How 'Fiddler on the Roof' Made it to Hollywood

Factual America

3 Jun

Written By

Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen (2022) captures a bygone era of early television and blockbuster Hollywood musicals. It also shines a light on the incredible career and of filmmaker Norman Jewison.

Jewison had critical success over more than three decades, but his crowning achievement might be bringing the critically acclaimed screen adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof to the big screen. Legendary film critic Pauline Kael called Fiddler the most powerful movie musical ever made and it’s one of the few movies that have won eight academy awards.

Award-winning and Oscar nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim, the director of Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen, joins us to share the unlikely story behind this iconic American film.

“Like so many millions of people who learn about Jewish culture and history through “Fiddler on the Roof,” I was completely captivated by the music, the story and the production design.” - Daniel Raim

Time Stamps:

00:00 - The trailer for Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen.
03:45 - What it’s about and where you can watch the film.
05:43 - The cultural phenomenon of the movie muscal Fiddler on the Roof.
07:45 - What makes the story so relatable to people.
10:20 - Who Norman Jewison was and what made his films so powerful.
13:19 - The collaboration of musicians behind Fiddler on the Roof.
16:38 - The importance of set design in the film.
18:15 - The extent of Robert Boyle’s attention to detail.
24:19 - Norman Jewison’s skill at picking actors and making them feel comfortable.
28:43 - What inspired Daniel to create a documentary about the iconic film.
31:54 - The key differences between theatrical and movie versions of Fiddler on the Roof.
36:09 - How Daniel gained access to the archival footage of Norman directing.
41:00 - Different short docs Daniel has made and the feature he is now working on.

Resources:

Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen (2022)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Moonstruck (1987)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Amazon Prime Fiddler on the Roof
Alamo Pictures
18 Best Movies to Watch on Netflix in 2022

Transcript for Factual America Episode 100: How 'Fiddler on the Roof' Made it to Hollywood

Daniel Raim 00:00
My name is Daniel Raim. I'm the director of Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen.

Speaker 1 00:04
The phone rings. How would you like to be Tzeitel in the film Fiddler on the Roof? And I put it down and screamed.

Speaker 2 00:12
Cut! All right, hold it there. Arthur Krim looked at me, and he says, What would you say if we were to say, We want you to direct Fiddler on the Roof? And then I said, What would you say if I told you I'm a Goy? Taking a play and bringing it out into the real world. It's always a challenge for a director.

Speaker 3 00:43
Bringing Fiddler to the big screen was certainly one of my great challenges. Jewison is one of the few directors who understood that. He had fantastic sense of rhythm musically.

Speaker 4 00:54
John Williams managed to harness my singing and almost make the verse that I do with the shawl, kind of ballad-like. [Singing:] Matchmaker, matchmaker, I'll bring the veil.

Speaker 5 01:08
It's not just about a dairy man with five marriageable daughters, it's more than that. There's something else that gives these shows their power.

Speaker 6 01:18
I found it was quite possible for me to identify with Tevye, and to identify with the Jewish religion.

Speaker 7 01:23
Over one billion people saw the film, so they couldn't all be Jewish.

Speaker 8 01:31
Getting to know the actresses who played my sisters brought us close together, which gives you the sense of family.

Speaker 9 01:38
The girls were my family. They were my sisters.

Speaker 10 01:41
Doing the wedding scene, Roz was just following through an instinct to give me a hug.

Speaker 11 01:47
Even in a musical comedy, like Fiddler on the Roof, you still feel the pain. And I think that's, you know, that's the heart of the thing.

Speaker 12 01:55
We want a film for everybody.

Speaker 13 01:59
What is it about the fiddler, and the film, that we can't let go of? It's the closest thing to a human voice that there is. That's a fiddle. That's worth the price of a ticket.

Matthew 02:16
This is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary, and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome award winning and Oscar nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim, director of Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen. The film captures a bygone era of early television and blockbuster Hollywood musicals. It also shines a light on the incredible career of fellow filmmaker, Norman Jewison. Jewison had critical success over more than three decades, but his crowning achievement might be bringing Fiddler on the Roof to the big screen. Legendary film critic Pauline Kael called Fiddler the most powerful movie musical ever made. If you are a fan of the play or Hollywood of the 1960s, and 70s, or even if you're not, stay tuned, as we catch up with Daniel and learn more about the unlikely story behind this iconic American film. Daniel, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?

