Post by klep on Dec 30, 2019 9:45:18 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/30: Yentl
MUSICALS WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
I am writing this under intense time constraints being in a different time zone (hi from Australia!) and interstate from my home, such that I have not been able to rewatch Yentl in preparation for this write up. But since I am the person who has been banging on about Yentl for years on the Dissolve, it’s only right that it falls to me to explain myself.
‘And tell me where
Where is it written what it is I’m meant to be
That I can’t dare to see the meanings
In the mornings that I see.’
I have been a huge fan of 1983’s Yentl for many years and I feel it has been underrated as both a musical film and as a statement about gender roles.
Based on Issac Bashevis Singer’s short story and play, Yentl was Barbara Stresiand’s pet project for years before she eventually was able to get it made. It is her triumph as a performer and as a director (no less a name than Spielberg said it was the best debut film since Citizen Kane).
This is a musical film that was not based on a stage version. It was conceived as a film first, uses filmic language to convey themes, and maybe most importantly, uses the musical numbers in a way that could only work in cinema.
It takes some guts to cast Mandy Patinkin in a musical and have him NOT sing. But that’s the restraint and commitment to the concept that Streisand has. All the songs are from Yentl’s perspective. As the main performer, co-writer, producer and director, she had a lot riding on her shoulders to pull this off - and I think she does.
The songs by Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman are gorgeous, baroque pop written exclusively for their star, this movie’s raison d’etre, Barbra. And, as it should be in a musical, the songs appear at pivotal plot moments in the show and build on themes previously established in the score.
Conceptually, Yentl uses an earlier version of how later musical film such as Chicago staged their musical numbers, conceiving of them as dreams or thoughts. Except in Yentl, they do more; the musical numbers express the inner thoughts of a member of society who is not allowed to speak out loud her true thoughts and feelings. The musical numbers have a thematic function.
A good illustration of this is in the This is One of Those Moments sequence, where Yentl, in disguise as the boy Anshel, is accepted into the Yeshiva college. She can’t express what it means to be in a place she is structurally barred from being in and so we hear, in voice over song, Yentl’s inner ebullience. It’s also a love letter to the idea of education being a gift that once given, can never be taken away. The song ends with a rabbi at the Yeshiva asking a question of the class and a series of students getting the answer wrong before ‘Anshel’ stands up and answers correctly. The way the dialogue works in tandem with the song’s melody and lyrics is a high wire act that Streisand pulls off multiple time in the film.
‘Like a link in a chain
From the past to the future
That joins me with the children yet to be
I can now be a part
Of the ongoing stream
That has always been a part of me
There are certain things that once you have
No man can take away
No wave can wash away
No wind can blow away
No tide can turn away
No fire can blow away
No time can wear away
And now they’re about to be mine’
The other groundbreaking aspect of Yentl that probably wasn’t being written about in 1983 was how it treats gender and gender roles.
(Disclaimer here that I am a cishet male and other viewpoints on this aspect of the film may differ; I invite the discussion. I do realize that the film is about ‘cross dressing’ rather than a trans experience but I think the issues it presents are illuminating, whatever Streisand’s intents with the material were. I am also aware of the terrible and damaging canard about trans people being somehow in disguise and ‘tricking’ people. I would not want to overreach by suggesting this film engages with these issues. I do believe Streisand was making a feminist film, though her ideas about the gender binary are of its time.)
When Yentl’s father, who has been teaching her Talmud in disobedience of tradition, dies, she sees no reason to stay in her village and decides to dress as a boy in order to apply to Yeshiva (this is where the lasting legacy of the film, Papa Can You Hear Me, happens, much more heartfelt and Getsesame-like than the parodies in the 37 years since would have it).
Nobody notices that Yentl is a girl at Yeshiva - because she presents as a boy. Gender is so culturally ingrained that the very act of dressing as a boy, taking on a male name and pronoun and taking up the cultural space of a male - that makes her a boy.
In short, gender is a performance, one that allows Yentl to access a variety of experiences that she otherwise would not be able to. She attains male privilege simply by performing it.
There are lightly comedic hijinks made of Avigdor’s initial obliviousness, such as when he offers to share his bed with ‘Anshel’ and later when he bathes nude in a lake and Yentl watches from the banks. However, Streisand’s command of the tone of the film never allows this aspect to become a farce. It is always grounded in humanity.
