Jewish happiness

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Movie
German title Jewish happiness
Original title Еврейское счастье
Country of production Soviet Union
original language Russian
Publishing year 1925
length 1864 meters, at 16 fps around 100 minutes
Rod
Director Alexander Granovsky
script Isaac Babylon
production Goskino
music Lew Pulwer
camera Eduard Tisse , Vasili Khvatov and N. Strukow
occupation

Jewish luck (original title: Russian Еврейское счастье , Yiddish : Yidische Glikn) is the title of a Soviet comedy film by Alexander Granovsky from 1925.

The silent film, which is based on the “Menachem Mendel” letters by the Yiddish writer Scholem Alejchem , is about hopes, dreams and the search for happiness. Menachem Mendel, the little man with big dreams, who goes "on the" crooked road "of Jewish happiness", is the embodiment of the air man who seems to attract difficulties, but also knows how to evade them wittily and skillfully.

action

Menachem Mendel in the Berdychev shtetl has little money and many children. As an insurance agent, he tries to talk the wealthy Kimbak into a policy. His daughter Bella loves the penniless young Salman, but according to her parents' wishes she is supposed to marry a rich baleboss ( yidd .: house owner). When guests are invited, she plays a prank on them by hiding pigeons and mice living in the soup tureen. They scurry across the table as the cook serves the soup ...

Mendel and his young friend Salman, striving to improve their business, travel to the great city of Odessa , where they first try their hand at retailing clothes. A deal with corsets fails because the police officer immediately wants to arrest her for lack of business licenses. They try to bribe him and later also his superior at the police station, but they can only escape because the landlady distracts the policeman with a trick.

Coincidence played a little book in Mendel's hand that contained a list of wealthy brides who precisely recorded their expectations of the future bridegroom; the find inspires him to work in the matchmaking business as a damsel . In his dream he already sees himself as a major exporter of Jewish girls, whom he first takes to the United States by wagon and then by ship, in order to remedy the shortage of women among the bocherim as the world over schadchen . The great Baron Hirsch is his partner. And Salman will be his assistant!

On the trip, Mendel made the acquaintance of his schadchen colleague Uscher, with whom he would quickly deal. He knows how to find a good deal for him in his hometown. Back in Berditschew, he introduces Salman as his assistant to the rich Kimbak, in which he appears this time in his new capacity as schadchen , and is given the task of finding a suitable match for the unhappy Bella.

Mendel and Salman are supposed to organize the wedding in Lychev, as Mendel agreed with Uscher on the way. But because of a misunderstanding, both schadchonim bring a bride (!) With them, so that at the end of the wedding a bridegroom is missing. Salman is then dressed as that in need, who in this crooked way still gets his Bella.

In the end, almost everyone is happy - except for the gliksucher Mendel. He's still allowed to celebrate the opulent wedding, but then has to move on, since it also failed as a schadchen . He sets off again - in search of happiness.

production

Jewish luck was a unique film in the Soviet Union, which was almost exclusively played by actors from the Yiddish-speaking theater scene in the Soviet Union. The script was written by the famous Jewish authors Isaak Babel and Isaak Feinerman . Babel also wrote the Russian subtitles.

Director Alexander Granowski and the actors came from the Moscow State Jewish Theater , assistant director was Grigori Gritscher-Tscherikower (Russian: Григорий Гричер-Чериковер), who was also involved in the script. Natan Altman provided the equipment . The exterior shots were made in Odessa and in the Jewish shtetl of Berditschew in the former settlement area of ​​the Jews in Ukraine. The photography was in the hands of Eduard Tisse , assisted by Vasili Khvatov and N. Strukow. The music for illustration was written by the conductor and composer Lew Pulwer . The film was a production of the state film company Goskino Moscow.

Jewish happiness came to theaters in November 1925. The film was one of the first Yiddish films from Soviet production to be shown in the United States. Besides Russia and Poland, it has also been performed in Germany and France. It also ran in Hungary and China.

The copy existing in the Federal Film Archive under the archive signature 29088 is 1864 meters long.