Daniel Raim 03:23
I'm doing well, thank you. It's great to be with you on the program.

Matthew 03:27
Yeah, it's great to have you. So, for our listeners and viewers, the film we'll be talking about today is Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen. It's come out this year. It's done the festival circuits. Doing quite well. How can people see this film? Is it available yet?

Daniel Raim 03:45
It's currently in the United States and North America, United States and Canada. It's currently playing in theaters and festivals. And then it'll be in the UK, I believe, towards the end of the year, and playing in other countries around the world as well.

Matthew 04:06
Yeah. Well, look, we'lI definitely look forward to that here - we're based in the UK - especially because I'd love to see this on a big screen. So, thanks. Thanks for that. I mean, it seems like it should be relatively obvious from the title but what is Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen all about. Can you give us a synopsis?

Daniel Raim 04:26
Yeah. It's about director Norman Jewison's quest to adapt this beloved stage - Broadway stage - musical Fiddler on the Roof into a widescreen epic, and it's about his creative journey, a spiritual and creative journey making the film, and it also highlights the work of a lot of great behind-the-scenes cinema artists and actors and actresses as well. And their, kind of, remembrances of working with Norman Jewison and making this film.

Matthew 05:08
And maybe for our listeners, because it is a, you know, this has come out roughly in line with the 50th anniversary of the film, but maybe give - I mean I am aware of it, because I'm of a certain age, but maybe some perspective on Fiddler on the Roof as a cultural phenomenon. Because I think, maybe, there'll be some people who don't realize how huge this thing was, the play as well as the film.

Daniel Raim 05:19
The film and the play... well in 1962 or 63, the lyricist Sheldon Harnick and his composer, writing partner, Jerry Bock, and Broadway writer, libretto, who writes librettos, Joseph Stein, the three of them got together with the intention of adapting a series of short stories by acclaimed Yiddish playwright and author, Sholem Aleichem, called Tevye: The Milkman. And they were drawn to the stories of his relationship with his daughters and their desire to get, you know, to start their own life. It's oftentimes against the wishes of the father, so it brought into play the tension between tradition and modernity. And they created this incredible musical that was directed and choreographed by the great Broadway director, choreographer, Jerome Robbins. And so, the four of them really came together and adapted and shaped this material into what was originally thought to be very limited audience, you know, for just Jewish - because it deals with Jewish life, Jewish shtetl, which is like a small market town in turn of the century Ukraine, which is now right outside of Kiev. And it exploded in 1964, became a phenomenon on Broadway. And this is sort of the story of that time when United Artists decided, Hey, what can we adapt this into a big Hollywood musical?

Matthew 07:36
Why do you think this story resonated then, and I would say still resonates now, because it, you know...

Daniel Raim 07:44
I would say it starts with the beauty of the original works, the original short stories by Sholem Aleichem, were all so imaginative and rich, in terms of what he was able to draw out of this kind of universal story about a Jewish milkman and his family, and the genius of the creators of the original Broadway production, how they adapted it so beautifully into a musical. And the songs, you know, like Sunrise, sunset and...

Matthew 08:19
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 08:19
... and the themes of Anatevka, and exile, and having to be forced out of your homes, and all of these issues that are quite powerful and universal and timely, still resonate today. And audiences all over the world embraced Fiddler on the Roof, in Japan, all over the world, as their own story. So, it's quite a, I think, quite a powerful creation by the original Broadway creators.

Matthew 08:54
I mean, I had one - add one to you - personal story: I was in a marching band in high school, and my freshman year, the show we put together was all songs from Fiddler on the Roof. Probably helped that we had both band directors were Jewish...

Daniel Raim 09:15
... marching band, I can hear it now!

Matthew 09:17
Yeah, exactly. You can hear - it started off with Tradition, and then it, you know, went from there, you know, so - but anyway, it permeated the culture. Probably still does, but certainly back - that was in the 80s, you know, I mean, that's - it was still there. The songs are so memorable. And yet, like I think you've mentioned in the film, you know, it revives the lost world of Eastern European Jewry. It's kind of a religious movie in many ways, or spiritual movie, and yet doesn't sound like a big budget blockbuster when you start listing kind of what it's about, or who the intended audience is.