Yentl of course falls in love with Avigdor but, through a series of plot machinations ends up marrying Avigdor’s #1 crush Hadass, whom he cannot marry due to a family superstition. It is adhering to traditions that keep people apart in this film. Breaking with the dominant society’s rules set them free. (It’s interesting to note that this only happens in the film; in the source mater, Yentl is doomed to live as a man forever because of her ‘betrayal of nature and the divine’. In the film, of course, this is what sets the characters free.)
I think the scene when Avigdor finds out Yentl’s true identity is illuminating. After an initial angry dressing down, he kisses Yentl, finally seeing her clearly for the first time. That is, now that she is in the acceptable cultural position to reciprocate her feelings of love, he can express his own feelings. The image of Yentl undoing her breast binding before Avigdor is striking.
(Of course, the sexual tension had been building in all the previous scenes where both characters were ‘male’. Similarly, it is interesting that Hadass develops feelings for ‘Anshel’ when they are married. The film doesn’t develop these threads as much but it does more than hint at the idea of a repressed bisexuality in these three characters.)
In the end, Avigdor learns from Yentl’s strength and marries Hadass despite his family’s wishes. In turn, Yentl boards a ship to a better place, America, and sings the final spine-shattering song A Piece of Sky, which brings in elements of previous songs to culminate in Yentl finally freeing herself of all that she was bound with in her previous life, country and culture.
‘What’s wrong with wanting more?
If you can fly, then soar
With all there is, why settle for
Why a piece of sky?’
This is how you end a movie, people. We zoom out from Yentl, one person going into the unknown to seek a better life, where she can be herself, to seeing all the other fortune seekers on the ship with similar dreams, finally out into the ocean with the bombastic ending to the song as we cut to black.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/6: Paddington & Paddington 2
JANUARY FILMS WEEK!
Next week we'll be tackling the beloved Paddington movies, inexplicably dumped in January rather than given the studio push they deserved. Join us next week for our discussion of bears, marmalade, and general wholesome goodness. Both films are available for rent in the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/31: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
The podcast crew kicks off a pairing about ill-advised gambling with this John Cassavetes classic. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available for rent on Amazon Video.
MUSICALS WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is graciously provided by a guest contributor.
I am writing this under intense time constraints being in a different time zone (hi from Australia!) and interstate from my home, such that I have not been able to rewatch Yentl in preparation for this write up. But since I am the person who has been banging on about Yentl for years on the Dissolve, it’s only right that it falls to me to explain myself.
‘And tell me where
Where is it written what it is I’m meant to be
That I can’t dare to see the meanings
In the mornings that I see.’
I have been a huge fan of 1983’s Yentl for many years and I feel it has been underrated as both a musical film and as a statement about gender roles.
Based on Issac Bashevis Singer’s short story and play, Yentl was Barbara Stresiand’s pet project for years before she eventually was able to get it made. It is her triumph as a performer and as a director (no less a name than Spielberg said it was the best debut film since Citizen Kane).
This is a musical film that was not based on a stage version. It was conceived as a film first, uses filmic language to convey themes, and maybe most importantly, uses the musical numbers in a way that could only work in cinema.
It takes some guts to cast Mandy Patinkin in a musical and have him NOT sing. But that’s the restraint and commitment to the concept that Streisand has. All the songs are from Yentl’s perspective. As the main performer, co-writer, producer and director, she had a lot riding on her shoulders to pull this off - and I think she does.
The songs by Michel Legrand and Alan & Marilyn Bergman are gorgeous, baroque pop written exclusively for their star, this movie’s raison d’etre, Barbra. And, as it should be in a musical, the songs appear at pivotal plot moments in the show and build on themes previously established in the score.
Conceptually, Yentl uses an earlier version of how later musical film such as Chicago staged their musical numbers, conceiving of them as dreams or thoughts. Except in Yentl, they do more; the musical numbers express the inner thoughts of a member of society who is not allowed to speak out loud her true thoughts and feelings. The musical numbers have a thematic function.
A good illustration of this is in the This is One of Those Moments sequence, where Yentl, in disguise as the boy Anshel, is accepted into the Yeshiva college. She can’t express what it means to be in a place she is structurally barred from being in and so we hear, in voice over song, Yentl’s inner ebullience. It’s also a love letter to the idea of education being a gift that once given, can never be taken away. The song ends with a rabbi at the Yeshiva asking a question of the class and a series of students getting the answer wrong before ‘Anshel’ stands up and answers correctly. The way the dialogue works in tandem with the song’s melody and lyrics is a high wire act that Streisand pulls off multiple time in the film.
