It was on last night, and I enjoyed watching this classic again.
I think my favorite part is when Tevye realizes he has to tell Golda that Tzeitel will be marrying the tailor and not the butcher, and comes up with this nightmare to convince his wife that her grandmother had come from beyond the grave to warn them that their daughter should marry Mottel. (Sorry if I spell any of the names wrong.)
Question…Tevye visits Lazarwolf on the Sabbath. Is it a violation to go to a bar afterward?
Why does the wedding ring go on the first finger of the right hand?
I’m not clear on the politics…who was the police chief trying to impress when they wrecked the wedding reception?
Perchek was a Communist, right? So this was set in the early 1900s? Before the overthrow of the tsar?
I wish there were a sequel. I’d like to know what happened to the family once they got to America.
Actually he doesn’t go visit Lazar until AFTER the Sabbath. (Chances are the bar in an orthodox community wouldn’t even be open on the Sabbath.)
The police chief (played by Louis Zorich, best known to younger viewers as Paul Reiser’s dad in MAD ABOUT YOU*) was trying to impress Tsarist officials. He was between a rock and a hard place as failure to do so would have meant at very least his position and possibly his freedom, plus he could control it a bit more by doing it himself.
The “afterwards” from the short stories is depressing but open-ended: in the stories Tevye had seven daughters, outlives Golde, and ends up living with Tzeitel to support her and the children after Motel dies. However, when last seen he and Tzeitel and family are moving to Palestine after the “Get thee out” order.
I would estimate the movie is set ca. 1900-1905. The Tsar is still in power and there’s a nascent Communism in the land, but the Jews haven’t been evicted yet. (Did you notice that all of the women at the wedding wore wigs, incidentally, in order to keep their hair covered?)
I got to see Topol in one of his road shows a few years ago. The cool thing about that production was that Golde was played by Rosalind Harris who played Tzeitel in the movie (and who in real life is roughly the same age as Topol- he was only 35 when he did the movie [the gray in his beard were gray hairs plucked from the head of director Norman Jewison] and only 29 when he first played the role]).
*An anecdote from the movie: Zorich had never ridden a horse in his life and wasn’t very good at it. At one point the horse threw him and terrified his wife who was on the set at the time; she went into premature labor with their child. His wife is Oscar winner Olympia DuKakis.
More trivia: the actor who played Lazar was a high school drama teacher recommended by one of the producers who had never had a major film role before. He and Topol HATED each other, which actually lent itself well to the friction between their characters.
Yet more trivia: original plans were to film in Russia but Soviet authorities ultimately reneged on promises for fear the film would be anti-Communist propaganda. Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, who hated Russia at the moment, welcomed the crew with open arms strictly to piss off Brezhnev.
My sense is that the story is set around 1905, a year of (largely unsuccessful) revolution in Russia. Perchik (played by “Starsky and Hutch” actor Paul Michael Glaser) was sent off to Siberia for participating in that revolution.
Tevye does not meet Lazar Wolf on the Sabbath. Remember, the Jewish Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. Tevye is told right BEFORE sundown on Friday that Lazar Wolf wants to meet with him (Tevye doesn’t know why- he assumes Wolf wants to buy one of his cows). He agrees to meet Wolf once Sabbath is over: that is, on Saturday night. There’s nothing in Jewish law that prohibits having a drink on Saturday night.
The constable is a Russian Christian who shares the standard disdain for Jews, but who genuinely likes Tevye, and doesn’t bear Jews any deep malice or hatred. When the national authorities call for pogroms against the Jews of Anatevka, the constable isn’t keen on the idea… but he has his orders from above. So, he
agrees to let the Gentiles of the town go on a limited rampage. He allows some assaults and vandalism, but prevents any serious violence or bloodshed (just enough to ruin what ought to be the happiest day of Tzeitel and Motel’s lives).