Daniel Raim 10:06
True.

Matthew 10:07
Why do you think - I mean, we already asked you how it resonated, the original stories, but was a lot of this down to Norman Jewison and the crew that he put together, this amazing crew, that he put together...

Daniel Raim 10:22
Yeah. The crew he put together. The casting. Absolutely. I mean, he was the great conductor of this and had a vision, a very clear vision, and he was at the top of his game as a visual storyteller.

Matthew 10:35
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 10:36
And what he brought with, you know, what he brought in terms of a vision, and surrounded himself with incredible collaborators.

Matthew 10:46
And, I mean, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about Norman Jewison. Because the thing is, I recognize the name, but he's not, like, he's not one of these household names, necessarily. But then you start looking at the list of his filmography, and it's amazing, you know, the stuff that he did, and he's involved with, and nominated three times for Best Director. So, maybe give us a little introduction to Norman Jewison.

Daniel Raim 11:16
He's maybe - maybe he's most well known for both In the Heat of the Night, which won Best Picture in 1967, and Moonstruck, which I don't remember exactly what accolades that won but, of course, Cher - maybe even won an Academy Award for that. But I mean, he, you know, and, in a way, Fiddler on the Roof is sort of following In the Heat of the Night. Norman Jewison was also a filmmaker who was interested in telling stories that relate to social and political concerns he had. And I think he brought a lot of feeling for the issues of the pogroms and the Holocaust and all the other issues that the Jewish people experienced at that time.

Matthew 12:13
Okay, so one thing that strikes me in having watched this lovely film that you've made is its insights into the art of filmmaking, and specifically on how Norman Jewison did it, but, I mean, it is - and also, I don't imagine filmmaking is done like - oh, well, we know filmmaking is not done exactly this way, anymore. It's a bygone era in some ways. But in other ways, these are universal elements, obviously, to what he did as a filmmaker, and it's an homage to him in many ways, and, you know, and, I think, I guess there's - I don't even know where to begin with all the amazing elements to this - you were talking about the team that he assembled - but maybe we can start with the music, because I think that's probably what most people think of when they first think of Fiddler on the Roof. I mean, as you mentioned, Bock and Harnick and Stein, you know, so he had this amazing music to work with already. But then a relatively young, unknown, John Williams, of Star Wars fame, and many others, gets involved. That was an amazing collaboration.

Daniel Raim 13:40
Even before Star Wars fame, so this is 1971, and he - I think this might have been his second film that he worked on or third, but he was eager to be part of this project with Norman and was there from the beginning. They went on research trips to Israel, and went to archives and listened to Yiddish music and really dug deep into the cultural fabric of Jewish life and music, and John Williams was, I think this was his first Academy Award win - maybe even nomination - and he won the best Academy Award for musical score. Not only did he adapt the music for the big screen, but he composed an extraordinary introduction piece called a cadenza, which is a seven minute piece for the opening credits where we see a fiddler on the roof with the titles. And this incredible performance by the maestro violinist Isaac Stern.

Matthew 14:57
Yeah, yeah, and I think what was interesting, because you've got interviews with Williams and he talks about Jewison's natural musicality, which was interesting. You never think about that.

Daniel Raim 15:00
Well, he hadn't worked with Norman.

Matthew 15:14
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 15:15
So, Norman who had a background in musical theater, Norman Jewison, his start, in terms of as a director, was directing live musical television. And famously, Norman Jewison directed Harry Belafonte, Tonight with Harry Belafonte, and The Judy Garland Show. I learned from speaking with John Williams, that - at even at that time, John Williams, sensed that Norman understood where to place the camera and how to move the camera in regards to how the music is flowing. And Norman, I think, was, you know - his aunt taught him - gave him piano lessons. And so, he had a musical background, which clearly informed, powerfully informed, the making of both, might I say, Fiddler on the Roof, and his follow up film, Jesus Christ Superstar.

