It certainly did to me when my stepfather suggested we sit down and watch the movie adaptation of “Fiddler on the Roof” featuring legendary actor Chaim Topol playing the lead role of Tevye.
The movie spanned *TWO* VHS tapes which should give you an idea of how long ago this conversation was and the state of video technology at the time!
Oy vey!
I’ll confess that I had no idea what the movie was about and if I’m honest, even less of a clue about anything to do with Judaism.
I hadn’t read the Torah and the Talmud (well, at least the versions translated from Hebrew) yet and the Internet was nothing like it’s current incarnation where searching for information is as simple as typing it into a browser pointed at Google.
But that was the thing about Lee…he had such eclectic tastes in literature and cinema that even though I often initially found his suggestions dubious at best, I’d often find myself coming round and seeing why he loved it.
Such was the case with “Fiddler on the Roof” and the movie had me hooked right at the beginning with that soundtrack and Tevye wandering along offering his perspectives on Anatevka and tradition.
To say that the movie is delightful is a grand understatement.
The characters are amazing and the story of this Jewish village trying to survive in the cold steppes of pre-Revolutionary Russia and then being caught in the political machinations between the tsar’s dying regime and the Bolsheviks and ultimately exiled from their home is a story that is as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago.
In spite of all of the upheaval round them, they never lose sight of what makes their wonderfully functionally dysfunctional community a family in the truest sense of the word. Nor do they lose their faith that eventually things will turn for the better.
At the centre of it all is Tevye who is caught between the tradition of the role of the papa as ruler of his house and all those within to a wife who truly rules the roost and daughters who are of a mind to find their own way and forge new traditions.
Topol came to the role in the movie from the stage and his larger-than-life portrayal of Tevye shows a nuance crafted from the demands of playing to a live audience in a theatre.
Arguably, Tevye is the role Topol was born to play.
The movie is almost as old as I am and yet it has become one of my favourite movies of all time and the soundtrack is one that is just so much fun to sing along with as it’s played on WFOX in the Traverse.
And so I’d like to offer this thought that may his life be a blessing.
I’m thinking Tevye would approve! 🙂