At the National Center for Jewish Film in Waltham, Massachusetts, Jidische Glikn was released on DVD in 1991 in a restored version.

criticism

Together with the silent films “ The Old Law ” by EA Dupont and the early 20th century pogrom film “ Die Gezeichen ” by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Alexander Granowski's “Yidische Glikn” is one of the most important works in Jewish silent film. (Pertsch p. 216)

"Photographed at original locations by the Moscow Jewish Chamber Theater, the film, borne by cheeky wit and elegiac humor, conveys a precise picture of Eastern Jewry in Tsarist Russia."

- Lexicon of international film

The film succeeds in “creating the atmosphere of Russian-Jewish life in the 19th and 20th centuries. Century beyond emancipation not only to preserve, but also to break through ironically and lovingly ”. (Pertsch p. 231)

"Jewish happiness" shows the culture of the shtetl in the midst of poverty openly and outspokenly . " (DAI Heidelberg 2007)

“Only in the nostalgic retrospective of Jewish emigrants did the poor settlements become their home. With a semi-documentary view of the city of Berditschew, the film shows a realistic picture of the shtetl culture. " (Carolin Viehl 2009)

“The critics' verdict on Babel's subtitles was positive. His work is 'astute' and has been certified as having masterly 'control over the word on the screen', although one missed 'the element of propaganda'. " (Krumm p. 96)

“Mostly filmed at outdoor locations in Berdyiv / Berdichev, a former Jewish center in the Ukraine, JÜDISCHES LUCK sometimes looks like a documentary film. Altman's equipment gives the film ethnographic depth. "No later Soviet canvas," writes Jim Hoberman, "has ever looked so benevolently at the culture of the" shtetl "and recorded it so openly and frankly." For the contemporary critic Khrisanf Khersonski, the film hero was "a Jewish Don Quixote", which was sometimes funny, sometimes tragic. "

Re-performances

The ZDF has reconstructed the original version of the silent film classic from film samples, scraps and the negative stored in the film archives of the GDR and the USSR and had the music edited by the composer Hans Jönsson . "Jüdisches Glück" was broadcast on German television on April 13, 1990 in a restored version with German subtitles.

The German-American Institute DAI in Heidelberg showed “Jewish happiness” on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. with musical accompaniment by the group The Freygish Brothers

At the "Jüdische Welten" festival of the Jewish community in Düsseldorf and the Jewish-American organization "Joint" from December 8th to 13th, 2007, the Soviet silent film "Das Jewish Glück" (Jewish luck) was shown at the opening on Saturday, December 8th at 7 pm ( 1925). The film was accompanied live by the cinema pianist Aljoscha Zimmermann .

The Chair of Eastern European History at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg organized the film symposium “In search of happiness. Jewish Life in Russian Film "together with the Filmhaus Nürnberg, the District of Middle Franconia and the Forum for Jewish History and Culture eV The program also included the silent film" Jüdisches Glück "(USSR 1925, R .: A. Granovskij), which was played on Sunday on June 7th. At the piano accompanied live Dr. D. Meyer, the introductory lecture was given by Ronny Loewy .

On the occasion of the exhibition "Berlin Transit" in the Jewish Museum Berlin from March 23 to July 15, 2012, which showed the German capital as a refuge for Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s, the Jewish Museum Berlin some films were shown which are thematically related to the exhibition. Among them was “Jüdisches Glück” (OT Jidische Glikn), which ran on April 16 in the accompanying program.

As part of the 5th Jewish Film Festival in Munich, the Jewish Community of Munich showed in cooperation with the National Center for Jewish Film and the Department of Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich on Wednesday, 15 January 2014 (14 Shevat 5774) to 7.45pm “Yiddish Glikn” with live music by the silent film trio “Tempo Nuovo” from the Munich Pianist Club.

The Théâtre de la Cité-Bleue, 46 avenue Miremont - 1206 Genève hosted a »cinema concert« on Sunday, November 15, 2015 at 5 pm with the silent film YIDDISHE GLIKN - YIDDISH LUCK (USSR 1925) by Alekseï Granovski, director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, accompanied by klezmer music. Charles Rappaport - violin, Marine Goldwaser - clarinet, David Lefebvre - cymbal and Jean-Gabriel Davis - piano played.

