by Arnoldhenryrufus

Created on: March 01, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

~~ Fiddler on the Roof ~~

Fiddler on the roof was inspired by Tevye and his daughters, a collection of stories by Sholom Aleichem a man hailed as 'the Jewish Mark Twain'.

Producer and director Norman Jewison surprised United Artists with his declaration that he was not Jewish, but even though he was a 'goy' (a non-Jew) he immersed himself into the Jewish culture learning as much as he could. It became a bit of a joke amongst the cast that he would be converting to Judaism.

Jewison found the 50 strong cast from around the world and even though the studio were putting pressure on him to hire Zero Mostel who was starring in the Broadway production of Fiddler and playing the role of Tevye, but Jewison stuck to his guns and found his Tevye playing the role in the London production of Fiddler on the Roof, Chaim Topol.

There were even more set backs when it came to the casting, he lost his first choice for an actress to play Golde when Hanna Meron lost her leg when the bus she was on was stormed at Munich airport.

Another actor had problems with the English dialogue so he was replaced with Michael Glaser (who later on in his career became known as Paul Michael Glaser from Starksy & Hutch fame).

Jewison got his way with his meticulous attention to detail and managed to film it in a small village in Yugoslavia instead of America which United Artists wanted him to do. He was so precise on the detail that he went through seven different violins until he got the one with the right tone that he was after.

Jewison along with his cinematographer Oswald Morris created an unusual way of creating an antique effect to the movie; they filmed the entire movie with a stocking stretched over the camera lens.

~~ The Story ~~

The story starts with an opening picture of the Dawn rising over the village and a fiddler on the roof of one of the houses. Tevye the village milkman sings 'Tradition' whilst introducing us to the village and all its characters including our fiddler on the roof. This song is followed by the opening credits and we move onto meet Tevye's family, his wife and his five daughters. The movie tells the story of Jews in the early 20th century in Russia, how their lives began to change and some of the traditions were broken down.

Throughout the movie you often see Tevye taking moments to have conversations with God to help him except these changes, as he tries to see his eldest three daughters married off. You also see how the Russians control the village and like to bestow their

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