Matthew 16:17
Exactly, exactly. And then, I mean, probably maybe what flows from that as well is - and again, it's not something I had thought about, was, how to incorporate this - and as you said, how he's able to - has this musicality and knows how to film this. The importance of set design on all of this, and John Williams mentions that. I mean, knowing exactly how many steps you need from this point to that point, and how you build a set around that is, you know...

Daniel Raim 16:52
Absolutely. I mean, as a documentary filmmaker, I've been curious to investigate and talk with cinema artists in terms of the collaborative, it's such a collaborative medium...

Matthew 17:10
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 17:10
So, you know, the only one person for Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen that we couldn't get is the choreographer, but it was great to have John Williams comment on production designer Robert Boyles's set of the barn, and, as you mentioned, how many steps of the ladder Topol has to climb up, and do we need to remove one step of the ladder so he gets up on that beat for If I Were a Rich Man? And how do you create a musical number? I mean, starting from scratch, starting from adapting the vocals of that singer to the playback and everything that goes with it.

Matthew 17:51
Yeah. And then, as he decided, as Norman had decided, that he wasn't, you know, you were going to be- it was, like, an actual film, you know, it wasn't just like, they're kinda onstage and you're watching them, you know, like you would in a theater. This is actually - you're there in amongst them.

Daniel Raim 18:06
You certainly are. Yeah.

Matthew 18:13
And then in what you're saying, and I know you've - I think you've done a short on Robert Boyle, and I think, you know, what he was able to do, you know, again, I didn't have an appreciation for this, but recreating shtetl life but, you know, I've had some experience with Eastern Europe and I know about wooden Eastern European architecture, but to then find this village in, well, now the former Yugoslavia, but that existed and finding craftsmen that could build - you know, to build, this attention to detail, to build a synagogue, from scratch, because they don't exist; unfortunately, didn't exist anymore, anywhere.

Daniel Raim 18:55
Right. Specifically wooden synagogues that are painted with symbolism, and Hebrew letters, and so, according the, you know, they had this big research project where they traveled through Eastern Europe, and there were no surviving - there were no synagogues survived after World War Two, after the Holocaust, but they were able to piece together through archival photographs, what it might have looked like and recreated an actual structure in Lekenik, Yugoslavia, using, as you noted, the real wood of that area.

Matthew 19:33
Yeah. And then, I guess, the next - and then you've got, you add this cinematography with all this, and the great Ossie Morris was the cinematographer, and - I mean, did he literally film all those scenes through silk stockings? As we find out.

Daniel Raim 19:54
Certainly, a majority of the film looks to me as if it was actually shot through a silk stocking. And there are certain scenes where they're panning, where the sun is reflecting into the lens, you can actually see the texture of the silk stockings more so! So, certainly, that was the case, yeah.

Matthew 20:20
I mean, it would be CGI now, but I think it's - but just literally like, because you've got, you know, you've got Norman Jewison saying, you know, they literally waiting for the sunset, you know, for that wedding scene and putting all that together and the candles and stuff and just the - what they had to, you know, filming this in 1970 or so, you know, how they had - what they had to do to bring that to life in the way they did is remarkable.

Daniel Raim 20:52
That's the wedding procession scene. Norman had referred to it as one of the most beautiful shots in all of his oeuvre, in his body of work. And, to your point, they did wait for the sun, you know, the magic hour, for Sunrise, sunset, you know, is the theme, the song that they sing under the canopy of the wedding. The procession going up to the - where the wedding took place, when everyone's holding candles, and it's great to see not only, I mean, one of the great discoveries in making this doc was, as I was interviewing Michele Marsh, who plays Hodel, one of the daughters, went up to her home, this is basically one year ago this month, in May 2021. We were asked to enter her house with our gear through the garage. And in her garage was this box. And it said Fiddler on the Roof. And I said, Michele, what's in this box? She said, Oh, that's my evacuation box; because here in California, we're dealing with fires, and so I said, Well, great, can we please bring your evacuation box into the interview, and go over, you know, pour over, you know, go through the materials? And in that box was a series of Polaroids that we see in the documentary. Never before seen, that she took, her friends took, of the behind the scenes of the making of the procession to the wedding and other gems, so that was like a documentary filmmaker's dream.

Matthew 22:28
If you could all just walk through someone's garage and find the magic box, if you will...

Daniel Raim 22:28
I highly recommend it, yes.