‘Like a link in a chain
From the past to the future
That joins me with the children yet to be
I can now be a part
Of the ongoing stream
That has always been a part of me
There are certain things that once you have
No man can take away
No wave can wash away
No wind can blow away
No tide can turn away
No fire can blow away
No time can wear away
And now they’re about to be mine’
The other groundbreaking aspect of Yentl that probably wasn’t being written about in 1983 was how it treats gender and gender roles.
(Disclaimer here that I am a cishet male and other viewpoints on this aspect of the film may differ; I invite the discussion. I do realize that the film is about ‘cross dressing’ rather than a trans experience but I think the issues it presents are illuminating, whatever Streisand’s intents with the material were. I am also aware of the terrible and damaging canard about trans people being somehow in disguise and ‘tricking’ people. I would not want to overreach by suggesting this film engages with these issues. I do believe Streisand was making a feminist film, though her ideas about the gender binary are of its time.)
When Yentl’s father, who has been teaching her Talmud in disobedience of tradition, dies, she sees no reason to stay in her village and decides to dress as a boy in order to apply to Yeshiva (this is where the lasting legacy of the film, Papa Can You Hear Me, happens, much more heartfelt and Getsesame-like than the parodies in the 37 years since would have it).
Nobody notices that Yentl is a girl at Yeshiva - because she presents as a boy. Gender is so culturally ingrained that the very act of dressing as a boy, taking on a male name and pronoun and taking up the cultural space of a male - that makes her a boy.
In short, gender is a performance, one that allows Yentl to access a variety of experiences that she otherwise would not be able to. She attains male privilege simply by performing it.
There are lightly comedic hijinks made of Avigdor’s initial obliviousness, such as when he offers to share his bed with ‘Anshel’ and later when he bathes nude in a lake and Yentl watches from the banks. However, Streisand’s command of the tone of the film never allows this aspect to become a farce. It is always grounded in humanity.
Yentl of course falls in love with Avigdor but, through a series of plot machinations ends up marrying Avigdor’s #1 crush Hadass, whom he cannot marry due to a family superstition. It is adhering to traditions that keep people apart in this film. Breaking with the dominant society’s rules set them free. (It’s interesting to note that this only happens in the film; in the source mater, Yentl is doomed to live as a man forever because of her ‘betrayal of nature and the divine’. In the film, of course, this is what sets the characters free.)
I think the scene when Avigdor finds out Yentl’s true identity is illuminating. After an initial angry dressing down, he kisses Yentl, finally seeing her clearly for the first time. That is, now that she is in the acceptable cultural position to reciprocate her feelings of love, he can express his own feelings. The image of Yentl undoing her breast binding before Avigdor is striking.
(Of course, the sexual tension had been building in all the previous scenes where both characters were ‘male’. Similarly, it is interesting that Hadass develops feelings for ‘Anshel’ when they are married. The film doesn’t develop these threads as much but it does more than hint at the idea of a repressed bisexuality in these three characters.)
In the end, Avigdor learns from Yentl’s strength and marries Hadass despite his family’s wishes. In turn, Yentl boards a ship to a better place, America, and sings the final spine-shattering song A Piece of Sky, which brings in elements of previous songs to culminate in Yentl finally freeing herself of all that she was bound with in her previous life, country and culture.
‘What’s wrong with wanting more?
If you can fly, then soar
With all there is, why settle for
Why a piece of sky?’
This is how you end a movie, people. We zoom out from Yentl, one person going into the unknown to seek a better life, where she can be herself, to seeing all the other fortune seekers on the ship with similar dreams, finally out into the ocean with the bombastic ending to the song as we cut to black.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/6: Paddington & Paddington 2
JANUARY FILMS WEEK!
Next week we'll be tackling the beloved Paddington movies, inexplicably dumped in January rather than given the studio push they deserved. Join us next week for our discussion of bears, marmalade, and general wholesome goodness. Both films are available for rent in the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/31: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
The podcast crew kicks off a pairing about ill-advised gambling with this John Cassavetes classic. Join us Wednesday for our discussion of this film, available for rent on Amazon Video.