USB DONE RIGHT: Two magic boxes that let computer audio ...

old friend, and is thus in a position to
call in favors. Carlito is pretty generous
for someone who used to traffic in coke.
That sets up the final third of the film,
in which Carlito, clearly established now
as the good guy, will take on the scum of
the earth, which description fits nearly
everyone within five city blocks.
Carlito’s Way is not Pacino’s greatest
role, but he makes Carlito an engaging
character, and the brisk dialog moves the
story along, as of course does the action.
Did the producers need to have a
crew ready to shoot in the Bahamas?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Fiddler on the Roof
Topol, Molly Picon
20 th Century Fox
Gerard Rejskind: Can a story from a
distant place and time still have universal
appeal? The answer can only be yes.
When we see a story of humans struggling
to live and love, and put food on the
table, and hang on to what dignity they
can, we can sense the relation to our own
experience. Indeed, it can be said that if
a writer fails to establish a connection
with his reader, it is most often because
he has tried too hard to be “universal.”
But you can’t relate to a character who
isn’t from anywhere.
That no doubt explains why the
stories of Sholom Aleichem (the pen
name of Russian/Ukrainian storyteller
Solomon Rabinovich) remain popular
far outside the large Jewish diaspora.
Originally written in Yiddish, the lingua
franca of Eastern European Jews, his
stories are tableaux of life in the shtetls
(predominantly Jewish villages) of Russia
and Ukraine from about the 1840’s to the
dawn of the 20th Century. Sometimes
called the Jewish Mark Twain, he had an
engaging narrative style that lends itself
to easy translation, and his characters
were strongly drawn. They belonged to
a world that no longer exists, but their
appeal endures because, despite our
varied origins, we have more in common
than we are willing to admit.
Those qualities made the stories an
appealing source for a musical comedy,
created in 1964 by Joseph Stein, with
music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by
Sheldon Harnick. Most of the Sholom
Aleichem stories have one-off characters,
but he did write an entire series of them
centred around the milkman Tevye
(Topol), and so these were the stories
that became the musical. Tevye, like the
other residents of the little shtetl, called
Anatevka in the musical, are strong
on tradition. Directly addressing the
camera, Tevye explains that it is through
tradition that each knows who he is, and
what God expects of him.
However, the world is about to
change, as the 20th CROSSTALK!
Our equipment reviews are unusual
in a number of ways,
but what makes them truly unique is
our Crosstalk section.
Actually, what is especially unusual
is that we review products as a group,
typically of three of us.
We listen to actual music,
not sonic excerpts. And we discuss
what we heard, though with no pressure
to conform.
If we disagree, so be it.
But then comes the Crosstalk.
The main text of each review is based
on the comments made in the discussion
following each session.
But at the end, each reviewer
participates in the Crosstalk,
a personal comment Century on looms. the product.
Tevye has We may five daughters. even disagree Ever among since ourselves.
anyone can remember, And you marriages know what? have
been arranged, Readers often through tell us they the ser- love
vices of matchmakers to see such us as disagree. Yente (the
wonderful Molly Because Picon), if we, who the knows “experts” how can
to put the best face disagree, on her so suggestions. can they.
“So she’s nearsighted, They tell us is our your disagreements, son so
much to look mostly at?” minor Or: “He’ll but sometimes beat you, major,
but only when he’s sober, empower so you’re them. all
right.” Tevye That’s and just his long-suffering one way UHF wife Magazine
quotations, for “when you’re rich, they
think you really know.”
Not all musical comedies have sunny
endings, of course. West Side Story is
based on Romeo and Juliet, and ends
with the violent death of a major character.
Fiddler on the Roof ends with an ethnic
cleansing, as we would call it today, not
something likely to send the audience
out chuckling.
Indeed, the age-old menace of
anti-Semitism is omnipresent. Though
Anatevka has a Jewish majority, it also
has a Russian Orthodox church that is
larger and more sumptuous than the
ramshackle synagogue. The Jewish villagers
are all too aware of the mindless
hostility of the Russian imperial regime.
When the elderly rabbi is asked whether
there is a blessing for the Tsar, he replies
that there is: “God bless and keep the
Tsar…far away from us.”
The story does include a pogrom,
but, no doubt as a concession to the lighthearted
musical comedy genre, it is singularly
bloodless. There is destruction
of property, but as anyone familiar with
the conditions of the Jewish diaspora in
Tsarist Russia will know, Jews seldom
got off that easily. Indeed, Fiddler on the
Roof omits one of the particularly heartwrenching
tragedies of the Tevye stories.
I am not certain that the authors made
the right decision. Comedy and pathos
can never be far apart, and significantly
one of Sholom Aleichem’s books bore the
title, Some Laughter, Some Tears.
The ending includes an unsettling
detail that is perhaps not deliberate. The
displaced Jews are headed for various
destinations, including America and
Golde (Norma is different Crane) from first all met other on their magazines.
Palestine. However, one of Golde and
wedding day, but it will not be so for their Tevye’s daughters, along with her hus-
daughters. Tevye resists the concept of band and baby, are headed for Krakow.
“love,” clearly the enemy of tradition, but The baby will be about 40 at the time
he has much too good a heart to fight to of the Krakow ghetto, the one shown
the bitter end against the daughters he in Schindler’s List. We can guess there
adores. With but a single exception. will be tears aplenty to accompany the
Tradition, for Tevye and the other laughter.
residents of Anatevka, englobes much This is a long film, inevitably so, since
more than Judaism, but of course the it must follow the story of three of the
Bible figures prominently. Tevye is five daughters, but it is sumptuous, and
constantly quoting it — or actually mis- full of delights. The music is memorable,
quoting it — and his dream is of being and some of the songs (such as Sunrise,
rich enough to drop his milk route, and Sunset and To Life) have since become
sit in the synagogue and pray. He would standards. Its polished transfer to Blu-
no longer be corrected in his Biblical ray is most welcome.
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 75
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