new English subtitles by The National Center for Jewish Film). Ulmer’s soulful open-air adaptation of Peretz Hirshbein’s classic play celebrates an idyllic world of tribal wholeness and innate piety. No other movie has represented the shtetl with such lyricism. Green Fields, its cast and director received glowing reviews and audience acclaim. Upon its release in 1937, the New York World Telegram raved “A new high in vernacular art!” The Film Daily concurred writing in 1937, “The cast is brilliant…The direction has caught the beauty and poetry of the classic work and transferred it to the screen in a masterful manner.” Ulmer cast Ms.
    [Show full text]
  • YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Press Release
    The Museum of Modern Art For Immediate Release October 1991 YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS November 14, 1991 - January 12, 1992 The first major exhibition of Yiddish films made in Europe and the United States from the 1920s through the 1980s opens at The Museum of Modern Art on November 14, 1991. The films featured in YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS depict the concerns and values of Yiddish culture and preserve the nuances of the Yiddish language. The exhibition continues through January 12, 1992. YIDDISH FILM BETWEEN TWO WORLDS includes melodramas, farces, tragedies, musical comedies, and documentaries that capture the talents of such international stars as Ida Kaminska, Solomon Mikhoels, Molly Picon, Ludwig Satz, and Maurice Schwartz, America's foremost Yiddish actor. Chronicling the struggle for Jewish identity on both sides of the Atlantic, the exhibition features many classics of Yiddish cinema: Yiddle with His Fiddle (1936; starring Molly Picon) and The Dybbuk (1937), from Poland; Jewish Luck (1925) and The Return of Nathan Becker (1932), from the Soviet Union; fast and West (1923), from Austria; and Uncle Moses (1932; starring Maurice Schwartz), Tevye (1939), and God, Man, and Devil (1950), from the United States. Several recent films, including Brussels Transit (1980), from Belgium, and Everything's for You (1989) and Hester Street (1975), from the United States, offer a glimpse of contemporary Yiddish-language drama. While only a fragment of the once vibrant world of Yiddish theater and cinema survives, these films are invaluable for their representation of a - more - 11 West 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019-5498 Tel: 212-708-9400 Cable: MODERNART Telex: 62370 MODART 2 popular culture that flourished in the period 1911 to 1948 in Poland, the Soviet Union, Austria, and the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewishness: Expression, Identity, and Representation Offprint
    LITJCS001prelspi-xiv 25.03.2008 09:58am Page iii Jewish Cultural Studies volume one Jewishness: Expression, Identity, and Representation Edited by SIMON J. BRONNER Offprint Oxford . Portland, Oregon The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization 2008 LITJCS07p175-194 28.01.2008 08:12pm Page 175 seven Ambivalence and Identity in Russian Jewish Cinema olga gershenson ‘The Jew is ambivalence incarnate.’ zygmunt bauman Historically, the representation of Jews in Soviet national cinema (when and where it has been allowed) has been a litmus test for the Jewish position in Rus- sian culture. Jews have been variously, and paradoxically, stereotyped: they could simultaneously symbolize backwardness (as ignorant shtetl dwellers) or progres- siveness (as the learned ‘people of the book’); they could stand for emasculated weakness (as victims of pogroms and genocide) or virile leadership (as rabbis or commissars); they could be seen, in short, as heroes or anti-heroes (Bartov 2005). For scholars of contemporary Jewish cultures, film therefore provides eloquent material for research on identities and their construction and reconstruction. According to Stuart Hall (1990), cinema is a potent medium in which identities are produced. Rather than being a ‘second-order mirror held up to reflect what already exists’, it is ‘a form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak’ (1990: 236–7). Moreover, because of their profound influence on society and cul- ture, films constitute a source of the visual memory transmitted to future genera- tions (Portuges 2005). Taking these formulations as a starting point, I will approach the subject of Russian Jewish identity by studying representations of Jews in Russian national cinema.
    [Show full text]