0:02

Alright

0:06

everybody and welcome to the musical explaining

0:08

podcast. I am your host

0:11

and guitarist in the basement,

0:13

Kava Taharian.

0:14

And I am that sweet, sweet

0:17

saxophonist of the street,

0:20

Angelina Mann. I don't think,

0:22

we tried really hard with that

0:24

one, you know?

0:24

I don't know, it's Fiddler on the Roof guitarist

0:27

in the basement, I don't know. The musicians

0:29

in places of certain precarious natures.

0:32

Sure. Perfect, perfect, as

0:34

usual, always on top. Okay, and

0:37

today we're joined by a very special guest.

0:39

He's an award-winning composer for film and video

0:41

games such as Journey, Abzu, The

0:43

Pathless, and most recently, and

0:46

most relevant to our listeners, the brand new

0:48

musical game Stray Gods.

0:50

Please welcome the man, the myth, the

0:52

legend, Mr. Austin Wintry.

0:54

Austin, welcome to the podcast. Why thank

0:57

you. It's a real pleasure

0:59

and a privilege. I am

1:02

definitely the composer in

1:04

the bunker to keep

1:06

your little riff

1:08

going there. I have literally

1:11

no windows in my studio, so it's a very

1:13

good... Despite

1:16

not being able to claim that it's because I'm

1:18

below ground or something like that, which would be a far

1:20

better excuse. So the sunlight

1:23

deprived composer. No,

1:25

that's how we love it. Otherwise, how else are you supposed

1:27

to get your creativity flowing?

1:28

I was going to say, this is a group of... It's that lack

1:30

of vitamin D. It's a group of introverts too. I think anything

1:32

without windows is like, oh, that's a bonus. I

1:35

love that shit. Windows?

1:37

Nah. Yeah. But

1:40

thanks again. Really, really big fan. I loved

1:42

Journey and I loved Abzu. I played them both like 800 times in part

1:44

because of the music. So I'm really,

1:46

really happy to have you here, especially

1:48

discussing Fiddler on the roof.

1:50

Yeah, we've been trying to get

1:52

something together for a while too. Like Austin,

1:54

I've been talking back and forth and when we

1:56

were talking about it and you said you loved Fiddler.

2:00

Which is why we're here to discuss this. So,

2:03

Austin, why don't you plug us in? Well,

2:05

it's so funny because I'm

2:07

just gonna peel back the curtain

2:09

here that I pitched

2:12

the Buffy musical. Oh, right,

2:13

yeah. And

2:16

I was shot down by my lovely friends here because

2:22

you thought it's unfair homework to

2:24

watch six seasons of television as... It's quite

2:26

a lot. ...as runway. I think it's

2:28

worth it. But, you know, I didn't know that you were insufficiently committed

2:31

to this podcast. So, I am now

2:33

brought up to speed. Shots

2:36

fired. Shots, man. No, but

2:38

it was one of those where... It's

2:41

because... I mean, obviously it was on my

2:43

mind because it was one of the bonding points for our team

2:45

on Stray Gods. It's like, we loved

2:47

that it was one of those rare musicals that

2:49

is a diegetic musical. Buffy,

2:52

they are aware they are in a musical

2:55

and it's a plot device. In

2:57

fact, it's sort of the whole point of it is to get

2:59

out of it or they'll die because it's sort of lethal to them. And that was a little

3:01

bit of an inspiration for

3:03

Stray Gods where the idea is that the character... She

3:07

has a magic power to summon musical numbers as a

3:09

way to get the truth out of people. And

3:12

so it was one of those things that I thought... When I... You know,

3:15

I've listened to a bunch of episodes of

3:17

this show, but I hadn't... You know, you've

3:19

released like five million and so I was

3:21

looking through the list and I thought, Ooh, I've got the perfect one that you've not

3:24

talked about. And

3:26

then after I had to pick the pieces of my soul off the ground... Such

3:30

a musical theater kid, so dramatic.

3:33

I know, I'm sorry, it's accurate. I

3:37

am a big Buffy fan. I actually have been in an illegal production

3:39

of Once More with Feeling. But yeah, it did feel like... Really?

3:43

Yeah, yeah, I was on you and I was

3:46

also deeply pregnant, which made it 8,000 times funnier. The

3:49

thought process was, I think, we like our audience

3:51

to be able to watch what we talk about in some

3:53

capacity. So like, six

3:56

seasons of Buffy for that context was a little hard. But

3:58

you know what, it was a nail by the end. decision

4:00

I'll be real but you know we thank you once again for coming

4:02

on and also

4:03

brain I would not have I would not have lived to the end

4:05

of it although I guess

4:08

it's not a musical show it's just a regular show it's

4:10

just a one-off yeah it's one of those that's anyway

4:12

of it is that they they

4:14

they put so much weight on

4:17

the overall dramatic arc

4:18

in an episode that is so outrageous and it's anyway

4:21

I'm gonna inadvertently hijack this into being an episode

4:24

about I will be a good boy and

4:26

I will not do that so

4:29

fiddler tell us why tell us why you loved

4:32

fiddler what was what tell us what your relationship

4:34

with fiddler was and what made you want to it's

4:37

super simple that it's super simple

4:39

I wish it was some deep provocative response

4:41

but it's one of those where I mean on a

4:44

visceral level

4:45

it's just loaded with absolutely

4:48

gorgeous like profoundly memorable

4:50

moments and it has every musical every

4:53

classic seems to have those moments

4:55

where people go oh that's from that

4:58

like I just recently went

5:00

and saw a friend of mine was at the Pasadena Playhouse

5:03

in the

5:04

Sondheim a little night music

5:05

and I wasn't that familiar

5:08

with it and he goes that's where sending the clowns

5:10

is from and I think that's like a recurring sentiment

5:13

with that one right yeah yeah yeah this

5:15

one has a bunch of those as well I

5:18

just got excited because you hadn't

5:19

done it yet and I it felt like you've done

5:21

everything you know as many as

5:24

many as you've done at this point so that

5:26

that on the face of it excited me plus I also grew

5:28

up we'll

5:29

call it a Jewish background

5:32

much like George Santos Jewish

5:34

yeah yeah exactly I'm a slightly

5:37

more I'm slight I'm slightly better claimed

5:42

but yeah my family my grandfather and

5:44

his generation were growing

5:46

up in Berlin in 1938 and literally

5:49

had to flee and

5:50

came to the US as refugees

5:52

like so many others and in

5:54

tracing the family history like I wasn't raised

5:57

Jewish my father kind of cast

5:59

it all off when he was somewhere

6:01

between being a kid and having his own kids.

6:04

So it was like I was exposed

6:06

to a lot of it growing up and then of course obviously spending any

6:08

time with my grandparents and their generation,

6:10

you got a dose of it.

6:12

I went deeper with it. I discovered that they

6:14

really came from

6:16

these very sort of Polish,

6:18

Hasidic, ultra kind of traditional

6:21

roots if you go back even further generations.

6:24

I'm only even alive today because of some of the strange

6:27

quirks of history associated with that and just like

6:29

the domino effects that began 130 years ago kind of stuff.

6:34

As one of the few, obviously

6:37

Jewish composers is like half

6:39

of the Broadway tradition, but

6:40

all that's not even

6:43

the reason why I picked it because it is the movie

6:45

version.

6:45

In 1971 has one of my single favorite pieces

6:48

of

6:48

movie trivia ever,

6:50

which is I often say you

6:52

have a guess of what it is. Do you already know what it

6:54

is, Enzico? My

6:57

first guess is that it was shot through

6:59

a stocking, which is one of my

7:01

favorite pieces of trivia about this movie. Most of this film

7:03

was actually shot with a woman silk stocking over it

7:05

to bring out the browns in it. Yeah. It's

7:08

like an old filter. Yeah.

7:12

But that was my piece of trivia, but there's a lot of, well,

7:16

I'll let you finish it because I also really love this movie,

7:18

but go ahead.

7:19

I didn't know that.

7:22

I'm amazed that that's an effective technique.

7:25

So John Williams, the most

7:28

Oscar-nominated person alive and

7:31

second only to Walt Disney,

7:34

he has 52, I think it's 52 or 53 Oscar-nominated.

7:38

It's 53, I think. He's won five

7:40

Academy Awards. What

7:43

people always forget is if you go back in time, 1993

7:45

was the most recent one for Shinletters

7:48

list. 1882 for ET

7:50

was the one before that. 1977 for

7:53

Star Wars was his third. 1975 for

7:56

Jaws, which is really the score that put him on

7:58

the map.

7:59

was his second and his first

8:02

Oscar win was 1971 for

8:04

Fiddler on the Roof in a category

8:07

that no longer exists because back

8:09

in those days,

8:10

there was, this you probably do know because

8:12

it probably has come up

8:13

in some way or another here with you guys before,

8:16

but like in the same way that every other movie

8:18

right now is a Marvel movie,

8:20

in the,

8:21

you know, 50s and 60s and early 70s,

8:24

every other movie was an adaptation

8:26

of a Broadway film. That was the constant

8:28

push and you have obviously so many classic

8:31

adaptations

8:32

from that era that are for so many

8:34

people, the definitive version of it. And so

8:36

there was so much so that the Oscars

8:38

had three music categories. They had best song,

8:40

best score, like best original score and

8:42

what is effectively best unoriginal score, but

8:45

it was best adaptation score. And

8:47

it meant- Adaptation score. Like somebody's

8:49

hired to score the movie

8:51

version, you know, like Leonard Bernstein did

8:53

not work on the West Side Story movie, for example.

