Fiddler on the Roof (G, 1971)

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is an epic musical that is both a boisterous, comic look at rural life in a Ukrainian village, and a serious portrait of the sweeping, tragic changes the 1905 Russian Revolution forced on Russian Jews. The film centers on a humble agrarian family: milkman Tevye (Zero Mostel) is a devout Jew desperately attempting to hold onto his faith's traditions in the face of both the rebellious actions of his three marrying-age daughters and the increasingly ominous intimidation of Czarist officials. Fiddler starts off as a joyous trifle, with Tevye questioning his station in life in "If I Were a Rich Man," and his daughters wishing for ideal husbands in "Matchmaker." But the upbeat tone of the musical's first half makes the second half, which delves into the politics of the brewing Russian Revolution and introduces the terrible specter of exile and the Jewish diaspora, all the more disturbing.

At the heart of Fiddler is, of course, tradition; the title itself refers to the instability of life, against which tradition provides support. But this movie musical marks the ways in which such traditions are eroded, both for good (the viewer is presented with sympathetic portraits of Tevye's daughters and their unconventional choices of husbands), and decidedly bad (the pogrom that sweeps Anatevka's villagers from their homes is hauntingly realistic).

It's this dichotomy that makes Fiddler a daring, thought-provoking departure from traditional stage musical.