Matthew 22:36
Exactly! I think - actually, we're gonna give our listeners an early break here, but we'll be right back with Daniel Raim, the director of Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen, at festivals, and in theaters in the US, and coming to the UK and rest of the world, hopefully, by the end of this year.

Factual America midroll 22:57
If you enjoy Factual America, check out the MovieMaker podcast. That's all one word: MovieMaker. Where our friends at moviemaker.com, interview everyone from filmmakers just breaking in, to A-Listers like David Fincher and Edgar Wright, about their movie making secrets and behind-the-scenes tricks-of-the-trade. They go deep, and let the guests speak uninterrupted, to get you the most film insight. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 22:57
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with acclaimed filmmaker Daniel Raim, director of Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen. It's out now in theaters, you might see it at a film festival, and, as well, it will be coming out here in the UK later this year, and I'm sure there's a rest of the world, wider release planned as well. We were talking about this - so, we're talking about Norman Jewison. And this incredible crew that he assembled to bring Fiddler on the Roof to life. And then, one thing I guess you've mentioned it but we haven't discussed necessarily in more detail is the, also the incredible cast he assembled and, I guess, led by Topol, but is Jewson - would he be considered an actor's director? Because it seems like everyone has a - certainly does - no one has anything unkind to say, that's for sure.

Daniel Raim 23:25
On the contrary, I think that's part of his genius, and his brilliance, is making actors feeling incredibly comfortable and secure. And working in this case with non-actors, first time in front of a camera. It's mainly the three actresses who played Tevye the milkman's eldest daughters, Topol's eldest daughters, and even Topol who had - this was his first big production; you know, he had acted before. Now, what's interesting, Topol's 32 years old when he's playing Tevye the milkman, but he looks like he could be, you know, an elderly father in his 50s, or whatever, with the beard and the gray beard, and they would have to trim some of the gray hairs from Jewison's beard to apply to Topol's beard. But yeah.

Matthew 25:22
Well, yeah, I know, and I noticed he's, I think Topol's still alive, isn't he? I mean he's...

Daniel Raim 25:22
He is.

Matthew 25:29
You know, so it's a - quite amazing. Yeah, I didn't realize how young he was at the time, but - and I think the movie does a great job of also explaining how, you know, obviously the great Zero Mostel was - played Tevye on Broadway, but - how Jewison, I think that's the other thing, how Jewison had his vision, he wasn't beholden to the vision that people might have had of what it's - this is how it's done on Broadway, so this is how it's going to be brought to the big screen. He had a different vision and had an understanding of what would work on the screen, didn't he?

Daniel Raim 26:05
I mean, absolutely. Two different mediums, right? So, there's one medium - theater; Broadway - where an actor of Zero Mostel's larger than life gesturing, can communicate to the last row in the theater. Whereas he needed an actor that - Jewison wanted, first of all, to kind of re-envision the look and feel and tone of Fiddler on the Roof, and set it in a real Jewish shtetl, basically, and that's why they spent so many months searching for the right location in Eastern Europe, finally settling on former Yugoslavia and, you know, looking at his body of work, right, his early comedies for Universal, Doris Day, and then The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming with Alan Arkin, right, what an incredible performance as a Russian submarine captain, right?

Matthew 27:16
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 27:16
So full of humor and warmth. He's kind of - and then, you know, in making In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier, I mean, what a performance, right? And following that The Thomas Crown Affair, and how he could navigate, negotiate with the great actor, my gosh...

Matthew 27:35
Steve McQueen, yeah.

Daniel Raim 27:37
Steve McQueen, and figure out, you know, how to get the best out of The Juice as he was known at that time! And really bring him into, you know, I mean, it's such a great character study, The Thomas Crown Affair.

Matthew 27:51
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 27:51
And then he did Gaily, Gaily and then Fiddler on the Roof. And so, by the time he did Fiddler on the Roof, I think he had already been established as a great actor's director.

Matthew 28:04
Well, you just described... sorry. I'm sorry. I was just gonna say you described one hell of a run just even in that five to whatever year period it is. Absolutely amazing.

Daniel Raim 28:16
Absolutely. I mean, if you look at the quality of the performances also go all the way into the 1980s into Moonstruck, right, or Hurricane with Denzel Washington. The way he's able to elicit very meaningful, humanistic performances. I think it's kind of extraordinary.

