No. 54: Green Fields (Grine Felder)
Nostalgia in the language of the Old World
December 06, 2011
Helen Beverley in Grine Felder; restoration and new English subtitles by The National Center for Jewish Film.(The National Center for Jewish Film)
1937, dir. Jacob Ben-Ami, Edgar G. Ulmer. Regarded by some as the greatest Yiddish-language movie of all time, Green Fields follows a Yeshiva bokher on his quest for authentic Jewish life in the Eastern European heartland. Filmed in New Jersey in 1937, it’s a fascinating proto-Fiddler on the Roof: a nostalgic glance at the Jewish Old World, just years before the Holocaust obliterated that world forever.
Jody Rosen is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.
