RETRI EVER, FEBRUARY 2, 1976, PAGE 7 Film-Dance Hester Street: A Warm? Human Tale Of Jewish Immigrants little time with needless explication or By Ben Malinowski edi torializing, but lets her story flow . naturally. As a director, her frequent use Few contemporary films can call of extreme close-ups is occasionally themselves "warm" or "human" and irritating, but it does create a more in· those that do have a tendancy to fall all timate atmosphere and a closer over themselves to achieve those desired realtionship between character and effects. Hester Street is different. Its spectator. Her style is as free from warmth and humor isn't calculated nor is pretention as the story she is telling. it designed for a gut reaction, but it is born Small customs and superstitions of the out of a simplicity and honesty in concept Jewish faith are subtley given: putting salt and execution. in one's pocket to cast away the "evil eye," Hester Street is about the settling of a married woman always wearing a wig in immigrant Jews in New York's Lower the presence of others, and the double­ East Side in 1896. Specifically it is about standard involved in the Jewish divorce Yankle or, as he wants to be called in ceremony. The film is just plain good America, Jake who works in a sweat shop storytelling. In its 9O-minute running time, for the money to provide for himself and to it manages to have more feeling than films have his wife and son come over from the twice its length. old country. Befor~ they come, Jake in­ The players in Hester Street are New volved himself romantically with Mamie, York -based actors who are recognizable a co-worker at the facotry, from whom he from commercials. Steven Keats etches a borrows to buy and furnish an apartment sturdy characterization as Jake, Dorrie when his wife and child arrive. However, Kavenaugh is equally as good as the the main focus of the film centers on the Americanized Mamie whose winsome ' attempts by Jake's wife to comprehand attractiveness makes Jake's affection for and communicate with her newly her quite understandable. Doris Roberts, Americanized husband. These attempts an excellent character actress whose are where much of the humor and pathos unfortunate claim to fame are com­ are found. The conclusion of Hester Street mercials for air fresheners and in­ is as humourous as it is ironic. secticide, leads a fine supporting cast as a Perhaps the most striking technical neighbor who aids Jake's wife in her at­ asset of the film is its enourmous detail in tempts to win back the approval of her recreating an unfamiliar and distant time husband. As Jake's wife, Carol Kane is and place. The busy ' streets with their where a great deal of the film's charm is sidewalk shopkeepers and the over­ derived. Just looking at her innocent, crowded hostles are among the settings peasant-like face, you are reminded of depicted with great care. To add more countless photographs of just such im­ authenticity, screenwriter-director Joan migrants. Her physical frailty and Micklin Silver filmed Hester Street in a charm is fully complemented by her ac­ grainy black-and-white and used actors ting ability. It's good to see her in a who are vaugely familiar, but not im­ starring role after having rather thankless mediately identifiable. Most of these roles in Ashby's The Last Detail and actors speak Yiddish occasionally, which Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. She is a very also ~ins in the ctedibilitv of the story. rare actress. Hester Street is a very rare As a screen writer, Ms. Silver wastes film. Carol Kane America's Lost Art Needs To Gain Ground her hands and counting. It was a dance floor. swang each other about to the tune of a By Bernard Penner class and there was a visible lack of male "No leotards", he said immediately, scratchy fiddle or banjo. , students. "I'm not wearing leotards." But time went on and there were less He walked into the expansive room from He wasn't sure of what had brought him, She assured him that they were not trees to chop and indians to shoot and so the back. There was a large mirror across but immediatly the fear of being labeled a necessary and ordered him to sit, put the the pale folk began to develop a hankering the whole front wall. In it he could see faggot overtook him. The urge to turn soles of his feet together and begin his for some "cultured" entertainment. So about twenty figures spralled across the around and split almost got the better of warm-ups which consisted of a strenuous they imported it from the only culture they floor in some odd painful looking position. him were it not for a pleasant looking but rewarding set of exercises. knew, the old world. Since the time of their At the front of the room stood a shapely young woman who got him by the elbow What is this "thing" about men dancing . departure through (several generations !llid~le aged woman in leotards clapping . and smilingly ushered to a place on the in America? Throughout the world there is past) some new devlr'opments had oc­ a cultural value placed on dance. In almost currred in the old world. Due to the all tribal societies it has ritual thoughts of one Theopil~ Gautier, dance or significance. In India it is a highly ballet (from the French) was only sup­ regarded art form which until recently posed to deal with the beautiful and \\;IS to was forbidden to women. So why is it taboo have nothing natural in it. Men. in srlOrt, for males to dance' in this society. weren't beautiful enough for Mr. Gautier's One reason cited by Elizabeth Walton, fluffy new art form. If men had any role at dance area coordinator is the American all it was to carry and hoist the lovely father. The macho-'my son will not be a . ladies about the stage. sissy'-syndrome, however, must have its roots somewhere. Perhaps it could be Well the new world people ate it up. It explained this way: came from the old world so it had to be the Once upon a time there was a green land real thing. They invented a bunch of full of trees and river and red men who games for the men and boys to play to keep spent a lot of time dancing around fires their bodies happy while they let the: describing the animals they'd hunt and the women folk dance. way they felt. Then one day-onto the scene And so it went for years, the green land burst a bunch of industrious pale looking got greyer and greyer, the indians fewer rejects from a land far away where people and fewer, and the pale folk stronger and also danced but in a refined courtly way. richer. Until one day from their ranks Well the people in the new world didn't came a wild ballerina called Isador want to have anything to do with the soft, Duncan who boldly declared that she was courtly folk of the old world-neither had sick of being a sugar puff and wanted to be they any desire to associate with the native a human. She began dancing in a free new population. They were too busy to dance­ style which came to be known as modern what with cutting down trees, tilling fields dance. It was a type of dance far more and signing declarations and all that-they indi vidually expressive than bellet and had no time for courtly foolishness. In­ once again opened up a tradi tion :n which deed, in the northern parts of that already men could dance happily ever <:.fte! . slightly less green land, people thought it The liberation movements of the sixties was a sin for folks to go about indulging were the first waves to reawaken their senses in anything as enjoyable as something so long dormant in the America dancing; and they frowned upon their the idea that there is nothin~ reorehensible southern neighbors who got togethf'r and ~ee ~DANCE' Page 8. .