Matthew 28:36
And what about your film? I mean, how did this project come about?

Daniel Raim 28:42
Well, there's several sort of - first, I think the big thing is that when I was a student at the American Film Institute, in 1997, my professor was Fiddler on the Roof production designer, Robert Boyle, who appears in the documentary...

Matthew 29:00
Right.

Daniel Raim 29:01
And I was captivated by his - what was interesting about learning from Robert Boyle, was that any, you know, any great cinema artists, whether you're an editor, production designer, cinematographer, you're a storyteller. And the way he kind of taught us about what does it mean to be a cinema artist, a visual storyteller. And it's not just about building walls and creating sets. It's really about character and story. So, I learned so much from him. And he was also the production designer, Alfred Hitchcock's Chief Production Designer, going back to Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, North by Northwest, The Birds, and Marnie, and I decided he would make a great subject for documentary and it was my first film after film school, was a short subject about Robert Boyle called The Man on Lincoln's Nose, which is the working title of North by Northwest. It's a reference to his work on that, and that's where I met Norman Jewison, making that film, and I interviewed both Norman in 2000 and Robert Boyle, and part of that documentary investigates their collaboration making Fiddler on the Roof, so I was already thinking about these two cinema artists and totally excited, because the thing is for me on a personal level when I was 13, my grandparents who had survived the Holocaust showed me Fiddler on the Roof. I didn't know the music, I had never seen the play. They popped it on their TV, they had a double VHS cassette. And I was totally transported. And like so many, might I say millions of people who learn about Jewish culture and Jewish history through Fiddler on the Roof, I was completely captivated by the music, the story, but also the detail of the production design. And I wasn't thinking, Oh, production design. I was thinking about - it's like that was Norman Jewison's intention, is to bring us into this shtetl so we feel the mud and we feel that the Jewish cultural - the beauty and the pain as beautifully presented in the film, and while I'm watching this film, to the left of the TV is a portrait of my great-grandparents who died in the Holocaust. And, for me, all that churning together my own interest in cinema and Jewish history, and Norman Jewison, specifically, led me to make this film.

Matthew 31:37
Okay. But yet, still sort of 20 years in the making, kind of, to get - well, but it's filmmaking...

Daniel Raim 31:45
Because there's so much to say about Fiddler on the Roof. I mean, you can make endless - you can make so many - like, so, in the time that I'm doing interviews in 2009, I saw - finally - saw Fiddler on the Roof performed live. It was the Topol farewell tour in Los Angeles. And that's when I first thought let's do a feature film.

Matthew 32:08
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 32:08
... because what happened was, I knew the music at that point. I knew Topol but it was so interesting to see the theater version, which was Jerome Robbins' vision as opposed to Norman Jewison's vision. And, but what was also striking for me was that the audience was made up of a very diverse ethnic background. I mean, it was, like, kind of incredible to see that this story, which I thought was so specific to Jewish life and Jewish history reaches the hearts and souls of millions of people who are not Jewish, and it's not even about that for them. That's the genius I think of both Sholem Aleichem's stories and Norman Jewison - all the way through Norman's film.

Matthew 33:06
I mean, what is the - I, to be honest, I have not seen the theater production. What is the big difference in the visions between the two productions?

Daniel Raim 33:14
I would say the big difference is that in the process of designing the world of the Broadway production, Jerome Robbins gravitated towards a painting by Marc Chagall that depicted in a very surrealist way a fiddler hovering above a roof, and his set designer, Boris Aronson, designed the stage production to emulate that Chagall-esque, surrealistic vision of a shtetl in a town, and that worked beautifully. But Jewison - this is 1971 and knew Hollywood was gravitating towards kind of a gritty realism, right, so Jewison brought his movie into this kind of realistic - and he didn't completely ditch the Chagall aesthetic, but he certainly, from the visual design, the visual structure of Jewison's film, its realism, as opposed to, you know, surrealism. But one could say that Jewison brought the spirit of Chagall into the film in other ways, and bought a watercolor of a Chagall, an original Chagall lithograph, maybe not a watercolor, brought it to the recording studio when Isaac Stern and Don Williams recorded the cadenza and the score, and I would say that one of my favorite stories that Jewison, Norman Jewison, tells is that he brought the painting and Isaac Stern says, We have - you know, he was about to start the recording and Isaac Stern says, We have Chagall here, we have the fiddler. And then Isaac Stern says, Chagall's uncle used to climb up on the roof and get drunk and play the fiddle, and I'm going to play a quarter tone flat, and we have the spirit of Chagall here. So, I would say that's the difference between - if you think, fundamentally, too, we should say that the casting of Topol is antithetical, a whole other physicality that Topol brought in, and Zero Mostel versus Topol, you know, it would have been a very different movie.