8:56

It was like, we need to bring people

8:58

who are Hollywood people to fashion

9:00

a score for the scene, like a traditional

9:02

movie score for the scenes between the musical numbers.

9:05

And they had a whole category for that.

9:06

And that's what John Williams went for

9:09

as the composer of the underscore

9:11

and arranger of the sort of backing

9:13

tracks as it were for the song. So I've always loved

9:15

that

9:16

this film that has nothing to do with his music is

9:18

actually his first Oscar win. And that was- Amazing.

9:22

as somebody who

9:22

reveres John Williams. And so that was ultimately,

9:25

like I said, I have a very shallow reason why I saw that and

9:27

went, ooh, I like this one random

9:29

fact about Oscar trivia and John Williams. So

9:31

let's devote our lives to a podcast

9:34

of Fiddler on the Road. Amen. You're

9:36

not gonna get any pushback on this end. We are, we love John

9:38

Williams.

9:40

Angie, tell me about, tell

9:42

us about your relationship to Fiddler. When'd you see

9:44

it? What'd you love about it? Et cetera. So

9:46

I think I've talked a lot about my family being big on family

9:49

movie night and my family also just being like

9:51

a, just a cadre of annoying

9:53

attention kids who wanted attention. So we all

9:55

just gravitated towards musicals, even if we weren't musical theater

9:57

kids themselves. And Fiddler on the Road.

9:59

the roof was a regular one in our house. We watched

10:02

this movie so many goddamn times. I've

10:04

seen this movie probably more times than I've talked to members

10:06

of my family. I just know

10:11

the words still are high and more than I know. Oh, my cousin

10:13

had a kid. I don't know that

10:15

kid's name. Oh no. So I've seen

10:17

this 8,000 times. If I had to think of what was my

10:21

dad's favorite Broadway show, it was Fiddler on the Roof, which

10:23

is very funny because he was the most Irish

10:25

Catholic man to have ever walked this green

10:28

earth. But

10:29

love, love, love this movie. And so

10:32

just kind of grew up on it. And then also I

10:34

have been in a couple of productions of it, which

10:37

is in itself a thing to unpack, but in

10:39

like middle school and high school, because it is a very, I will say this, it is

10:41

a very popular school show.

10:44

And I think the reasons will become very apparent lie if

10:48

for you, but like I've been in a couple productions of it. I've

10:50

just, I've just, yeah, I just, I don't know. Like you

10:52

can't, it's a show that has a life in and of

10:54

itself. It is such a big show that you, it's kind of

10:56

hard to escape it. Even if you've never seen it, I've

10:58

seen it's had 8,000.

10:59

Those references, you don't even know are from it. There's

11:02

been 8,000 professional productions of it. I've seen a couple.

11:04

I saw the Alfred Molina one back

11:06

in 2005 with him starring as Tevye. I

11:08

saw the Danny Burstein. Well, I just, I just, I don't

11:11

know. The show has kind of followed me weirdly my whole life. And

11:13

I just really, really enjoy it immensely.

11:15

And also to go back to John Williams, I remember

11:17

seeing it as a kid who was of course raised by boomer

11:20

parents who love movies and being like, Oh, John

11:22

Williams and the credit and being like, well, this movie's automatically

11:24

cool. Cause you know, I was a star Wars kid and

11:26

an Indiana Jones

11:27

kid. That's true. So I've actually

11:29

never seen Fiddler on the Roof from start to finish. Although

11:31

I do have a funny story

11:32

going based off what you said about high school shows.

11:35

I was in high school and my

11:37

friend, Logan and I had a third friend. His name was Doug

11:40

and he was this very sweet guy. He was totally a weirdo.

11:42

We loved him to death. He ended up being in

11:44

a production of this that was

11:46

playing somewhere in Lafayette. This must've been like 1999 or

11:49

something. And we were so excited that Doug was in a

11:51

show and we were like, we went

11:53

and we were basically going to like rage support

11:55

him. Cause we were so happy that he was in it.

11:58

And he was like, his name was like in the

11:59

in the pamphlet and all that, and we're like, oh,

12:02

he's playing a character named Moisev. I have no idea

12:04

if that's a big character or not, or if that was just

12:06

a random person that's in the background. Anyway, we got

12:08

there.

12:09

Doug was in it. He's part of the chorus

12:11

of people that are dancing, and then he doesn't really

12:13

have any lines. And Logan

12:16

and I, in our 16-year-old crazy,

12:18

hormonal, young, stupid boy bodies, were

12:21

just like, why isn't there more Doug? Why

12:23

isn't there more

12:24

Moisev? What the hell? They threw us out

12:26

of the theater. They were like, I think

12:28

you boys should leave because you guys are being loud. So

12:32

we actually didn't even

12:34

finish watching it because we got thrown out for being

12:36

too upset that our friend didn't have a larger

12:38

role. Obviously, in retrospect, I realized

12:40

that it was very disrespectful and rude and idiotic,

12:43

and this is why young boys are dumb. So

12:45

I apologize to anybody who was in that production in,

12:47

oh, God, like I said, must have been 1999 of

12:51

Fiddler on the Roof. So it was left

12:53

hanging. I have no idea what happened. Well,

12:56

boy. That's so funny. I

12:58

think you getting kicked out of a high school production

13:00

of Fiddler on the Roof for being too

13:02

much of a bro is the most covet kind of thing I

13:04

can think of. But it's like, I love that. That's

13:06

very sweet. Too hype. I have a very funny.

13:08

I brought bro energy to Fiddler on the Roof.

13:10

You broke too hard at Fiddler on the Roof, man. You

13:13

broke it too hard. You broke the

13:15

rules. I have a really great anecdote about my high

13:17

school production of it that I will say for the second

13:19

part when there's a little more context behind

13:21

it. OK. Yes. Yeah.

13:22

Let's go into the notes. Yes, let's get to

13:25

it. Fiddler on the Roof. Fiddler

13:27

on the Roof is a 1971 American musical

13:29

film produced and directed by Norman Jewison

13:32

from a screenplay written by Joseph

13:34

Stein.

13:35

It is based on the 1964 stage musical

13:37

of the same name with a book by Stein,

13:39

music by Jerry Bach, and lyrics by

13:41

Sheldon Harnick,

13:43

which is in turn based on the

13:45

Tevye the Milkman short stories by Yiddish

13:47

author Shalom Alakam.

13:49

Alakam?

13:50

Alakam. Alakam. The

13:52

film stars Topol, Norma

13:54

Crane, and Molly Pecan. Pecan?

13:57

Pecan. Pecan, I believe. Pecan,

13:59

amongst the cast. cast of many. Set during

14:01

the final years of Imperial Russia, Fiddler on the

14:03

Roof tells the story of Tevye, a poor Jewish

14:06

milkman struggling to marry off his five

14:08

daughters, oh man, five daughters. While

14:11

hostility, so many. I

14:13

have one daughter and it's a lot. Still one less than my grandfather,

14:16

but

14:18

while hostility and tension in his little shtetl,

14:22

man, I'm just taking, going to the woodwork

14:25

today, to the woodshed today. I like

14:27

it. Anatevka

14:29

begins to grow.

14:31

As his older daughters begin to make demands about

14:33

who they want to marry, Tevye is forced to

14:35

contend with what his devotion to God

14:37

means in a world that is rapidly

14:40

changing around him.

14:41

Will Tevye be able to let his daughters follow

14:43

their hearts? Is it ever okay to

14:45

make up lies about your grandmother-in-law's ghost?

14:48

Does the existence of a Fiddler on the Roof

14:50

imply the existence of a cellist

14:53

in the drywall? See, that's much better than what I started

14:55

with. All this and more in

14:58

Fiddler

14:59

on the Roof. Yeah, beautiful.

15:02

I put that one in for you. The original. Extra

15:04

spicy. Yes, thank you. Sorry. After

15:07

the immense success of Fiddler on the Roof's Broadway and West

15:09

End runs, a film version of the show was produced

15:11

on a budget of $9 million.

15:14

Like the stage show, it too would prove wildly

15:17

successful, grossing more than $83 million. Wow. During its initial

15:20

box office run, making it the number

15:22

one movie of 1971, it was nominated for eight Oscars

15:26

and won three, including Best Cinematography

15:28

and of course, as Austin mentioned earlier,

15:31

Best Adapted Score.

15:35

Best Adaptation Score. Best Adaptation Score,

15:37

sorry.

15:38

Setter Girl, Polly and Caleb, the film Fiddler is

15:40

an absolutely smashing movie. It is not

15:42

especially sensitive. It is far from delicate

15:44

and isn't even particularly imaginative, but

15:46

it seems to be the most powerful movie

15:49

musical ever made.

15:51

Wow. That's from Pauline, who famously

15:54

did not like a lot of stuff. So that's great.

15:57

And this came out towards the end of The

15:59

Road You. show period like you know after like

16:01

Hello Dolly and Dr.

