Fiddler on the Roof

The movie takes place in the Jewish village of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It centers on the character of Tevye, a poor milkman, and his family, particularly his daughters and their upcoming courting and marriages. As Tevye says in the introduction, the Jews have relied upon their traditions to maintain the stability of their way of life for centuries.

This stability is threatened by Tevye's daughters' wishes to marry men not chosen in the traditional way, by a matchmaker. Also threatening on a larger scale is the Russian revolution and the pogroms (riots directed against Jewish people).

Life is as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof.

• Chaim Topol as Tevye
• Norma Crane as Golde
• Leonard Frey as Motel Kamzoil
• Molly Picon as Yente
• Paul Mann as Lazar Wolf
• Rosalind Harris as Tzeitel
• Michele Marsh as Hodel
• Neva Small as Chava
• Paul Michael Glaser as Perchik
• Ray Lovelock as Fyedka
• Elaine Edwards as Shprintze
• Candy Bonstein as Bielke
• Shimen Ruskin as Mordcha
• Zvee Scooler as Rabbi
• Louis Zorich as Constable
• Tutte Lemkow as the Fiddler (His playing was overdubbed by Isaac Stern)
  

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Tevye is a Jewish milkman in the village of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia. He and his wife Golde have five daughters, all who will be married eventually. They are terribly poor despite working hard, as are most of the Jews in Anatevka, and he cannot afford dowries for them.

At times Tevye speaks directly to the audience (or to God), and he tells us that what keeps the Jews of Anatevka going is the balance they achieve through obedience to their ancient traditions. He also explains that the lot of the Jews in Russia is like a fiddler on a roof: trying to eke out a pleasant tune while not breaking their necks! The fiddler appears throughout the film as a metaphor, reminding us of the Jews' ever-present fears of harassment from their non-Jewish neighbors.

In town, Tevye meets Perchik (Paul Michael Glaser), a student with modern religious and political ideas who is clearly a Marxist. In exchange for tutoring his daughters, Tevye invites Perchick to live with his family.

There is only one wealthy Jewish man in Anatevka - Lazar Wolf, the butcher. Tevye arranges through Yente, the matchmaker, for his oldest daughter Tzeitel to marry him. Of course, Tzeitel is in love with her childhood sweetheart, Motel the tailor, and begs her father not to make her marry the much older butcher.

Tevye reluctantly agrees and, despite the humiliation suffered by Lazar Wolf, Tzeitel and Motel arrange to be married. At the wedding, an argument breaks out between the guests over whether a girl should be able to choose her own husband. Perchik addresses the crowd and says that since they love each other it should be left for the couple to decide. He creates further controversy when he asks Tevye's daughter Hodel to dance with him, crossing the barrier between the men and women. Eventually, the crowd warms up to the idea and the wedding proceeds with great joy. Suddenly, a mob of local peasants arrive and begin a pogrom, attacking the Jews and their property.

Later, as Perchik prepares to leave Anatevka to work for the revolution, he tells Hodel that he loves her, and she agrees to marry him. When they tell Tevye, he is furious that they have decided to marry without his permission, and with Perchik leaving Anatevka, but he eventually relents because they love each other. Weeks later, when Perchik is arrested in Kiev and exiled to Siberia, Hodel decides to travel to join him there.

Meanwhile, Tevye's third daughter, Chava, has been flirting with a young Russian man, Fyedka, and eventually works up the courage to ask Tevye to allow her to marry him. In a soliloquy, Tevye concludes that while he could accept his older daughters' choosing their own husbands, he cannot countenance Chava marrying a non-Jew, in effect abandoning the Jewish faith, and forbids her to associate with him, but she elopes with him and marries in a Russian Orthodox Church.

Finally, the Jews of Anatevka are notified that the Russian government will force the Jews to leave the village; they have three days to pack up and leave. Tevye and his family and friends begin packing up to leave, heading variously for New York, Chicago, Palestine, and other places they know nothing about. Just before the credits, Tevye spots the fiddler and motions to him to come along. The film ends with a long, slow shot of the Jews walking out of their former village at sunset.

[First lines]
Tevye:A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition!

Tevye: "As the good book says, when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick."
Mendel:"Where does the book say that?"
Tevye: "Well, it doesn't say that exactly, but somewhere there is something about a chicken."

Perchik: Money is the world's curse.
Tevye: May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover.

[to God]
Tevye: I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?

[TEVYE]
"Dear God, you made many, many poor people.
I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.
But it's no great honor either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?"

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.

I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.

I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
And each loud "cheep" and "swaqwk" and "honk" and "quack"
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say "Here lives a wealthy man."

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy rich,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.
...