Hester Street - 1975 Jewish Historical Drama - Carol Kane, Doris

Hester Street - 1975 Jewish Historical Drama - Carol Kane, Doris Roberts

Video Codec..........: XviD ISO MPEG-4
Video Bitrate........: 865kbps
Duration.............: 1:29:10
Resolution...........: 624*350
Framerate............: 29.970
Audio Codec..........: 0x2000 (Dolby AC3) AC3
Audio Bitrate........: 224 kbps CBR
Audio Channels.......: 2
Subtitles............: English, Most of the dialogue is in Yiddish
EXTRAS...............: Interviews, Excerpt from: Heritage - Civilization and the Jews



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073107/



http://bayimg.com/oamBJaAcf



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hester_Street_%28film%29



**NOTE** - For those who are either Jewish or interested in Jewish things, I advise you skip this AVI version and upload the DVD-R, which includes the Director's Commentary. The Commentary includes a great deal of specific ethnic and religious additional information, and should not be missed. A side note; Fans of EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND will be enchanted by the dramatic performance of Doris Roberts here, who plays Ray's mother in the TV series.




Hester Street is a 1975 film based on Abraham Cahan's 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto and was adapted and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. The film stars Carol Kane, Steven Keats and Paul Freedman.

Plot

Hester Street tells the story of Jewish immigrants who come to the Lower East side of New York City in 1896 from Europe and who live on Hester Street in Manhattan. When Yekl first comes to the U.S., he quickly assimilates into American culture and becomes Jake. He also begins to have an affair with Mamie, a dancer. His wife, Gitl, who arrives later with their son, Yossele, cannot assimilate and tension arises in the marriage. Eventually, Jake and Gitle divorce, however in turn, Gitle takes all of Mamie's money and marries Bernstein, a faithful traditionalist.

The film is noteworthy for its detailed reconstruction of Jewish immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century -- much of the dialogue is delivered in Yiddish with English subtitles -- and was part of the wave of films released in the late 1960s and through the 1970s which began explicitly to deal with the complexities of American Jewish identity. In addition, Carol Kane's lead character posed a still-provocative synthesis as she discovers her own self-assertion on behalf of her right to maintain a traditional identity in an aggressively modern setting.


The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress - Carol Kane.


Cast

Carol Kane ... Gitl
Steven Keats ... Jake
Mel Howard ... Bernstein
Anna Berger ... Poultry Woman
Ed Crowley ... Inspector (as Edward Crowley)
Paul Freedman ... Joey
Sol Frieder ... Scribe
Lauren Frost ... Fanny
Martin Garner ... Boss
Dorrie Kavanaugh ... Mamie
Zane Lasky ... Greenhorn (as Zane Laski)
Mordecai Lawner ... Waiter
Leib Lensky ... Peddler
Robert Lesser ... Lawyer
Eda Reiss Merin ... Rabbi's Wife
Joanna Merlin ... Jake's Landlady
Doris Roberts ... Mrs. Kavarsky
Bert Salzman ... Zalman
Zvee Scooler ... Rabbi
Lin Shaye ... Whore
Claudia Silver ... Feigie
Philip Sterling ... Mr. Lipman
Stephen Strimpell ... Joe Peltner
Joel Wolfe ... Kaminsky



http://www.nychinatown.org/storefronts/hester.html - Hester Street today (Chinatown!)