Fiddler on the roof film better than the broadway show?- Page 2

[Hamilton22]

Posted: 11/27/15 at 8:23am

Thanks for the info! And can I just say how much I love TCM? They always pick great films to show.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 11/27/15 at 9:11am

I like the film a lot, but one big thing that is missing is the "Tradition" choreography. Circles figure prominently in the choreography, until they are broken apart as the villagers all leave Anatevka at the end.  Maybe not entirely possible to convey in a film, but it's a significant point about a way of life coming to an end.  

 

[SNAFU]

Posted: 11/27/15 at 9:32am

yfs said: "I have to say this is among the most shocking threads I've read on this board. To me, the FIDDLER film is a self-important, drawn-out pretentious travesty of a great musical. And I can't say I've ever met anyone who likes it. It was surely art with a capital "A", but what a chore to sit through, especially for anyone who saw the original show with Mostel, at least reasonably early on the run. Topol is an insufferable substitute, and the damn thing just seems to go on forever. To the degree that it's largely forgotten today, that's no accident. 

 Thank-you! After reading this thread I thought I had entered a parallel Universe.

"

 

[Kad]

Posted: 11/27/15 at 10:42am

I think the Fiddler film is merely okay. Totally adequate, not terribly surprising or ingenious in its adaptation. I think the only time it shows any character is in the the dream sequence- and even then, that's more from a camp viewpoint.

[Hamilton22]

Posted: 11/27/15 at 10:49am

I think it's one of the best musical to film adaptions we have to be honest. It's what Les Mis should have been.

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 7:16am

Fiddler is one of those musicals for which I have no actual comparative experience, having only ever seen the filmic adaptation thereof, but I can tell you that I vastly prefer the 2004 Broadway Revival recording to the film and every other recording of the show that I've heard, musically at least.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 7:43am

A mini-digression: I think the best film adaptation of a musical was done by Milos Forman with 'Hair'.  But I also rate 'Fiddler' as a pleasure- different from the stage version- but a pleasure nonetheless.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 9:22am

I disagree. I enjoy the movie and always have but I don't think it even remotely matches a good stage production of this truly amazing musical.

 

As for what the best film adaptation of a musical is , I would say both "Oliver" and "The Sound of Music" are both far superior adaptations.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 10:18am

Add this to the list of stage to screen musicals not screwed up by Hollywood.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 11:26am

Eric, I'm surprised you didn't include Moonstruck among Jewison's best and also among his stylistically theatrical films.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 11:31am

He did not do too badly with In The Heat Of The Night, The Cincinnati Kid or  the original Thomas Crown Affair either.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 11:54am

While the Oscar-winning cinematography is in fact gorgeous, the wide screen treatment robs the story of its intamacy.  I never get the sense of the overlapping lives in that claustrophobic little village.  It seems way too expansive.

[yfs]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 3:58pm

Now that I've seen the current revival, I'm prepared to concede that it's no worse than the film. Well, maybe a little worse. They're both travesties, self-important and full of bad "important" ideas about a musical that didn't need any help from either Norman Jewison, who never made a great film, or Bart Sher, who, as far as I know, has directed only one great revival -- South Pacific. Fiddler, of course, will survive both the current revival and the film treatment. It's like Hamlet -- It can survive anything. 

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 9:37pm

devonian.t said: "A mini-digression: I think the best film adaptation of a musical was done by Milos Forman with 'Hair'....

 

"

Thank you. I thought I was the only one, though I'd probably rank Hair just behind Cabaret.

[Movidude742]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 9:57pm

GavestonPS said: "devonian.t said: "A mini-digression: I think the best film adaptation of a musical was done by Milos Forman with 'Hair'....

 

I can't rate Hair too highly as a great adaptation . . . they changed way too much

Claude is from Flushing, and Berger (Burger?) is not the one who gets shipped out. just for starters.

I am more forgiving of resequencing some scenes to eliminate the act break feel than such broad changes of plot and characterization.

There are exceptions.  Cabaret is a great movie . . . not a great adaptation.

 

 

 

"

 

Thank you. I thought I was the only one, though I'd probably rank Hair just behind Cabaret.

 

"

 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/20/16 at 10:04pm

It's a very fine film of a great show.  

Whether it's better than the show depends on a) what production of the show you're referring to, b) how much you enjoyed that production, and c) just how much you admire the movie.

[Broadway Bob*]

Posted: 2/21/16 at 12:19am

Ultimately I like the film version of FIDDLER for many reasons. It is filmed beautifully and a lot of the performances are great. The music sounds rich and full.

My main problem with the film, however, is how much of the humor it stripped away from the material. A truly GREAT production of FIDDLER should have you rolling in the aisles early in Act 1 which brings the somberness and tragedy to even greater heights when the poop hits the fan at the end of the act and into Act 2. The film starts and stays so somber and serious, with just a few brief interjections of very light humor, it doesn't have anywhere to go.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 2/21/16 at 11:25am

I agree with Broadway Bob that the key difference between the film and the show is how they handled the humor.

But for me the show and movie both strike a fine balance of comedy and tragedy, as different as those balances are, because each was calibrated to a different medium.

The movie would have tried in vain to accomplish the blend of schtick and pathos achieved in the show.  
The show would not be the masterpiece it is if it had more tonally resembled the movie.  

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 2/21/16 at 12:23pm

The magic of film (spellbinding the audience via editing and cinematography) and the magic of theater (the thrill of live acting and tactile manipulation of space) are two different types of magic, and Fiddler exploits each separately in both mediums.

[Patash]

Posted: 2/22/16 at 8:22am

I haven't seen the film since just after it came out.  I thought it was about 6 hours long -- or did it just seem that way?  There wasn't an ounce of humor in it to me -- partly what I LOVE about the stage version.  When I see a good production of it on stage I see people who despite all their troubles are very happy in life.   And by the end, it is really a struggle to have to leave their homes.  In the film, I felt they couldn't wait to get out of that hellhole.   Maybe it was the gritty realism of the movie, but instead I just felt sorry for all those poor people having miserable lives. 

[yfs]

Posted: 2/22/16 at 9:56am

As I've said above, I couldn't agree more. It's a very long, very dour version of the story that sucks almost all of the humor, and therefore much of the communitarian spirit, out of the original. Plodding and with no inner life or sense of the joy of living even in straitened circumstances.