Documentary | USA 2019
Swiss premiere
OV w. Eng. ST | 92′ | Max Lewkowicz
Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein et al.
Arthouse Uto
Houdini
Online-Edition
Hardly any work of pop culture shaped the old shtetl romanticism more than the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, which in turn was based on Sholem Aleichem’s 1901 novel Tevye the Dairyman. The film adaptation helped turn many of its songs (e.g. If I Were a Rich Man) into popular hits. This documentary sheds light on the difficulties of making that nostalgic musical, less than twenty years after the Holocaust. It also looks at the question of why the story of poor milkman Tevye still touches people today.