Tara Ison - Reeling Through Life - How I Learned to Live, Love and Die at the Movies

My introduction to metaphor, and I am in love with Tevye, his paternal wisdom and humor and diastematic grin; I am unaware of the makeup designed to age Topol to Tevye’s weary grizzle, the fake white hairs placed strategically into his dark eyebrows. Tevye introduces me to the characters of our village: Our beloved Rabbi, Yente the Matchmaker, and all the Papas and Mamas, the sons and daughters, everyone going about their chores and their Traditions! Tevye’s three oldest daughters are excited by a visit from Yente; will she bring the man of their dreams, someone slender and pale, or an old, fat, drunken, abusive man? Whatever, they will be lucky to get a man (any man, it is explicitly stated), and I am oblivious to the gender politics here, the disempowerment of the girls, or the valuing of even the most distasteful of men as a “good catch” for these low-rung, dowryless daughters; I’m too curious about the odd wig Yente wears, the wigs I will see on all married women in this village of ours, when their hair is not fully covered by a scarf. With one exception, later.

Tevye dreams of being a rich man, the pride he would take in his home, the leisure he craves to study and discuss his faith with other men of the village; when Tevye is not talking directly to me, he is talking to God, they are on intimate terms: It is a bromance. His daughters run to him for hugs when he enters the house, and it is time for the Sabbath Prayer; Golde, our Mama, lights candles, her bewigged head covered in lace, she and Tevye sing of their wishes for their five daughters, May the Lord protect and defend you, may you be deserving of praise. . may he make you good mothers and wives, may he send you husbands who will care for you , but it is clear the girls need no other care than this golden home, the love of their Mama, but especially their cuddly, adoring Papa; in this house full of women, the Papa’s love is even more precious, the thing to be treasured.

I am charmed by the flavor and simplicity of this rural life, the quaint traditions, all the sepia glow (which Norman Jewison achieved by filming through a woman’s nylon stocking stretched across the lens). The colorful characters of this village are somehow, oddly, identifiable to me; how is it I recognize the rhythms of their speech? I don’t know any Jewish people like this. I don’t know any Ukrainian peasants, any rabbis or matchmakers, and my grandmother shed her accent forty years earlier. Why do the candles and lace, the exuberance and bluster of this life, feel so familiar? How can I possibly identify with these long-ago Eastern European peasants as kin? Why do they tap into my blood, why does their song send my DNA spinning in a homey helix’d dance?

The word Jew is first mentioned about fifteen minutes in and brings with it the first whiff of conflict — there is news of Jews being evicted from nearby villages — but this conflict is quickly pushed aside for some interpersonal drama: Tevye decides to give his oldest daughter, Tzeitel, in marriage to the rich butcher Lazar Wolf, although we know she is in love with poor Motel the Tailor. Again, the bargaining of his daughter like a prize milk cow goes over my head; it is obvious how much Tevye adores his daughter, for the deciding factor, he soliloquizes for us, is that as the wife of a butcher, “my daughter will surely never know hunger. . he likes her, and he will try to make her happy.” It’s a deal! Lazar and Tevye go out to get drunk with their buddies and stumble into a turf war with a bunch of local Russians who, after an ominous face-to-face pause, during which I know, instinctively, I should be afraid of these non-Jewish (Gentile) Russians and their Slavic tough-guy vodka glare, proceed to initiate a dance-off, like a pre — Russian Revolution Glee . The Jewish men dance Jewishly, the Russians dance their folded-arms, squat-and-kick-out-legs way, they all dance together, and everything is dandy. To life, to life, l’chaim!

But on his drunken stumble home, Tevye encounters the local Russian Constable, who I can tell is really a Good Guy from his twinkling eyes and slight smile beneath his big Russian moustache, and the sincerity of his congratulations to Tevye on his daughter’s forthcoming marriage. The Constable then wants to give Tevye a heads-up, a warning, “as a friend,” because:

CONSTABLE

. . you’re an honest, decent fellow, even if you are a Jew.

There it is again, the film’s second use of that word, Jew , highlighted by the disdainful qualifying phrase. But I trust this Constable guy — he is teasing, doing Tevye some kind of favor, and therefore showing him respect. He means no harm. He continues:

CONSTABLE

This district is to have a little unofficial demonstration.

TEVYE

What? A pogrom ? Here?

I have no idea what a pogrom is, but from Tevye’s stricken face, it is clearly not a good thing.

CONSTABLE

No, no. . just a little. . not too serious. So if an inspector comes he can see we did our duty. Personally, I don’t see why there should be this trouble between people.

After a pause, Tevye says:

TEVYE

You’re a good man. Too bad you’re not a Jew.

CONSTABLE

(laughing) That’s what I like about you, Tevye, you’re always joking.

Another pause. But the Constable’s laughter fades, and the pause becomes ominous, the twinkling eyes grow stern. No, not just stern. . it is the slow realization he is being insulted, disrespected, although I do not understand why this would be so. Being “a Jew” is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, in my life; it is an absolute irrelevance. But the tense moment is over; he leaves Tevye alone in the night, to ask of God:

TEVYE

God, did you have to send me news like that today? I know we are the chosen people, but once in a while, couldn’t you choose someone else?

Chosen for what? I wonder.

When Tevye breaks the happy news to Tzeitel, she is distraught:

TZEITEL

Papa, I can’t marry him, I can’t!

TEVYE

What do you mean, you can’t? If I say you will, you will!

It is the first real moment of distress, for me, far more alarming than the steel-eyed Constable. Tzeitel drops to her knees, begging her Papa, and the bluster of this most loving and affectionate and generous man has on a dime turned angry and chilled. He is shocked by her disobedience, that she would even think to cross him, to follow her own will! The benevolence is gone, replaced by his disapproval. The threat of rejection. I cannot imagine being rejected by the adult men in my life; my own father bears no resemblance to blustering Tevye, he is usually somewhat quiet and remote in our home, upstaged by my emotionally dramatic, scene-stealing mother, but his love for me is a given, a source of absolute security I have never had reason to question.

But I recognize this adoration for the Papa , this craving for his approval and love, for that is my maternal grandfather’s role in our family; my Grandpa Al is the true Head of our House, our own indulgent patriarch whom we all defer to and wish to please. He is the classic adoring and adored Grandpa, who buys me gold Jewish jewelry at pawn shops and takes me shopping for school clothes and makes me root beer floats when I sleep over at their house and we sit together to watch Mannix and Barnaby Jones , just the two of us. Affectionate and generous and loving, yes, a man I cannot imagine ever turning angry or chilled. But this moment forces me to imagine it. To see myself, on my knees, begging my grandfather, my Grandpa, my Papa for. . his love? No, it is a comfortable impossibility.