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Amos Lassen wrote on 04/19/2011:

I just received the new blu ray edition of “Fiddler on the Roof” and it is glorious. Totally remastered, it has never looked better. This is the film version of the stage musical which is based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem and is the story of Tevye (Chaim Topol or Topol as you prefer) and his wife and daughters. Tevye is a milkman in pre-revolutionary Russia who lives in a shtetl (a small village) and he lives a life based upon Jewish tradition. His simple life is disturbed by pogroms which were sanctioned by Mother Russia.

I remember when I came to visit America in 1989 (I was living in Israel) and Topol was on tour with the stage version of “Fiddler”. I had met him in Israel a few times so I dropped him a note and invited him to meet when he came to New Orleans with the production and he responded positively and I took him for a walk around the French Quarter. The film had already been out for several years but then but there is something about “Fiddler” that whenever you see it, it is always new.

This is one of the most refreshing musicals to be seen on stage and screen. Even though it deals with a period of time long gone, it is still relevant. Basically it is the tale of one man trying to keep cultural traditions alive while facing a world that is undergoing change. The youth of Tevye’s world do not share the same values as their parents. (Sound familiar?).

Tevye has five daughters and of course he wants them to find Jewish husbands and one of the major struggles in the musical is about prearranged marriage versus free choice. Aside from this, Tevye is affected by the political changes that are going on around him and his family. The film mixes the realism of life in a small village with the surrealism of the cinematography that looks very much like a Chagall painting. Visually this is a beautiful movie to watch but it is also so much more. The music and lyrics are spectacular and many of you will find yourselves singing along with the movie and humming the score when it is over.

Norman Jewison (who is not Jewish) filmed this the way he saw it in his mind’s eye and he did a wonderful job. He managed to combine high drama with wonderful music and great comedy and wrapped all up with a bow of love. Even though the subject matter is Jewish, this is not a Jewish film—it is a movie about the human experience. If you have ever been discriminated against or felt pain in your life, this movie speaks to you.

Topol gives one of the best performances ever seen on film and this is the role that he was made to play. The entire cast is fine but this is Topol’s film. As Tevye, a man who holds onto the past yet accepts what the future brings him shows us that he is a kind of everyman who deals with life’s struggles as they appear. We soon love him and he warms us with his humanity, his humor and his wisdom. His wife, Golda, (Norma Crane) is a concerned mother and a typically religious woman. Molly Picon, in her last screen performance, is Yenta, the matchmaker who is unsuccessful in making matches for three of Tevye’s daughters—Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris) who defies her father and marries for love rather than by arrangement, Hodel (Michele Marsh), who marries an atheist and Russian revolutionary, and Chava (Neva Small) who pushes her family aside and chooses love instead. Then there is Motel (Leonard Frey), a tailor who decided to marry Tzeitel because he loves her, Perchik (Paul Michael Glaser), a radical student with new world ideas who asks for Tevye’s blessing to marry Hodel but not for his permission.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and has gone on to be one of our favorites. If you have never seen it, you must.