Fiddler on the Roof redux

 

Canadian director Norman Jewison has not only made wonderful pictures but wonderfully IMPORTANT pictures, at least to my mind.

Jewison is photographed here with the stars of 1971's Fiddler on the Roof Norma Crane and (Chaim) Topol. Jewison also directed In the Heat of the Night (1967), A Soldier's Story (1984) and Agnes of God (1985), among other "message movies."

Despite his surname, Jewison was not Jewish. He and his family were Protestants. Jewison had an expansive cinematic eye and a progressive social consciousness regarding human rights.

I rewatched the last scene of Fiddler on the Roof (Anatevka) recently and was put in mind of the many film depictions of the persecution of Jews -- the list is long and no doubt informed by the prominence of Jewish filmmakers in Hollywood.

But that's not to say the depictions are trifling; they do reflect the horrors of history. And that record might in turn inform America's affinity for Israel -- although other political matters are part of it, too.

Even so, it's difficult watching the last scene of Fiddler as the bereft residents of Anatevka march out of their burned-out village after a visit by the tsar's cossacks and not imagine similar scenes of pain and devastation in Gaza.

A friend of mine who describes herself as almost reflexively pro-Israel said to me yesterday, it's all so awful. It cannot be why we're on this planet.

I agree -- on both counts.