Matthew 35:39
Yeah. Well, yeah, indeed. So, you had this - obviously you had this relationship with Robert Boyle and Norman Jewison, but when you go to make this film, I mean, did you know you had this incredible archive footage, access to this, because it's amazing, you know - I'm talking about the filming on the set. I mean, I don't imagine that was all that common back then.

Daniel Raim 36:06
I don't think it was all that common. In 1970, when they were making Fiddler on the Roof, the National Film Board of Canada sent a crew with 16 millimeter cameras to film Norman Jewison, who's a Canadian treasure, right. Born in Toronto, to profile, you know, to follow him, directing both on location in former Yugoslavia, Lekenik and Zagreb, and as well in the Pinewood Studios in London, where they shot a lot of the interiors. And we were very fortunate to work with the National Film Board of Canada, and to scan the camera masters, 16 millimeter camera masters, into 2k files to really show Norman at work, as well as his collaborators. It was, I think, really important element to making this film.

Matthew 37:01
Yes. And I imagine fans of the - well, even if you're not a fan, or don't know the film that well, but, you know, fans of the film, certainly it's quite a treat, to see how this was done, you know.

Daniel Raim 37:15
Especially the bottle dance sequence. It's so memorable. But to see the camera operator and the focus puller dancing with them and Norman, just orchestrating, it's just such a - so beautiful. And you get to see him working with the actors, kind of really conducting in the physicality - what it means to be a director. He's not a quiet director. He doesn't sit kind of behind - he's not an observer. He's very physical, and he's with the actors, and he's eliciting a performance.

Matthew 37:48 He's like, I mean, he's almost literally shouting in Topol's face at one point in one scene, you know, it's like, all in good fun, good nature, you know, but what he's trying to achieve, you know, he is very hands on; it was very interesting.

Daniel Raim 38:05
That moment, he's actually in character showing the level of intensity and energy that he - and one of the actresses, Neva Small, says he could also play a 16 year old girl!

Matthew 38:24
And then, it strikes me that involvement with Fiddler on the Roof seems to ensure a long life. So, you've got - you still got all - so many of these people who are still with us, remarkably. So, you know, Norman Jewison still around. We got John Williams, you had recent interviews with him. We've got Sheldon Harnick, who's, you know, still going strong, amazing. I mean, that must have been a - obviously, you've still got the three actresses who played the sisters. I mean, that must have been such a blessing to have - be able to, even as you say, some of these interviews only occurred in the last year or so, to still have access to these people.

Daniel Raim 39:11
Yeah. No, like, John Williams is 90 years old, and his memory - his ability to recall names and remember certain details is exceptional, and better than me! So, I mean, and Norman Jewison I think that that's something that I appreciate that documentaries can do, is kind of, you have this sort of collective vision of memory, this kind of collective memory, right? And I think memory, and I don't mean just your ability to remember but just that the theme of memory and clearly what comes through in for me in terms of the movie and during the interviews, is that there's a very special place in the heart of all these artists that worked on the movie, even 50 years later, even John Williams, who went on to have the most extraordinary career in movies has a profoundly special place in his heart for Fiddler.

Matthew 40:18
And that's an interesting point, because I think if you ask people, What did John Williams do? Very few people probably even realize, even fans of the film, that he was - he's the man behind the music, at least for the film, you know...

Daniel Raim 40:31
Incredible. Yeah.

Matthew 40:35
I think we're starting to come up on our time together, starting to come to a close, Daniel, but I just had a few more questions. I know from your filmography, you do - you've done a lot of - well, it's varied, but you've done a lot of shorts; is that - short docs - is that - you have a preference for shorts? Or is that just kind of the subject matter has kind of led you in that direction?

