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

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

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.

"

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

"

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.

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.

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.