However, whether by design or happy coincidence, several more universal truths lurk tantalizingly in the upper balcony and lift this production from the specific to the universal.
Yiddish Theater: A Love Story (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:15
Rotten:2
Average Rating:6.8/10
Theatrical Release:Nov 21, 2007 Limited
Synopsis:
Enter the funny, larger-than-life world of Yiddish Theater today through this documentary film about the amazing woman who has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. Zypora...
Enter the funny, larger-than-life world of Yiddish Theater today through this documentary film about the amazing woman who has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. Zypora Spaisman is a Holocaust survivor who conquers all hearts in her passion for art, life and Yiddish.
This heartwarming story of one unique woman's struggle portrays the fight of both an old art form to stay relevant and an old actress to find meaning and a stage in a society that worships youth.
Shot in real time in one of the coldest winters in NEW YORK, Zypora's theater has one week to raise funding to keep their show going. Many miracles occur during this week. But will they be enough to save this critically acclaimed Yiddish show?
A must see film for anyone who loves theater!
The film has rare interviews with some of the key players in the Yiddish Theater world today. Among them Yiddish legends like Shifra Lerer, Felix Fibich, Seymour Rechzeit and many more. Also in the film are expert Zalmen Mlotek who heads the Folksbiene now and Scholars Dovid Katz and Nahma Sandrow. --© New Love Films
[More]
Starring: Shifra Lerer
Starring: Shifra Lerer
Director: Dan Katzir
Director: Dan Katzir
Screenwriter: Dan Katzir, Ravit Markus
Producer: Ravit Markus, Yael Katzir
Studio: New Love Films
Reviews for Yiddish Theater: A Love Story
... an uneven but ultimately charming %u2013 and sad %u2013 look at the disappearance of a centuries-old cultural tradition whose impact on our own culture has been inestimable.
Given its origins, it's not surprising that Yiddish Theater: A Love Story has a catch-as-catch-can feeling to it. But nothing can take away from the flavor of being caught up in the battles and dreams of a formidable group of people.
Yiddish Theater is a melancholy work, as well it should be, but it's also almost giddy much of the time with the delight of discovery, preservation and nostalgia.
Katzir's documentary is on the cusp of posing worthy questions about American assimilation and cultural evolution, but it'd rather appeal to guilt and sympathy for art that we never get to feel.
Although the film's highly personal approach ultimately pays off in terms of heartfelt emotion -- particularly at its bittersweet conclusion -- it's hard not to wish that its focus was not quite so narrow.
When you see all of these octogenarians struggling through the snow and perilous ice to make it to their show, you really see what true courage and artistic commitment are all about.
Charming documentary on the struggle to keep Yiddish theater alive against all odds, including assimilated Jews' shame at a language associated with victimhood.
The film's candid personalities provide plenty of memorably off-the-cuff moments.
Interviews with aging caretakers of the Yiddish Theater are vivid windows into a bygone world, and Spaisman herself, a feisty firebrand whose accent is so strong Katzir supplied subtitles, is a formidable personality.
Filmed in real time during the freezing winter of 2000, Yiddish Theater: A Love Story tracks eight days in the failing life of the Yiddish Public Theater.
Its extremely narrow focus on the death throes of an art form, rather than the art itself, limits its appeal.
We can only hope that the film draws audiences larger today than those we see drawn by the Folksbeine.
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