16:04

Doolittle and yeah and Man

16:06

of La Mancha had just kind of ruined it. This got like

16:09

the full road show release and

16:11

yeah it did quite well for itself. I

16:13

watched this movie fairly recently for the first time

16:15

in several years and was kind of really blown away by

16:17

it. I was like doing a live Twitter thread about it and people

16:19

were like oh Angelina Zitterfiddler on the roof

16:22

hours and I was like walked away from it being like

16:24

actually really genuinely kind of impressed

16:26

by it. I will say that said it is

16:29

one it's a very fair it's a very very faithful

16:32

adaptation to the source material and only cuts

16:34

like two songs that what it adds in is pretty minimal

16:36

and two it's quite

16:38

long cave so buckle

16:41

in. Wonderful. Looking

16:43

forward to it. I'm

16:45

always excited for a reason to watch it again. You

16:48

know me I'm cool like that. It's not

16:50

hard to please me just give me a beer and Topol

16:53

singing if I were a rich man and I'm happy.

16:55

I'm impressed that you watched it so many times

16:57

as a kid and yet that is your

16:59

response to it now like that's almost a like

17:01

a Stockholm syndrome of I

17:05

was so I was so kind

17:07

of faced with it you know that I like

17:10

that it would be very easy for you to hate it. So

17:13

yeah and on that note if

17:15

there are any other anything else we should

17:17

think about before we go watch it you too or should

17:20

we go and you know just

17:22

broad on it. Austin

17:25

any any parting thoughts before we go can't

17:28

top raw dogging it let's do it okay turn

17:30

off and on that note gonna

17:33

go from on the roof.

17:35

Jesus Christ. Alright we'll be

17:37

back.

17:44

If you're listening to this podcast then

17:47

surely you'll want to head over to Nebula as

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always, it's a delightful romp filled with insights

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and dry humor. But more importantly, it's

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cool because you can support our former musical splitting

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co-host, as well as one of the current musical

18:20

splitting co-hosts, because Angie was a co-writer

18:22

on it. Nearly all musical splitting

18:24

co-hosts were involved in the creation of this video,

18:27

except for me, because I have no discernible

18:29

skills or interests beyond being bothered

18:31

by the existence of the musical theater medium.

18:35

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21:30

And we have returned. Yes, we've

21:32

returned to tradition.

21:36

I feel like you have to say that at the beginning of it. As

21:39

is the tradition of this podcast. We went and watched

21:42

the movie musical, and we're returning to discuss

21:44

it.

21:44

Exactly. Like to every season, there

21:47

is a time where we bitch, and then a time where we come back

21:49

and bitch some more, as

21:51

the good book says. But yes,

21:53

we just came back from watching

21:56

the 1971 Fiddler on the Roof, and

21:58

I am just now internalizing how.

21:59

much of this movie and this musical is really

22:02

an intrusive thought because we had a pre-conversation

22:04

about this like 10

22:07

minutes ago where we both logged on and the first thought

22:09

was tradition. It's like you will

22:11

never unhear that. You will live the rest of

22:13

your life once you have heard that song just in the

22:15

back of your head hearing do do do do

22:18

do. Yeah, tradition. Yeah.

22:22

Yeah, real quick. Let's do as

22:24

quickly as we can. I know we have a lot to discuss.

22:27

Let's go ahead and do our break

22:29

down. Sorry, our summary of Fiddler

22:32

on the Roof. So I gotta say, as far

22:34

as premises are concerned, this is one that delivers

22:36

immediately. It begins with a guy fiddling

22:39

on the roof. I was like,

22:42

they dropped the name so quickly. They

22:44

made it happen. They were like, I heard you like Fiddler's on your

22:46

roof. So we put some Fiddler's on your roof, dog,

22:49

and like, just like put that there immediately.

22:51

Like the promise

22:51

was there. I was like, I was not disappointed.

22:55

Okay. So yes, I

22:57

can speed read this musical in my dreams.

22:59

Yeah, let's do it. Let's so let's go. Okay.

23:02

So it is in the early 20th

23:04

century Russia, Imperial Russia. We meet Tevye

23:06

who is a poor milkman at the beginning of it.

23:09

He's talking about the traditions of

23:11

Anna Tevka, this small village

23:13

in the Russian empire and everything

23:15

has a place and a purpose. And at the

23:17

beginning of the show, he has, so he's five

23:19

daughters and the three oldest ones are of marriage

23:22

age. And there's Zidl, Hoddle and

23:24

Hava. And they all have their own dreams

23:26

about marriage. And at the beginning of this, we

23:29

find out that the rich butcher

23:30

laser Wolf wants to marry Zidl, who

23:32

is very much enamored with the poor

23:34

Taylor model cams oil. And

23:37

they've made

23:37

a quick to interrupt arguably one of the coolest

23:39

names I've ever heard in like any ever

23:41

laser Wolf. I was like, cool.

23:44

Coolest

23:45

goddamn name ever. So

23:48

basically what happens, we

23:50

have that all going on. And so

23:53

basically, after Sabbath happens,

23:56

Tevye's wife is like, I'm

23:58

skipping over some character beats.

23:59

here where Tevye talks about how he wishes he

24:02

wasn't poor and you know there's calamity

24:04

kind of going in background at the town. The framing

24:06

device yeah is that he's sort of he's kind of talking

24:08

to God. Yes. He's occasionally questioning like

24:11

he's just like I don't know why he doesn't understand why

24:13

but he sort of is like okay I'll trust you. He breaks the fourth

24:16

wall it's sort of half talking to the camera half talking to God.

24:18

Yeah yeah yeah. He wants to be rich he wants to provide for

24:20

his daughters he's

24:21

a very relatable kind of like good

24:23

father figure kind of guy. He's a dude he's such a

24:25

dude he's like such a dude and so uh.

24:28

He's a bro dude. Right so his wife Golda

24:30

sends him over to Laser Wolfs. They drink

24:33

and Laser Wolf is like really he's he's wealthy

24:35

and so he's like oh well he's too

24:37

much older than Zetal but he's also wealthy and you know this

24:39

seems like a good idea so they drink to it. Yeah

24:42

and then his

24:42

name is Laser Wolf which is also a plus for

24:44

him. Fantastic. My daughter's got to

24:46

marry a guy named Laser Wolf. Yes exactly. They

24:49

drink on it but then like as Tevye

24:51

is leaving home and his drunken stupor the Christian

24:56

chief of police is basically like hey there's going

24:58

to be a demonstration that happens in Anatevka

25:00

and like it's it's it's early 20th century

25:03

Russia so you know it's going to be a very anti-Semitic

25:05

time but so like yeah pogrom

25:07

yes exactly and so um uh

25:09

that's going on in the background Tevye wakes up and

25:12

then Zetal and Model are like hey

25:14

no like we want to get married and

25:16

basically Model

25:17

feeds a line that Zetal fed to him like even

25:19

a poor Taylor deserves to be happy and Tevye

25:22

has this moment of like uh but he ultimately

25:24

is a good guy and so he's like I agreed to this

25:26

but then he has to lie to his wife about why there's

25:29

like some sort

25:29

of spiritual wife

25:32

guy right he

25:34

lies to his wife Goldman says that like her grime

25:36

on Zetal is like um Laser Wolf's

25:38

dead wife is going to curse the family if

25:41

if Zetal marries him and so like

25:43

you know that very cool sequence where he wakes

25:45

up from a he quote unquote wakes up from a dream

25:47

about this and it's like this weird like there's a dream

25:49

sequence yeah it's like a goth

25:52

halloween like russian jewish like awesome

25:54

it's cool as shit

25:55

yeah so it's I

25:57

love it so much uh and then so That

26:00

was my favorite scene in the whole movie. I was like, that's cool as fuck.

26:02

I was like, I'd watch a whole Halloween

26:05

thing just based on that. Oh,

26:07

also meanwhile, they hired this poor guy

26:10

named Perchic, who to be a teacher for his

26:12

daughters, and Perchic is something of a upstart

26:15

intellectual who is basically

26:17

like, I guess he's a tanky. He's like, hey,

26:21

socialism is good actually. And

26:24

falls for the second oldest daughter, Hoddle,

26:27

who likes to fight with him. It's like the

26:29

most romance novel thing. It's like, he's poor

26:31

and an upstart. And she's like, but they're so

26:33

into each other.

26:34

It gives all three versions of what you want.

26:36

It super does. All the three older daughters.

26:39

It appears to every loved one. They're

26:41

every romance novel. But so

26:43

that's happening in the background. But anyway, so they agreed

26:45

to have Zydel and Mottel get married. Zydel

26:48

and Mottel get married. And there's

26:50

this whole

26:51

fight that happens at their wedding. And

26:53

then. Because Laser Wolf

26:55

is like, bro, you should have let me marry the child bride,

26:58

not like the guy that's actually her age. That

27:00

sucks. Right. We agreed it was tradition.

27:03

That's the current threat of this. The

27:05

tradition is that we agreed upon this. And this is what

27:07

it is. And Tevye stands up for

27:09

this decision. And the fight breaks out. But then

27:12

it is all basically overshadowed by the fact

27:14

that Apogram happens at the very end of this.