Daniel Raim 41:03
Well, my first documentary about Robert Boyle was a short subject; it was 40 minutes. That was actually the only short I made independently and was very blessed that it went on to become Oscar nominated. That doc, The Man on Lincoln's Nose, which, by the way, I plan to include in the blu-ray of Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen, in a way it's coming full circle, but I have done a number of documentary short subjects that you might be referring to for the Criterion Collection...

Matthew 41:32
I see.

Daniel Raim 41:33
Yeah, which is a distributor of blu-rays; they create these amazing package discs of great, like, auteurs, and it's been quite an adventure, and a great adventure, to sort of investigate with Criterion the work of some of these great masters.

Matthew 41:55
Well, I spotted that, for instance, you had something on there about Andrei Rublev. You know, I love that film. And, you know, that sounds like something I would definitely - am going to have to check out. So, that's - There is this sort of, I mean - what I find interesting, and just, you know, this - the only film of yours I've had the privilege of watching thus far, but the sort of these subjects who are kind of unknown behind the camera, but who are so key and important to the Hollywood that we've grown to love, and how, you know, certainly throughout the, you know, not just Robert Boyle, but others that you've done, is that something that's just kind of evolved; is it kind of organically or, you know, it's - obviously you have an interest but...

Daniel Raim 42:55
Yeah, the one that comes to mind is, in 2015 I made a documentary called Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story.

Matthew 43:07
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 43:07
It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and screened all over the world in theaters and Netflix. And it's really this story about this unsung - heroes of Hollywood. This couple. Harold Michelson was a storyboard artist. Worked with Hitchcock and DeMille and Kubrick; his wife Lillian was a film researcher. Rarely do you ever see their names on screens. But Harold Michelson who also worked with Robert Boyle on Fiddler on the Roof, as a storyboard artist, would be assigned a movie like The Graduate, and he would - according to Lillian a leg man - and you meet these incredible artists and you talk with them and you find out that he's the one who conceived of this very iconic leg shot from The Graduate, framed through Dustin - Dustin Hoffman framed against Anne Bancroft's leg.

Daniel Raim 43:13
And that's the work and contributions of these incredible cinema artists. And in the case of Fiddler's Journey, we hear about Ossie Morris, you know...

Matthew 44:13
Yeah.

Daniel Raim 44:14
He was a cinematographer, and his journey. And I just - I think it's so important to humanize Hollywood, to humanize these - and not just Hollywood, but you know, world cinema, and to humanize and pay tribute to the incredible cinema artists that are working, and doing work as relevant and as important as the director or anybody else on the set.

Matthew 44:39
And so, what's next for you? After Fiddler...?

Daniel Raim 44:43
So, next year, 2023, is the 120th anniversary of the birth of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and I will be making a feature documentary about Ozu, and in partnership with Shochiku and the studio that made his movies, including Tokyo Story and Good Morning and Late Spring. That'll be a treat, and I - like Fiddler's Journey - my plan is to interview cast and crew members that worked with Ozu, and also tell the story of his life and art through his own words.

Matthew 44:45
Okay, well, definitely looking forward to that. And so, I imagine that's in production now, is it...?

Daniel Raim 45:19
Correct.

Matthew 45:32
Yeah. Okay, well, good luck with that. And just want to say thank you. Thank you for coming to Factual America. It's been a real pleasure talking with you, Daniel. And we'd love to have you back on some time. So, thank you again for making this lovely film. Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen in theaters in the US now; coming to the UK and rest of the world later this year. So, again, thank you to Daniel Raim for your time today. We really, very much appreciate it.

Daniel Raim 46:08
Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Matthew 46:10
Well, thank you. I'd like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe Graves at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England, in deepest, darkest Yorkshire. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas. You can reach out to us on YouTube, social media, or directly by going to our website, www.factualamerica.com, and clicking on the Get in Touch link. And as always, please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 46:53
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts, about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guest, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

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How 'Fiddler on the Roof' Made it to Hollywood

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How 'Fiddler on the Roof' Made it to Hollywood

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 100: How 'Fiddler on the Roof' Made it to Hollywood

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