Tevye (film)

*

This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1991.

Tevya (also known as Tevye and Tevye der Milkhiker) is a 1939 American Yiddish drama film, based on author Sholem Aleichem's stock character Tevye the Dairyman, also the subject of the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. It was directed and written by Maurice Schwartz.

Why It Rocks

1. It stays faithful to the stories of leading Yiddish author and playwright Sholom Aleichem.
2. Even though the monologues would eventually form the basis of the 1964 Broadway musical (and 1971 movie adaptation) Fiddler on the Roof, this film still stands on its own as a different, unique story.
   1. For example, various new characters are added, while various father figures from the musical are eliminated.
   2. In this version, Tevya (Tevye)'s widowed daughter Zeitel (Tseytl) returns home with her two children, while Tevye's other daughter Chavah (Khave) is stuck in a romance with Fedya, the son of a wealthy landowner.
   3. Another thing is that while Tevye is still resigned to the gentile world, here he's a Russian farmer who's run a dairy for 50 years and has managed to maintain his faith and integrity, masking his bitterness with humor and erudition.
3. In the light of the political climate of the time, this film was very daring and it was an important part of starting a major spark in Yiddish and black films.
4. The film stands apart from other American-Yiddish talkies quite a few ways.
   1. First, there's the superior production values. The film is extremely well shot and elaborately orchestrated.
   2. And then there's the deep themes. As most Yiddish films are set in a completely Jewish world, very few other films had dealt with anti-Semitism or even the uneasy relations between European Jews and their Gentile neighbors. Tevya thrives on this tension – Schwartz establishes it in the film’s very first scene when, with the harvest in, a group of boisterous young Ukrainians tease the pretty “Jew girl” Khave.
5. Maurice Schwartz pulls off a brilliant performance as the titular farmer as he's able to avoid anger and other emotional outbursts, instead investing his part with a strength and pride that's still inspiring all these years later.
6. Various forms of powerful conflicts in different forms: Generational (father versus daughter), political (tradition versus the thought of Tolstoy and Gorky), and religious.
7. Despite having various Christian characters vote to expel the Jew Tevye from the village in order to profit from his farm, and steal from him during an enforced auction of his belongings, the film's usually careful enough to avoid having racist, offensive stereotypes as the farmers are sympathetic and there's a police officer scorned by Christian and Jew equally. Still, with the confrontations between the Christians and the Jews, it's a miracle the Yiddish film got made.

Trivia

• Tevye is the first non-English film to be inducted into the National Film Registry.