27:16

And the wedding is ruined. And that's

27:19

act one in a very short nutshell. And then

27:21

act two starts. And we're a couple

27:23

of months ahead in time. Zydel and Mottel have

27:25

started their family. Basically, the big

27:28

inciting event of the second act is that

27:30

Perchic proposes to Hoddle,

27:32

but also is like, I'm going to Kiev

27:34

to do work. And then to

27:36

do work for basically like, for protests,

27:39

basically. And to be

27:41

a revolutionary. And that's his

27:43

job now. He went on indeed.

27:45

And it was like skills that you have. And it's like preaching.

27:48

Like, you know. You

27:50

had to upload his resume. But then he had

27:52

to also put in afterwards, even though you

27:54

just uploaded the resume about being a revolutionary.

27:57

It was

27:57

very tiresome. But he works well with

27:59

teenage girls.

27:59

you know, that sort of thing. But

28:02

so, his indeed is very interesting.

28:05

Found the job, but he's like, hey, I'm gonna go there,

28:07

but before I go, I wanna propose to you, Hoddle. And Hoddle's

28:09

like immediately like, yes. And so it's kind of

28:11

this repeat scene of when Zidl and Mottl

28:13

go to Tevye and say they wanna get married. But this

28:16

time they're like, we're not asking for your permission. We're saying

28:18

like, this is what's happening. And so it becomes

28:20

another moment for Tevye to be like my

28:22

faith and tradition versus what

28:25

I want for my daughters to be happy.

28:27

For my daughters, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's always kind

28:29

of like the bend is basically the

28:31

symbolic, like the old versus the new. And

28:34

he agrees to it. And then, of course

28:36

he goes off to Kiev and he's having

28:38

a protest. And then he gets arrested and sent to Siberia.

28:41

To

28:41

Siberia. Yeah, and Hoddle is

28:43

like, I'm gonna go there and be

28:45

with him. And so he has to say goodbye to his daughter that

28:47

he is likely never going to see again. And

28:49

so that happens. And then

28:52

there's this third. So with the youngest oldest

28:54

daughter, there's five, but there's three of marrying

28:56

ages. And so they said, Hava falls in love with

28:58

a non-Jewish man, a Russian named Fyedka. And

29:02

this all culminates in Hava

29:04

being like, I want to marry Fyedka.

29:06

And this is where like Tevye reaches

29:09

his breaking point, basically, like, and

29:11

you know, it culminates with him being like, nope,

29:13

she's dead to me. And

29:16

after this, it's the biggest

29:18

thing after that is that following the violence

29:20

that happened in Nantevka, the Russian government

29:22

says that all the Jewish people must leave on Nantevka.

29:25

To leave. And they all gotta go.

29:27

Just to back up, she goes and gets secretly

29:29

married to him. Yes, she does. Yes, she gets secretly

29:31

married to him. It's like a descending thing where

29:33

at first it was a big deal. Then the second one, they say,

29:35

we're not even going to ask for permission. We just want your blessing. And then

29:37

the third one, they don't even fucking tell him.

29:39

They just do it. By

29:41

the end, he's just sort of this like, who am I anymore?

29:44

Like, no one listens to me. I'm the head of the family.

29:46

No one cares. And it's very funny because this

29:49

show is billed as a musical comedy.

29:51

But the first act is very funny. And the second

29:53

act, there are pockets of it being funny. But the second act is

29:55

basically Tevye getting

29:57

kicked in the nuts. It's so.

29:59

brutal. That happens, they

30:02

get married and then they basically are kicked out and then they

30:04

have this last song, Anatevka, which is basically

30:06

that because it's all these people being like, this town wasn't

30:08

that great. We should have said a match to it long ago.

30:10

You know, this is why we're always wicking our heads. Look,

30:12

there's all this like gallows humor in it. But like the

30:14

reality is, is like, oh, all of these

30:17

people that you've gotten used to, because it is a very much fleshed

30:19

out town with Anatevka, all of the side characters

30:22

and townspeople and whatnot. And,

30:24

uh, you know, this idea that like they are all having to say

30:26

goodbye. And some of these people, when they tell you where

30:29

they are going, you

30:29

know, some are going to America, some are going to Poland,

30:32

some are, you're just kind of like, and this is, you know, 1910. So

30:35

it's like a very, the

30:36

band is breaking up. Yeah. It's breaking up.

30:38

And if you know anything about the future, it feels more like

30:40

going off to college kind of thing, like at the end

30:42

of high school, where it's like all these people that you've been close

30:45

with, they're sort of going across town or across the country,

30:47

whatever.

30:47

There's that, that, that very funny, relatable

30:50

America joke. And where if you have any family that has come

30:52

from any other country going to the United States where laser

30:54

Wolf's like, I'll be in Chicago. And Tevye's like, Oh,

30:56

we're going to New York. We'll be like right next to each

30:58

other, which is like super funny to me.

31:01

Uh, but yeah, so basically

31:03

ends, uh, yeah, with this, this really

31:05

sad song about how every single person in this town is

31:07

now being immediately displaced. And there's this idea

31:10

of like, you've put your identity into one

31:12

place into like not,

31:13

and to the people of it. And now that is

31:16

gone. And so

31:17

what do you become next? And

31:19

you know, it ends of course with as

31:22

a lot of like a visual centering device of this movie

31:24

is Tevye pulling his cart, whether

31:26

it's with this horse limping or whatever, it's Tevye pulling

31:28

his cart and ends with Tevye pulling his cart of

31:31

his things of those, his worldly things that he owns and then

31:33

being followed by, you know, the Fiddler who

31:35

is meant to represent eight million things.

31:38

And then that's the end of the movie. So

31:40

yeah, that's

31:41

not on the roof at the end. He is not on

31:43

the roof. He's quite on the ground. Yeah,

31:46

he's quite on the ground, but that is the summary Fiddler on

31:48

the roof as quickly as I could do it. I feel

31:50

like I've maybe lost some nuances there. But

31:52

yeah, that's Fiddler. So

31:54

yeah,

31:55

nicely done. Thank you. I tried.

31:58

I tried. I watched this. I

32:01

watch this in two parts because as

32:03

I get older it gets kind of... It's long. It's

32:05

over three hours too. It's quite long. It's

32:07

not a short movie to watch. And it's very, very

32:10

visceral and emotional. I was just like

32:12

after the first second, I'm just like, oh, I need to take a

32:14

break. I'm steadfast in my

32:16

belief that it rules though. So I will just put that

32:18

out there. But yeah. Very good.

32:21

Yeah. Yeah. So I

32:23

think I mentioned the first part. I watched this about a month ago. And

32:26

because I was just kind of in one of those, I've

32:28

had two glasses of wine. I'm trying

32:30

to go and revisit my childhood. And

32:32

I watched it then, but I wasn't paying attention

32:35

to because I was sitting on my iPad and drawing and writing

32:37

and doing all sorts of stuff.

32:38

But watching it again, I didn't

32:40

finish it because it was

32:43

too much when I looked up. So it was kind of

32:45

like, okay. Especially

32:47

now, the thing that made it

32:50

really interesting and poignant

32:52

now is having a daughter. And I made

32:54

a joke about one daughter being a lot.

32:56

And I don't mean that. I actually really love being

32:58

her mom. And just being a parent to anyone in

33:00

general is a lot because it's

33:02

a piece of your soul. And

33:07

watching Fiddler on the Roof through that perspective where it's

33:09

not just like, oh, it's about daughters or whatnot, but

33:11

that children are a piece of your soul.

33:14

And these are pieces of your soul actively leaving

33:16

you and defying what you

33:18

know in all the world. That was what was really

33:21

potent to me about watching it this time.

33:23

Does that make sense?

33:25

No, I was actually thinking a lot about what you

33:27

said before we went to the break where you had said that your

33:29

dad had this on constantly. And

33:31

despite being a sort of devout Catholic,

33:33

you thought it was strange that you watch it. And

33:36

I remember watching it and being like, oh no, I totally get it. This is

33:38

full on like a dad musical

33:41

in the most literal sense of it. If

33:45

you're any kind of father, I mean, obviously if you're

33:47

any kind of parent, obviously, but in the sense that

33:49

like Tevye is literally the father of these five

33:51

daughters.

