Thursday, August 29, 2019 - E15
Skagit Valley Herald / goskagit.com
MOVIES
REVIEW
‘Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles’ speaks to the heart How successful has “Fiddler on the Roof” been? Maybe a little reminder is in order. Winner of nine Tonys, for almost 10 years the longest-running musical in Broadway history and revived there a full five times, its appeal is so universal that it’s playing somewhere in the world every single day, playing more than any other show. Given all that, it’s easy to lose track of how hugely unlikely a success this adaptation of a group of Yiddish short stories was and the struggles that were necessary before all those good things happened. Which is where “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles” comes in. As directed by Max Lewkowicz, this engaging and enlightening documentary is stuffed with anecdotes,
history and information. It makes excellent use of both new interviews and carefully selected archival footage to reveal the building blocks of all this accomplishment. It also offers visual evidence of exactly how extensive the show’s reach has been, the way multiple cultures around the world feel this story is specifically about them. We see clips from productions in Japanese, Thai and Dutch, and we hear everyone from opera legend Bryn Terfel to the Temptations singing the show’s iconic songs. And for those who can’t get to Manhattan, we even hear star Steven Skybell singing a song (translated as “If I Were a Rothschild”) from New York’s current red-hot Yiddish-language production. All this is especially ironic given that when the original “Fiddler” was trying to get produced, voices were loud
and persistent that nobody was going to want to see it. Based on short stories from the great Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem about a milkman named Tevye and his relationship with God, his wife and his family of marriageable daughters, it was a landmark in American musical theater because outsiders told their own story and made it the center of popular culture. Because the outsiders were Jewish, it was widely assumed no one outside the faith would come to see it. “What am I going to do for an audience,” one producer asked, “once I run out of Hadassah members?” The show’s creators, book writer Joseph Stein, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick, were mightily discouraged from pursuing their idea. “Jews fleeing pogroms?” they were told. “Are you out of your mind?” It was Harnick who got
things started when he read another Sholom Aleichem work, “Wandering Stars,” and thought there might be a musical there. Stein steered the trio to the Tevye stories, and the three men worked on it in their spare time as a passion project they refused to abandon. One of the treats of the documentary, in fact, are excerpts from the tapes Bock, who did extensive research in traditional Jewish melodies, sent to lyricist Harnick when he reworked something that he thought had possibilities. So it’s almost chilling, after hearing Bock’s voice saying he’s come up with something “bubbly and spirited and kind of kooky,” to hear the unmistakable strains of “If I Were A Rich Man” played for the first time. “Fiddler” was brought to Broadway by legendary producer Harold Prince, and all the voices in the
“The Kitchen” — Strong work by Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss as mob wives who take over the collection racket when their husbands go to prison. But the story favors instant plot developments, quick-shock moments and gruesome violence until it becomes downright impossible to empathize with these women. Crime thriller, R, 103 minutes. HH “The Art of Racing in the Rain” — Thanks in large part to Kevin Costner’s voice work as a dog taking us through the life of his race car-driver
owner (Milo Ventimiglia), this adaptation of the best-selling novel comes close to winning us over. But eventually it feels as if we’ve been inundated with TOO many scenes designed to turn on the waterworks. Drama, PG, 109 minutes. HH½ “Them That Follow” — This is a harrowing and chilling deep dive into an isolated religious community in the Appalachian mountains. The daughter (Alice Englert) of the pastor (Walton Goggins) is engaged to one man but in love with another, a romantic triangle that ig-
nites a series of life-changing and sometimes horrifying developments. Thriller, R, 98 minutes. HHH½ “Luce” — A former child soldier from war-torn Eritrea is adopted by a Virginia couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) and grows to be a loving son and a top high school student (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). But evidence of residual effects of war starts to emerge in a film that doesn’t always need dialogue to expertly communicate valuable insights. Drama, R, 109 minutes. HHH½ “Mike Wallace Is Here” — This terrific and insightful
documentary about the “60 Minutes” journalist is made up of just archival footage — no new interviews or voice-of-God narration. But when you’re talking about this compelling a figure, the record speaks for itself. Documentary, PG-13, 90 minutes. HHH½ “Hobbs & Shaw” — This loud and lazy and lumbering actioner is a sequel/ spinoff to the “Fast and Furious” franchise, reuniting the Hulk-ish American lawman Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) with the outlaw loner Shaw (Jason Statham) on a mission to stop a terrorist threat recycled from other
By KENNETH TURAN Los Angeles Times
documentary agree that his decision to hire Jerome Robbins as director/choreographer was key even though, Robbins biographer Amanda Vaill notes, “he had a complicated and conflicted feelings about his Judaism.” Robbins’ key idea, as we see in a handwritten memo, was to “celebrate and elevate the life of the shtetl,” the small communities where Eastern European Jews lived. In fact, it was Robbins who encouraged the writing of the key song “Tradition.” Things went less smoothly with star Zero Mostel, who had issues with Robbins because he’d named names of communists during the blacklist era; something he did, the film posits, because he was threatened with exposure as a homosexual. Among the other aspects of the show that are hard to believe is that when it opened in Detroit for an
out-of-town tryout, Variety opined that it had no memorable songs. Robbins worked tirelessly to improve things, adding “Do You Love Me” and cutting a number called “When Messiah Comes.” In addition to people intimately involved with “Fiddler,” such as original cast members Austin Pendleton and Joanna Merlin, the documentary interviews random cultural figures like Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, not always to fascinating effect. The most engaging person is “Hamilton’s” Lin-Manuel Miranda, who supplies movies of his own wedding celebration where he and his father-in-law surprise his bride with a rousing rendition of “To Life.” It’s a moment to treasure, a further reminder of a show whose reach continues to expand.
At area theaters CONCRETE THEATER Aug. 30-Sept. 1 The Lion King (PG): Friday: 7:30 p.m.; Saturday: 5 and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday: 5 p.m. 360-941-0403 BLUE FOX DRIVE-IN Oak Harbor Aug. 30-Sept. 1 Toy Story 4 (G), The Lion King (PG) and Aladdin (PG). First movie starts at 8:15 p.m. 360-675-5667
movies. Action, PG-13, 135 minutes. H½ “Skin” — Playing a real-life man who underwent a series of excruciating tattoo removals to erase the evidence of his white-supremacist past, Jamie Bell
ANACORTES CINEMAS 360-293-7000 OAK HARBOR CINEMAS 360-279-2226 CASCADE MALL CINEMAS Burlington 360-707-2727 STANWOOD CINEMAS 360-629-0514
(“Rocketman”) further solidifies his standing as one of the best actors of his generation. This telling is sometimes heavy-handed but also timely and worthwhile. Drama, R, 118 minutes. HHH