Illustrations

literature

  • Scholem Alejchem: Menachem Mendel and Scheine-Scheindel. Letters from and to Galicia . From the Yiddish by Siegfried Schmitz. Franz Greno Verlag, Nördlingen 1987, ISBN 3-89190-862-8 .
  • Marion Aptroot, Roland Gruschka: Yiddish: History and Culture of a World Language. (= Beck series. Volume 1621). Verlag CH Beck, 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-52791-3 , p. 135.
  • Dethlef Arnemann, Ernst Kuhn, Andreas Wehrmeyer, Günter Wolter (eds.): Dmitri Shostakovich and the Jewish heritage in music. (= Studia Slavica musicologica. Volume 18). Publishing Kuhn, 2001, ISBN 3-928864-75-0 .
  • Jim [d. i. James Lewis] Hoberman: Bridge of Light - Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds. Updated and expanded edition. Dartmouth College Press, Hanover, NH 2010.
  • Reinhard Krumm: Isaak Babel: Writing under Stalin. A biography . Edition 2. Books on Demand, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8482-6948-8 .
  • Ronny Loewy among others: The Yiddish cinema. With contributions by Mischa Brumlik, Detlev Clausen, Dan Diner, Winfried Günther, Christiane Habich, Gertrud Koch, Cilly Kugelmann and Ronny Loewy. Edited by Hilmar Hoffmann and Walter Schobert. German Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-88799-002-1 .
  • Dietmar Pertsch: Jewish worlds in feature films and television games: Films on the history of the Jews from their beginnings to their emancipation in 1871 (= media in research and teaching. Series A. Volume 35). New edition. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1992, ISBN 3-11-095212-2 .
  • Carolin Viehl: Jewish happiness. In: Program for the film symposium “In Search of Happiness - Jewish Life in Russian Film 1917–1999” June 2009, p. 8.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Pertsch p. 321.
  2. ↑ cf. Program booklet DAI Heidelberg 2007.
  3. ↑ cf. Krumm p. 96: “... Menachem Mendel, the typical“ air man ”in a shtetl who thinks a lot, just not about making money."
  4. ↑ cf. Krumm p. 96: “Michoels found it difficult to persuade him to start with the script, following the original. After a few days, Babel gave up, but already agreed to write the subtitles. "
  5. ↑ 1898–1945, director and scenarioist, cf. kino-teatr.ru (Russian), there also Photo
  6. ↑ cf. Arnemann et al. a, p. 65.
  7. ↑ cf. IMDb / releaseinfo and rarefilmsandmore.com  : "Jewish Luck was one of the first Soviet Yiddish films to be released in the United States during the 1920s." and Pertsch p. 231: “The film, which was shot in Beditschew, in the former settlement area of ​​the Jews in Ukraine, and which was released in November, was so successful that it was exported as one of the first Soviet productions. It has been demonstrated in Hungary and even in China. "
  8. ↑ cf. bundesarchiv.de
  9. ↑ cf. Catalog
  10. ↑ Jewish happiness. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 20, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  11. ↑ cf. film.at
  12. ↑ cf. filmdienst.de and TV recording : ZDF, April 13, 1990. - Restored version with German subtitles, music: Hans Jönsson
  13. ^ DAI Heidelberg , International Festival 26. – 28. January, DAI Heidelberg - Great Hall.
  14. ↑ cf. Program booklet DAI Heidelberg 2007: “The“ Jewish luck ”can definitely measure up to the“ gold rush ”. There is also wistful slapstick and the use of dream sequences. The musical accompaniment by the Freygish Brothers gives the film a very special touch. Who better to provide musical accompaniment to the scenes in the shtetl and the dreamed wedding scenes than the prominent band with their rousing and wonderful Yiddish music? "
  15. ↑ cf. Nicole Bolz , WZ dated December 4, 2007.
  16. ↑ cf. osteuropa.geschichte.uni-erlangen.de June 8, 2009.
  17. ↑ cf. jmberlin.de ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jmberlin.de
  18. ↑ Accompanying program to the special exhibition »Berlin Transit«
  19. ↑ cf. ikg-m.de
  20. ↑ poster for the event. at amj.ch
  21. ↑ PDF online