33:52

It's really like his all consuming

33:55

thing. It's not about tradition as

33:57

much as it is about tradition in the context

33:59

of his daughters. Like that's the thing that like he's

34:01

obsessing about all the time and thinking about and

34:03

like is this the right decision for each one of them? Is

34:06

is he like forgoing some part of who

34:08

he is and like not I guess not

34:11

only like is he worried about obviously providing

34:13

for them financially, but he's also worried about like what is

34:15

what are the lessons that he's like allowing them

34:18

to take from his his Interactions

34:20

with them and and also how they kind of like, you

34:22

know They twist his arm in certain ways and

34:24

he feels bad about it because he really loves them and

34:26

he wants them to be happy And he's willing to sort

34:29

of like go back on these traditions. It's really

34:31

like more than anything. It's really about that

34:34

Relationship that he has with them in the I don't

34:36

want to say like it's eroded in a bad way necessarily

34:39

But just sort of the way that it evolves over the course of the

34:41

film and that's that's really the heart

34:43

of it And I feel like that's what makes it such a

34:45

good. It's such like a powerful It's hard

34:48

to not be charmed by this movie at least like on an

34:50

emotional level Like it really does do

34:52

that heavy lifting and make it this very universal

34:54

story about like even if you're not Jewish

34:57

or familiar with any of the Jewish traditions like Presumably

35:00

like, you know for people who have relationships with their fathers Like

35:02

you'll you'll relate to it on that level or

35:04

even if you are a father or if you are a parent

35:07

like That relationship of having daughters obviously

35:09

like having a kid is different I feel like having a daughter is a very

35:11

specific relationship as well as having a son and

35:13

particularly at that time

35:14

Yeah, I would say it's very specific especially in

35:16

that context but like I don't want to be like the

35:19

more things change, you know, the the energy and

35:21

the Patriot so I'm just coming out of Barbie but like a Son

35:24

is a different kind of thing especially in this context

35:26

where you don't have to be a super proactive about

35:28

them or you have to you Don't have to engage so much

35:31

with diverging from the narrative,

35:33

you know when you have a daughter in this context of

35:35

the show It becomes like how much do

35:37

you value your daughter as a human

35:39

being? Versus yeah, you know

35:41

rightfully what you know, you know that sort of thing Like it's not

35:44

like a necessarily

35:44

bad thing that coffee or not kava

35:47

tabia said to have you sorry on the stove That

35:50

was me actually I was Conflicted

35:53

like you understand where he comes from and why he

35:56

feels feels, you know So protective

35:58

of what he knows but like

35:59

Yes, like how much do you value

36:02

the dreams of your daughters? And

36:04

like that, like that

36:06

is the conflict ultimately is like, I think really

36:08

interesting and really powerful. You know, it's not just

36:10

about Coventetvi. I'm so sorry. It's

36:15

been a long ass day. They sound

36:17

sorry. I'm so sorry.

36:20

I love it. But like it's it's

36:22

it's

36:22

just do not apologize. I think it's an excellent

36:24

way of describing this film. It's kept my interest. I'm

36:26

like Donald Trump looking at the presidential briefs

36:28

as long as my name is in bold. Right. But

36:31

it's I'm following. But the

36:31

fact that it is about keeping I

36:33

think his daughter is happy and centered as

36:36

human beings is very interesting

36:38

to me. It's like within a very

36:40

complicated context, you know, and I love

36:42

that about it. And I think that's

36:44

yeah, it's charming like that. That's basically

36:47

what I agree. You know, it's

36:49

not about like finding his son's a wife. It's

36:51

about how do I keep my daughters happy and

36:54

my children happy. And like his daughters basically

36:56

ultimately represent the world to come, you

36:58

know, and like having to contend with the world to come. And

37:01

it did kind of remind me of Sound of Music

37:03

for similar reasons. And I feel like

37:05

Sound of Music kind of does follow that same structure

37:07

where like

37:08

every one of the ones in the first half are the bankers

37:10

and everything in the second half is like very dour

37:12

and serious. Yeah. And depressing.

37:15

And then most people only remember like the first

37:17

half, myself included. I was like, and I didn't remember anything

37:19

that happened in the second half of it. Yeah. Yeah.

37:21

And it's also set in like amongst this backdrop of

37:23

like a really big world changing event of, you

37:25

know, Nazis or anti-Semitism kind of

37:28

encroaching. So I wonder if how much of that is deliberate

37:30

or just like a carried over

37:32

thing from that previous structure. Yeah. Well, you know, what's

37:34

interesting to me is that so Norman Jewison who directed

37:36

this also directed like my favorite movie

37:39

in the entire world, Moonstruck. And

37:43

rewatching this, I was like going like, especially

37:46

when I watched it last month. But again, I'm just like, there

37:49

is this kind of like

37:51

charming fatalism to it

37:53

that runs in it. Where like speaking

37:55

to your point of like how this ends on kind

37:57

of like

37:59

a really massive. downer but it doesn't

38:01

feel like a massive downer and like I

38:03

feel like Norman Jewison

38:05

as a director is incredibly good at balancing

38:07

out like

38:09

that life's like I don't know cuz like I'm

38:11

sorry this is kind of getting into a tangent about it because

38:13

what I really really like about this movie in terms of it

38:16

being a musical is that it kind of knows when to

38:18

find these kind of almost pockets of little

38:20

magical realism where like Tevye

38:22

is not necessarily singing but his voice

38:25

is going on the over and then we're doing like these really

38:27

like

38:27

weird field distance things with his daughters

38:30

as he's thinking to himself and like they're

38:32

not very like stagey musical

38:34

moments but they're these really cerebral like

38:37

dreamy and

38:39

like he's able to find these little moments in

38:41

that where it's like it's not necessarily musical

38:43

but it's big and it's out there and it's dreamy

38:46

and he applies them so well to these two

38:48

to like the actual book itself because this movie

38:51

is not very different from the stage musical in and

38:53

of itself like it follows it pretty letter

38:55

by letter besides cutting a few songs and then like making

38:57

a few minor changes to the book like

38:59

you mentioned earlier Austin

39:02

but yeah like it's just like finding

39:04

these

39:05

very I don't know like it's just like it's not

39:07

magical realism per se because it all still is very

39:09

rooted in reality but like yeah it's it's finding

39:11

the language of film and just kind of building things

39:13

out a little bit more and I think that's

39:16

maybe why you're kind of able to

39:18

accept the reality of how dark

39:20

this show gets is because like I don't know

39:22

like

39:23

I sit in my darkest moments

39:25

as far as the musical components are concerned it also

39:27

does have a lot of these like you know

39:29

I guess you'd call them diegetic dance sequence

39:33

like not necessarily ones where they break on to dance

39:35

for no reason in the middle of it it's like there's

39:37

the bar sequence after he goes and speaks with laser

39:39

wolf and then there's like that kind of

39:41

dance battle between them

39:43

and the I guess future

39:45

Bolsheviks I'm not quite sure what they are at just the

39:47

Russians history yeah the

39:49

Russians Russians yeah yeah which is

39:52

a scene as a kid like

39:54

having seen it eight million times I'm like oh

39:56

that's a scene and then as an adult watching it you're like

39:59

this is not

39:59

making me sweat like on a metaphorical

40:02

level. Like the tension is so high in it in a

40:04

way that like I think tiny me

40:06

couldn't understand, you know, like,

40:09

yeah. And then of course, having, having

40:11

the Fiddler himself just like, you know, busting

40:13

out into like random

40:14

pieces like throughout and just having that

40:17

again, music becoming part of the

40:19

story in a way, again, it's like, it's literally the framing

40:21

device it's called Fiddler on the Roof. So it allows

40:24

you to have these things that don't feel

40:26

unnatural. So it's like a good,

40:28

it's a good, it's a good bevy of like different

40:30

variations of just singing and dancing

40:33

and just straight music in a way that

40:35

makes it more palatable and makes it feel less like it's

40:37

just interrupting something in order to sing a song or

40:39

even like, like you said, the literal dream sequence.

40:42

Yeah, I did, I did, I did actually want to ask,

40:44

sorry, because like this conversation brought it up. But

40:46

so how did you feel? I don't know if you saw this

40:49

cover the first time you'd watched it, but the bottle dance

40:51

at the end towards the wedding, like,

40:53

that's kind of like one of the big centerpieces of this

40:55

movie is the bottle

40:57

dance. That's like locally what it's called.

41:01

And to me, it's

41:01

one of the coolest dance sequences ever.

41:04

Phil, it's such a huge moment, but I have a very funny

41:06

story about that in

41:08

and of itself with my high school

41:11

production, the Fiddler on the Roof. But like watching

41:13

that, I'm like, this is the coolest thing ever. Like,

41:15

yeah. I just wanted to know like, what was your

41:17

reaction to that? Cause to me, I'm like, that

41:19

is some of the most tremendous like film dancing,

41:22

like put on film.

41:23

No, it was great. But

41:25

but also as a person who recently got married, I

41:27

definitely got a little bit stressed out watching the wedding sequence.

41:29

Sure. Very

41:32

nice. So I was definitely like, oh, I was

41:34

like, oh, this feels really authentic, like someone's getting

41:36

drunk. Someone's like yelling inappropriately

41:38

at somebody else. There's a bunch of dancing. Yeah.

41:40

Some guy wants to tell a story. The guy who's

41:42

trying to give a speech just really wants to. Someone's talking

41:44

for too long. Like

41:47

it all, it all, I was wrapped up and then

41:49

there was great music. Like it felt it, it

41:51

did

41:52

give me a sense of like, oh, this felt very lived in

41:54

kind of to your guys's point where you're talking about earlier. Like it feels

41:56

like a real, I don't know if

41:58

world building's the right word. Cause we're not,

42:01

it's not like a made up world, but like it does feel like

42:03

a very lived in place specifically. So

42:05

it just accepted it as a natural thing.

42:07

Actually, I don't, I don't dislike

42:09

referring to it as world building because I

42:11

thought it does an amazing job at not

42:14

overly relying on kind of like inside

42:17

baseball style references

42:20

where if you're not Jewish, you, it would

42:22

all fly past you. It

42:24

feels like there's that great, there's

42:25

that great line that is often recited

42:28

that you, you both probably came across where

42:31

the show was really huge in Japan.

