Media Alert
A couple of years ago, I wrote here about a documentary on Fiddler on the Roof, which was called Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles. It turns out that the film will air tomorrow – Friday – on PBS, as part of their Great Performances series. It starts at 9 PM in the East and here in the West, but probably 8 PM in the Midwest. Your TV guide will know better than me…
The documentary is enjoyable and well-done. Not great, but very good.
There's one odd thing in the movie, which is the only thing that bugged me. At the beginning and end of the movie, they show an old man on a park bench in New York playing a song from Fiddler on the Roof on the violin. For reasons that are inexplicable, they never identify him – but it’s Sheldon Harnick, who wrote the lyrics to the musical. I have absolutely no idea why they don’t identify him, but that’s the way it is. I’m come up with a bunch of “reasons,” though none of them make sense. It’s Sheldon Harnick. He wrote the show. He’s playing the violin. Identify him!!! (My hope is that I saw an early print, and maybe, possibly they’ve corrected it, and the film now identifies him. But I doubt that.) Fortunately, I know what he looks like, have met him and trade emails with him – and also know that he was a violin major at Northwestern, so I knew it was him. But I talked to others who were at the same screening, and they had no idea until I told them. And were bewildered, too, that he wasn’t identified. That said, the filmmakers do talk to him during the documentary and I'm sure identify him there, but I haven’t seen the movie for a couple years, as I said, so don’t remember. But I can’t imagine them not identifying him there.
Anyway, that one odd glitch aside, it’s a nice film, and definitely worth watching.
Here's the trailer.
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