At first I thought I'd be bored and almost changed the channel, but what a great film! The plot of new Jewish immigrants assimilating and the choices they made was so intriguing. The husband wanted to much to be American that he was willing to sacrifice everything!
This is deifinitely Carol Kane's best work.
I agree. This was a great film that at times seemed like a classic made decades ago. I liked how no one was one sided, all had their good points. The main character loved his son, Fannie at the end spent all her money to gain the man she loved, but didn't care (she would just have to start saving all over again). Carol Kane was fabulous and I loved how she grew into a fully empowered woman.
I like how the scene of the father playing stickball with his son was choreographed like you were watching a snippet from a silent film.
I also found it interesting that in the Jewish faith back then that a women had to whole heartedly agree to a divorce or it was null and void. Although it was incredibly unequal that the ex-wife wife had to wait 91 days to remarry whereas the ex-husband could remarry on the same day.
Do you think it's because that would be enough time for a pregnancy with the divorcing husband to become apparent, so there would be no question of paternity?
shareI believe that WAS the reason.
shareDo you think it's because that would be enough time for a pregnancy with the divorcing husband to become apparent, so there would be no question of paternity?
See my other posting
See some stars here
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I didn't think Mamie was so admirable. She's running around with a man she knows is married and has a small child. There are several words to describe a woman like Mamie, but "admirable" isn't one of them.
I think Carol Kane's character came up with the right word right before she decided she didn't want her despicable creep of husband back.
Mamie was little better than a tramp; it isn't explicitly stated, but in a couple of scenes we get little hints that she may well be carrying on with other men and Jake at the same time; Jake, of course, is oblivious to this.
Which is what made the ending of this picture so ironically perfect: Gitl and Bernstein walk off in one direction, Mamie and Jake in another. Gitl and Bernstein are radiantly happy; Mamie is smugly triumphant, having gotten her way, and Jake is already beginning to see that he has jumped from the frying pan into the fire. He wanted Mamie, and now he has her. In fact he's stuck with her. After watching him spend ninety minutes being an out-and-out bastard to his wife, I laughed out loud at the irony.
Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
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It's the other way around, actually: if the husband doesn't consent to a get (a Jewish divorce), the wife is stuck with him. There are Jewish women whose husbands have deserted them and even married other women in civil ceremonies; but out of spite the husbands won't grant their wives a get. Without it, the ex-wives may be civilly divorced but they're definitely still married according to Jewish law, unable to remarry unless they want to stop being Jewish.
I too really enjoyed this great little find. (Thanks National Film Registry!) I got a kick out of the fact that while it is relatively well done, we could still see the occasional boom mic/boom mic shadow -- it reminded me that this was so not a big budget film. Quite endearing.
One interesting thought comes to mind, however: Is Jake's desire to be 'an American' whatever the cost indicative of the immigrant experience? Clearly, we have two other characters near him that are much slower to adopt American customs.
Still, there is a lingering perception that immigrants who came to American shores a century ago were much quicker to forget the 'old ways' and work to fit in than more recent immigrants. Seems like yet another American myth to me.
xianjiro I really don't think it makes much sense to over-generalize, but my own grandmother came to the States in 1914 at age sixteen from Norway, and based on the stories she told me of her girlhood and her early years in the US, back then assimilation was much more popular for most immigrants than it is today, primarily because back then it was often a necessity for economic survival. Also the level of willingness to assimilate often depended upon who the immigrants were and where they came from.
The concept of the "melting pot" was an old one, and perhaps was never really as true as people thought it was, but I do think that today's immigrants are more interested in balancing "Americanization" with holding onto their heritage.
Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
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It's a wonderful and very underrated film.
And it's not a myth at all that immigrants in the past wanted to fit in with America, I saw that with my grandparents who were Irish immigrants.
Many of the immigrants of today don't really want to be part of America, some of them want America to become their country. They make no effort to try and assimilate.
I firmly believe that people should hold onto their old culture, but also embrace their new one. But today we have people who come here and don't bother to learn English and try and force their views on America.
Many Muslims are a good example of that. You don't move someplace and expect the people and area to change to your way of life, but they don't seem to get that.
I was going to respond, but you said it beautifully. Even my second-generation American parents would not teach me Polish or Italian, except for a few words I'd pick up. Immigrants WANTED to be Americans and appeared to actually LOVE this country.
shareI am a 4th generation American Jew. My great-grandfather emigrated to the U.S. in 1912. He sent for his son (my grandfather) and daughter-in-law in 1920. They ran a laundry business in Philadelphia. My great-grandfather died before I was born. My grandfather died when I was around 12 years old in the 1970s.
I don't think my grandfather assimilated. He knew no English. I never had a conversation with him. He lived in retirement with his daughter (my aunt) after his wife died (before I was born). My father spoke to him in Yiddish. I only could say a few Hebrew words to my grandfather, who would smile and nod. It was kind of sad that I could have no rapport with my grandfather but I respected him.
My mother's family came here from Austria-Hungary in 1906. They spoke Slovak at home, but insisted on learning English as soon as possible. One of my mother's earliest memories is being slapped in the face by her beloved older sister for speaking Slovak in public.. "Be American!!" she was told..
Mom thought and dreamed in Slovak until mid adulthood, she told me, but all the Slovak I was taught was a little nursery rhyme..
Is Jake's desire to be 'an American' whatever the cost indicative of the immigrant experience?
Golda Meir's earliest memory of her Ukrainian homeland was of hiding in a barrel during a pogrom. Her experience with antisemitic violence was hardly unique.
I think most Jews who were not ultra-Orthodox were happy to assimilate. But the problem was, discrimination against Jews was almost as bad as it was for blacks. Not that they were lynched, but many non-Jewish people wouldn't hire them, or sell or rent to them. (Have you seen Gentleman's Agreement? It's set in the late 1940s, long after the events in Hester Street, and a Jewish character almost has to turn down a job offer because he can't find a place to live.) The Borscht Belt existed because many Gentile-owned hotels and resorts refused service to Jews.
Given the extent of anti-Jewish discrimination, it was easier for them to stay in their own enclaves like the Lower East Side, where they could find work and housing. Where everyone spoke Yiddish, there was little incentive to learn English.
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