42:32

Yeah. And they're

42:35

like, you know, how did you make this so

42:37

Japanese? Like they're

42:39

like introducing things in

42:41

this very kind of approachable way such

42:43

that,

42:44

that you're not, you can

42:46

get it. You can just clock it. I think it functions

42:49

identically to the way world building does in,

42:51

you know, Lord of the rings or anything

42:53

else. I agree. And there's actually a really charming

42:55

documentary that came out last year. So I want to say

42:57

like, so Topol who played Devya passed away

42:59

this year and then Sheldon Harbach who wrote the lyrics to

43:01

this also passed away this year. And they were like kind of like the last two

43:04

big randomness of Fiddler. But there's a really charming

43:06

documentary that came out last year about the making of this

43:08

film. It's really fun. You can find it on Vimeo

43:11

or YouTube if you want to watch it. But so

43:13

a lot of what was interesting to me about this movie is that

43:15

most of it was actually filmed in

43:18

then Yugoslavia, now Croatia. And

43:21

basically what it was was like they found this

43:23

town. Its name is escaping me. But,

43:25

you know, I guess basically the

43:28

people who were Jewish that remained there were the

43:30

only people who had the like the or

43:32

not the only people, but like they sought that out because

43:35

they knew the vernacular of what they were trying

43:37

to build. And so they were building on this village that was already,

43:39

you know, heavily Jewish by history, but so much

43:41

of it had been destroyed. And the people, the artisans that they

43:43

got to built onto this set

43:46

were the people that carried on that, for

43:48

lack of a better word, tradition. And so like, yeah,

43:51

for lack of a better word

43:54

in this movie. Yeah, the world building

43:56

is very much inherently a part of the

43:59

production design of this. movie and very much like

44:01

I love letter to this and like very

44:03

intentional and the people that they hired and where they shot

44:05

it. So like, yeah, like,

44:07

like that's, I think part of the reason why it's sold so

44:09

well and why you understand it like

44:11

almost immediately is there's an authentic, like

44:13

I know authenticity is like a,

44:15

you know, um, $5 word when you talk

44:18

about art in any capacity, but like there is an authenticity

44:20

to it. And at least like a desire for authenticity

44:22

or to at least like

44:24

love the thing that you were trying to tell. And

44:27

you see that in Fiddler, like pretty much immediately.

44:29

Um,

44:30

but yeah, um, I did want to say,

44:32

so, uh, the bottle dance story that I want

44:34

to talk about. So Jerome Robbins was the original director

44:36

and choreographer of the stage version. And Jerome

44:39

Robbins is a king of basically Broadway

44:41

choreography and direction. Uh, West side stories

44:43

kind of like his masterpiece, but,

44:46

uh, so he, uh, the

44:48

film choreography is listed from that the bottle dance is like

44:50

a huge part of it. And so when I did it in high

44:52

school, uh, I think, you know, there

44:54

was Jerome Robbins final. I

44:56

think so. Broadway show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

44:58

I was kind of inserting my, thank you. I

45:00

know, please. Like you're here to insert,

45:03

uh, besides other things, uh, at

45:06

the risk of sounding productive, but no, um, so it's

45:08

this insane, insanely

45:09

difficult, subtle piece

45:12

of choreography that's all about body control

45:14

and precision. And so when you go

45:16

to a high school in Delaware and

45:19

give it to a bunch of 15 year olds and say, figure

45:21

it out. Uh, my memory of our bottle

45:23

dance is, uh, it was like

45:25

a, it was like a reverse pyramid. It was kind of like,

45:28

well, we had the bottles and then they had to go.

45:30

And then we had hats that had

45:32

duct tape on the bottles at the bottom.

45:34

So they just were kind of always there, but then they had to

45:36

go. And then it just became like, well, we have some

45:38

boys in some pants

45:39

dragging themselves across the scene

45:42

of the stage. And then like, I

45:44

just remember it ultimately culminating in

45:46

hearing like skin dragging across

45:48

the wooden floorboards. So you get to do, do,

45:51

do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

45:53

do. And it's just like, like,

45:56

like just the knees of these teenage boys

45:58

being ruined. And so

45:59

So watching this masterpiece

46:02

of cinematography and film dance

46:04

happening, all I can hear is just like,

46:07

and then like the tepid applause, the

46:09

tepid applause of like all the adults in the audience

46:11

being like, Oh, they, they did two

46:14

steps together in time. And it's just,

46:16

yeah, sorry. I just really

46:18

had to tell that story. There's a lot of preamble

46:21

to it, but that's what I always associate

46:23

with that wedding dance.

46:24

It's actually really funny to me that this is such

46:26

a popular one for high schools because I feel

46:28

like every single thing about this would

46:30

go over the head of a teenager. Sure.

46:32

No, I think you're right.

46:35

Like it's such a mature,

46:37

like

46:37

you were saying at the beginning about it's

46:40

so preoccupied with a parent's perspective.

46:42

Yeah.

46:43

That is, that is the farthest thing

46:45

you can really consciously or sort of,

46:47

uh, conscientiously ask a

46:49

high schooler to really empathize with. Yeah.

46:52

And that's the question of how do I, how do I

46:54

reconcile long running, deeply

46:57

held faith based traditions

46:59

with the fact that my daughters

47:01

who I care about

47:03

have their own views in the world.

47:06

And I, I want to try to,

47:08

you know,

47:09

facilitate their happiness while also believing

47:11

that

47:12

adherence to the faith does facilitate happiness.

47:14

Right. You know, and like as

47:16

a 15 year old, I don't see a lot

47:18

of true, interesting. On

47:21

the other hand, it's like,

47:24

why is the dad such a stickler? He's just let

47:26

her marry every

47:27

once. Yeah. I do

47:29

love that. That Tavia is kind of

47:31

like the pre-ultimate like dorky dad where

47:33

like he is kind of like he does kind of like stick up for his

47:35

daughters, but they're just like dad,

47:37

dad.

47:39

I also so love

47:41

that when he has those little kind of monologue

47:44

moments of on the other hand, on the other hand,

47:46

he, he, as somebody

47:48

who kind of recreationally punishes

47:51

himself by watching a lot of debates online about

47:53

a variety of subjects,

47:54

he, he does a really

47:57

great job. It's well, really, it's really well

47:59

written. that he very

48:02

earnestly does consider the

48:04

opposing points of view and he does sort of

48:06

represent them. Those moments, each one

48:09

of those opposing points of views, you

48:11

can find some part, no matter where you're intuitively

48:13

wanting to kind of land on his

48:16

debate,

48:17

all the oppositional points brought up

48:19

are always like, hmm, yeah, fair point,

48:21

that's a good one. And I really like

48:24

that about it. It feels very, again, it's

48:26

like, it's mature in a way that

48:28

it's amazing. Just picturing a 16-year-old

48:31

with a fake beard trying

48:33

to play Teddi. I'm

48:36

like, it's so

48:38

funny to me to... Yeah, but

48:40

I know that it's a huge hit, that it's routinely

48:42

done constantly by high school

48:44

groups. I am trying to think

48:47

about what did I really like about this as a kid

48:49

growing up, but I think I just really liked the

48:51

music a lot and I like the epic, the scope

48:54

of it. That was what was really

48:56

appealing to me as a kid and

48:58

a lot of Teddi's stuff was just kind of like, yeah, that's kind

49:00

of how my mom talks or how my dad

49:03

talks and that's in the background. And

49:05

then watching it again as an adult was actually

49:07

kind of devastating in how on

49:10

point it was about

49:11

the struggle of being a parent. I'm

49:14

glad that we have an actual composer who understands

49:17

proper music theory. A little

49:19

bit, a little bit, yeah. On this, because

49:21

I feel like, Angie,

49:23

we had started to talk about this a little bit when we did the great

49:26

Comet episode

49:27

and with my extremely limited grasp

49:29

of musical theory and not being able to actually articulate

49:32

it, I'm excited that we have somebody who can probably help

49:34

me. As Austin knows, I will sort of keep asking questions

49:36

until I kind of figure it out. Yeah, to bust.

49:39

Yeah, so if there's a way...

49:41

I don't know, maybe this isn't the case, but to me,

49:43

the

49:44

songs still feel very Broadway musically,

49:48

but they seem more rooted in terms of their scales

49:51

or the way that the songs are written

49:53

in this, I don't know, I

49:55

guess in Eastern or Russian tradition. And

49:58

I was wondering if you can sort of speak to that. about

50:01

what that, for lack of a better word, like the

50:03

fusion or the sort of cross-overness is

50:05

and how it's functioning and why that might

50:07

be something that at least just sounds

50:10

familiar and yet feels different at the same time. They

50:12

are deeply

50:14

sort of Eastern European

50:16

and deeply Jewish. I mean, it's

50:19

extremely, it's unmistakable. It's also

50:21

funny because obviously

50:24

musicals run a wide gamut but when you think of sort

50:26

of the most, you know, I

50:29

don't know, the ones that if you just ask an average

50:31

person on the street, you know, name me five

50:33

musicals and they pick, you know, some Rodgers and

50:35

Hammerstein or some Andrew Lloyd Webber or West

50:37

Side Story or some, you know, maybe,

50:40

even Sondheim I feel like

50:42

is despite being the god of

50:45

musical theater, I feel like if

50:47

I ask a random person on the street, they're more likely to

50:49

say cats or Phantom of the Opera

50:51

than they are, you know,

50:54

a little night music or Sweeney Todd

50:56

or, yeah, exactly. But

50:58

I think of, and this is

51:01

very, very reductive. So to any fellow

51:04

composers and musicians, I'm aware that I'm being very

51:06

reductive here. But I think of pound

51:08

for pound, the average piece of musical theater,

51:12

right? If you just randomly plucked one of

51:14

the tens of thousands of noteworthy

51:16

memorable moments that people might be familiar with, they

51:19

tend to be kind of the,

51:22

you know, brighter. They tend to

51:24

be in major keys. They tend to, you

51:27

know, again, I'm being massively reductive.

