Just by coincidence it would seem, two films opened yesterday in New York that would be of particular interest to any Jew who, like me, has affection for the Yiddish language and more generally those who are curious about Jewish culture. The more successful of the two is the documentary “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness” playing at Lincoln Plaza Cinema. Since it persuaded me to read some of the fiction of a writer I had never considered worth my time, one can say that at least one goal of the film’s makers had been achieved.
The other is playing a couple of blocks away at Lincoln Center’s brand-new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Titled “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish”, it is a Godardesque attempt at showing the attempts of an aspiring Yiddishist, played by writer-director Eve Annenberg, at creating a Yiddish version of Shakespeare’s classic with actors drawn from the Satmar sect in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Since the cast is made up primarily of young people who broke with the Satmar sect, whose real-life struggles to define themselves are woven into the film, it is noteworthy on that basis alone. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/sholem-aleichem-romeo-and-juliet-in-yiddish/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