51:30

But what, you know, I think of, you

51:32

think of like,

51:34

most all the songs in West Side Story to

51:37

me are kind of like

51:38

the perfect template of what, if you ask someone

51:40

picture Broadway music

51:42

and this thing appears in their head, it will resemble

51:46

those kind, that kind of writing.

51:50

And this virtually every

51:52

moment in this entire

51:54

piece, is

51:58

much darker, way more. more

52:00

predominantly minor keys and not just

52:03

the kind of standard so-called

52:06

like what we would call like natural minor or

52:08

sort of traditionally

52:11

in the classical music sense minor but they're

52:13

the you know they're modal minors which are which

52:16

are much more associated with Eastern music like

52:18

Eastern European music I mean and

52:22

Russian music and and very much

52:24

Jewish music. The tempos too right

52:27

like there's a lot of waltzy kind of stuff going on

52:29

it's like different in

52:30

that sense yeah very very very

52:33

rhythmic I

52:35

love that kind of stuff I find it just endlessly

52:38

I'm

52:38

just never get tired of it it's just a bottomless

52:40

well of joy for me I just think that that that

52:43

idiom of music

52:44

there's a lot of overlap if you listen to like Spanish

52:47

music sure yeah you think of like

52:50

flamenco there's a huge

52:52

there's a that's a Venn diagram that's like more

52:54

than 50% overlapping circles yeah

52:56

and

52:57

and that stuff's fucking great

52:59

as well I just absolutely love so

53:02

there's a there's a streak that runs

53:05

through that sort of the traditions

53:07

that toss out of that part of the world that

53:09

it's just endlessly

53:11

wonderful and so I remember thinking

53:13

and a whole a whole show of this this must

53:15

have felt pretty novel

53:17

musical language wise for a for

53:19

a musical piece of musical

53:21

theater but either on Broadway or for a movie

53:24

going public yeah I mean that was like that was

53:26

sorry not to interrupt that was like a big concern with the producers

53:28

of the original Broadway fiddler on the roof was that it

53:30

sounded too much of its own thing like that it sounded you'll

53:33

forgive me for too Jewish or it sounded too Eastern

53:35

it sounded too old world like it would not like that

53:37

but the fact that they were like this will not succeed even

53:39

though Broadway has

53:42

has an immense legacy to Jewish tradition

53:44

in it like the fiddler on the roof they were like people were

53:46

worried about it being like too much that which

53:48

is like those kinds

53:49

of those kinds of arbitrary

53:51

worries that one of my favorites of all time was

53:53

the producers on the Wizard of Oz

53:56

you've probably heard this story before that

53:58

when

53:59

when they turned

53:59

the draft Harold Arlen turned in the draft

54:02

for Somewhere Over the Rainbow and it starts with an octave

54:04

leap. But this, um, they

54:06

go, that's too epic for a farm girl to sing

54:08

that interval. Yeah. No

54:11

farm girl can, can sing an octave. And

54:14

I,

54:15

and they, they, studio executives, they're

54:17

so useful. They literally almost tossed

54:19

what I would argue is maybe the most perfect

54:21

song ever written on account

54:24

of,

54:25

on account of such a hilarious

54:28

lens through which to view it. You know? So

54:31

yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all

54:31

that there was a hesitation, but I love that they're

54:34

like, is this too Jewish?

54:36

Okay. Well, let's just go all in and

54:38

make a three hour film. Yeah. Let's

54:41

just do it. I love that that

54:43

concern didn't win even a little. No,

54:45

it didn't. And then it, well, like the other

54:47

big concern, not necessarily with the stage version of this,

54:50

but, uh, with the film version of it was very

54:52

controversially. They didn't cross the person who originated

54:54

the role on Broadway, which is zero mustel, the great

54:56

comedic film actor. They were like,

54:58

he's too funny and too stagey and too blah,

55:00

blah, blah. And like he's too big. And they cast a Topol

55:03

who was only like 30, I think when he originated

55:05

the role of Tevye on London. Like

55:07

he was like 30, 31. And then maybe I think 36 when

55:10

this film went into production. And like, that was

55:12

the big controversy because it's like, he's too serious.

55:15

He

55:15

won't make this. He

55:17

will like drag the material down. And

55:19

then a lot of people are also like, cause a lot of the

55:21

original Broadway productions, production

55:23

design was based on like Marc Chagall's paintings of it. So

55:25

I don't,

55:26

I'm a, yeah, I don't know if you know, like Marc Chagall. Chagall's

55:28

paintings are very much rooted in like this. There's

55:30

that motif of the fiddler and they're very bright and colorful.

55:33

And I love Marc Chagall and the

55:35

film kind

55:36

of very saturated. Yes. And the

55:38

film kind of did away with it. So there was like a lot of like, cause this had a fan

55:40

base, like straight off the bat had a fan base.

55:42

And then the film was just kind of like, no, we're doing it Brown. We're

55:45

doing it like we're keeping it kind of rooted to

55:47

the ground and we're doing Topol. And so a lot

55:49

of people were just like, Oh, I don't know if this will work. And

55:51

then it still worked like hot take

55:54

it worked. Which

55:55

is, he's also very funny. Like he's

55:58

so funny. He loves

56:00

so much when he's like, I want

56:02

to look at the sewing machine and we'll have to

56:04

hear what I say. Okay. Right.

56:07

Right. He's like, I know how to handle my own wife.

56:10

And then he's like, Pratik has a rich uncle

56:12

like immediately afterwards into one of my favorite,

56:14

favorite scenes in any musical theater show ever.

56:17

The, do you love me song? Which like, if

56:19

you're married, do you feel that song in

56:21

your heart, even after like two years of marriage, where

56:23

you just have to constantly check in and be like, Hey, do

56:25

you love me? Like, do you, like, do you still

56:28

like me? Like, what

56:30

is love? Like when you look at like

56:32

younger kids and how they experience love, that

56:35

is exactly how it was. I got that one for the

56:37

film version. But

56:39

just like, yeah, that like,

56:40

that idea of like, do you, like, what

56:43

was love 20 years ago or whenever I met

56:45

you? And like, how does that hold up to like, what I

56:47

understand of love through my children? Like, do

56:49

we love each other? You know, I'm like, I love

56:52

that scene. I could talk about that scene for forever. But

56:55

yeah, I've

56:55

just. There's a lot of things in there. There's also,

56:57

I think, again,

57:00

it's something that I witnessed so much peripherally

57:04

in my family life that I never really thought, this film,

57:06

I found myself

57:07

imagining watching it

57:09

kind of as cold and as

57:11

like outsider as possible and thinking,

57:14

I

57:15

bet Jewish culture looks very

57:17

harsh and

57:21

very snippy and antagonistic

57:24

internally. And I, because

57:26

I love the way they express

57:28

love because it's

57:31

so funny to me and it's so true. I like

57:33

really at the wedding where,

57:35

you know,

57:35

they start dancing and

57:37

everyone's all aghast and like, you know,

57:39

this is not allowed in a wedding and the rabbi,

57:42

well, it's not expressly forbidden. It's

57:44

not forbidden. And then I love

57:45

where he walks up to death with me and she's like, what?

57:48

And he does this authoritative clap,

57:50

you'll dance with me. And then I so love

57:52

how it's immediately then imitated to

57:55

bring Zidl out on the dance floor. And I'm

57:58

like, if you're looking at this as an outsider,

57:59

like, Jesus, these people all hate each other. And

58:02

I'm just like, I think it's beautiful. It's, it's

58:04

hilarious. And it's, it's, it's

58:06

hard to appreciate how something

58:09

that has a, as a, from the outside

58:11

at least looks to have a rather harsh and

58:13

kind of porcupine exterior is

58:16

just kind of a way of talking. Uh,

58:18

and I just, I was like, man, they capture

58:20

that flawlessly. Yeah. To your point,

58:22

you know, as a, as a, my family's from

58:25

Iran, they're from the middle East to me, that felt very

58:27

familiar. It was the opposite of

58:30

feeling, you know, grading or strange to me. Just was,

58:32

it's more of like one of those moments where you're like, they're just like

58:34

us like, yeah, of course everyone's screaming

58:37

at each other in the middle of a wedding, like that's totally

58:39

normal. Like, yes, I get it. You

58:41

make it so Persian. Exactly.

58:44

Do they love this in America? That's so strange.

58:46

My mom's side's Mexican. And I'm like,

58:48

this translates him one-to-one, like

58:50

pretty quickly. I'm like, yeah, that, that, that

58:53

kind of hits. Like that's that

58:55

right there. Um, which I guess goes to

58:57

that point of like, how did this blow up in Japan?

58:59

I was just like, I don't know. Like Fiddler is really good at

59:01

translating a very specific experience

59:04

to kind of a

59:05

worldly lofty level that deserves

59:07

to be at. Yeah.

59:08

Japan, I know also is particularly

59:11

like, like very, uh, famously,

59:13

obviously the struggle

59:16

of retaining very old

59:18

traditions. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

59:20

New world. You, if you read the book, like memoirs of a geisha,

59:23

it's kind of the same story in a certain

59:25

sense, obviously very loosely,

59:28

but, but you know what I mean? Like it's that idea

59:30

of how do you retain a thing, even though

59:32

the thing you're retaining is not exactly perfect.

59:35

Um, and nobody would argue that it

59:37

is. And even they themselves see the flaws

59:40

in their own traditions. It just captures

59:42

it again, just through that, that

59:44

lens of

59:45

like show structure and thinking musically,

59:47

I

59:48

remember when I saw if then, okay,

59:53

sorry. Sorry. I love that. I,

59:55

I ripped some band aid off of something. Yeah.

59:58

That was, that was a much bigger reaction. I

1:00:00

was expecting. I

1:00:02

remember when I saw it, I found

1:00:04

the story and the book affecting

1:00:07

and interesting and

1:00:09

I found it otherwise kind

1:00:12

of unremarkable and unmemorable. And I

1:00:14

wasn't

1:00:16

especially, I was more impressed by

1:00:18

the

1:00:18

deafness with which the cast

1:00:21

would kind of tweak their costume

1:00:23

mid scene in order to jump to the parallel

1:00:25

timeline. I was, that was more impressive

1:00:27

to me than just about anything else that they just would, they

1:00:29

become the alternate version of themselves so easily.

1:00:32

But I found myself thinking, you know, I think the problem with

1:00:34

this show, and I remember thinking the same thing about

1:00:36

Fun Home. All

1:00:39

the most impactful moments to me were told

1:00:41

between songs and

1:00:44

they didn't, they didn't let their most emotionally

1:00:47

sort of potent

1:00:48

story beats

1:00:50

come through songs. And interestingly,

1:00:53

watching

1:00:54

Fiddler for the first time in a long time, the

1:00:57

first half leans every

1:00:59

important beat happens in songs. And then the second

1:01:01

half, it's a mixed bag. And I remember

1:01:03

thinking, it's

1:01:05

a curious choice. It's not one

1:01:08

I think I would have made, even though I

1:01:10

find it profoundly moving that

1:01:13

so many powerful moments

1:01:15

are between songs,

1:01:17

like really affecting moments in

1:01:20

the second half that like I'm sitting here

1:01:22

watching it with tears in my eyes while also this other

1:01:24

voice of music going,

1:01:25

just imagine if they were singing this. Yeah,

1:01:29

yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't have some big sweeping conclusion

1:01:32

about that. I just found it a curious structure that

1:01:34

they lean so much more heavily on music as a

1:01:36

storytelling device in the first half. At least that's my perception.

1:01:39

I didn't read or I haven't done any

1:01:41

sort of digging on

1:01:43

how and why they arrived at these kinds of decisions.

1:01:45

I don't know the answer, but that's how it certainly comes across

1:01:47

to me. Well, it's very funny because like the stage version

1:01:50

of Fiddler at the the opening of

1:01:52

the second act begins with like the most like

1:01:54

musical second act opener I can think of

1:01:56

where it's like everyone in Anatevka is like whispering

1:01:59

about gossip.

1:01:59

and stuff like that and the film cut that

1:02:02

immediately. It is the most, in my head,

1:02:04

the most stage-y state

1:02:06

of second opening acts

1:02:08

that you could have where it's just like, oh, everyone's summarizing

1:02:11

what happened in the first act and they're

1:02:13

doing this big theatrical funny way and it's

1:02:15

just like, the film is just like, nope, nope,

1:02:17

nope, that's gone, that's gone. And

1:02:19

I don't really know if it's necessarily adding to anything

1:02:22

besides I think this was a very specific,

1:02:25

we don't want it to be the first act kind of decision.

1:02:27

And I know I

1:02:29

listened to a couple of interviews with Topol about

1:02:31

it where he was like, I wanted the second act to be like

1:02:33

the joke not being in Tevye's eyes,

1:02:35

basically, was kind of what he came to. Like

1:02:37

Tevye jokes a lot and he references however

1:02:42

malappropriated it is, the Bible a lot,

1:02:44

but the second act becomes like, oh, when he

1:02:46

tells, have a fish may love a bird,

1:02:48

but where will they live? Like the joke is not there

1:02:50

in his eyes, you know? And like, that's kind of like

1:02:53

the overall tone, I think, that they just kind of went with,

1:02:56

which is very interesting to me because I've seen a lot

1:02:58

of productions where they want to chase

1:03:00

the first act energy and it's kind of hard

1:03:02

to come down, but like the first act also doesn't end

1:03:05

with, it can't do what film does

1:03:07

where you see these extended acts

1:03:09

of violence, where you see the wedding, just like everything

1:03:11

that these people have is just destroyed, to

1:03:14

give a feather mattress to your daughter isn't a massive

1:03:16

expense for a poor milkman and that's ripped up and that's

1:03:19

not the thing that you get to see in the stage

1:03:21

show. So it is kind of like, well,

1:03:23

how do you come back from that? Whereas

1:03:25

the first act just kind of ends with the beginning of violence in

1:03:27

the stage show, like the

1:03:29

film like shows it out explicitly, but

1:03:31

it is kind of like, how do you come back from that if

1:03:33

you decide that's where you want to go, with

1:03:36

the material?

1:03:37

Oh, well, one other thing that was funny, as

1:03:40

I had mentioned in our first part

1:03:42

that I've always loved the trivia

1:03:44

of John Williams' involvement in this film

1:03:47

as the conductor and the arranger of

1:03:49

what you hear and

1:03:51

all the sort of backing tracks, if you

1:03:53

want to call it that, of the vocals, that's all

1:03:55

him.

1:03:56

And I've listened to bits and pieces of it, you

1:03:59

know, a million times.

1:03:59

over the years just as somebody who's followed

1:04:02

his career. And also even just literally, I

1:04:04

can't

1:04:04

remember if it was this year or last year at the Hollywood Bowl,

1:04:07

he did the kind of,

1:04:09

you know, overture as part of

1:04:11

his... I

1:04:14

think that was last year. Yeah, yeah. Last year,

1:04:16

okay, yeah. It didn't, yeah, I couldn't play it, but

1:04:18

yeah, it was

1:04:19

talked about how Isaac Stern was the violinist

1:04:21

playing all the fiddler parts. And

1:04:23

as someone who just knows

1:04:25

effectively everything he's written backward

1:04:27

and forward,

1:04:29

it's funny how watching it and knowing,

1:04:31

you know, he didn't write this musical, but

1:04:33

my God, does it feel so him throughout

1:04:36

the whole film because of those orchestrations,

1:04:38

even so much so that the

1:04:40

sequence,

1:04:42

well, a couple of things. First off, that

1:04:44

whole bottle dance

1:04:45

and the entire sort of wedding

1:04:48

sequence where the orchestra becomes a big

1:04:50

part of it is such

1:04:52

aggressive writing on the part of the orchestra.

1:04:55

It's like full on epic Hollywood.

1:04:58

I could just picture the studio musicians sweating

1:05:00

in the room because it's

1:05:03

just, it is really, really, and

1:05:05

it's so him. And there's

1:05:07

bits in there where I was like, man, that's actually, he's

1:05:09

bumping up against a little bit some moments in

1:05:11

like the Battle of Yavin from Star Wars with the way

1:05:15

these brass chords are voiced and stuff. Or

1:05:17

I'm like, it's funny how you can hear a

1:05:19

thing that's coming six years later. I

1:05:22

always enjoy when you

1:05:23

look at somebody's work and you can see

1:05:25

the unintended prototype of something later.

1:05:28

Yeah, for sure. And

1:05:30

his body of work is

1:05:32

full of

1:05:33

examples of that. My favorite of which, as a side

1:05:35

note, is the sequence in Home Alone where

1:05:37

Kevin is preparing all the traps around

1:05:39

the house and John Williams all but writes

1:05:42

the Harry Potter theme on accident in

1:05:44

the middle of that scene. Yes, I did notice

1:05:46

that recently. It's funny you say that. So

1:05:48

that, and then also the subsequent sequence where

1:05:50

you see the town being absolutely decimated

1:05:53

and we're no longer at the wedding, but you see just like

1:05:55

the smashing of all the windows and whatnot. I

1:05:58

was like, man, that's this cue.

1:05:59

actually gets quite close

1:06:02

to some of the really, really gut-wrenching

1:06:04

moments in

1:06:06

Schindler's List. And it's actually funny

1:06:08

that there's a bit of an almost one-to-one there,

1:06:10

that it's kind of like, oh, this

1:06:12

is the theme I write for Jewish

1:06:15

persecution. And

1:06:17

I had forgotten how much those

1:06:20

dovetail with each other. So it's one of those where I thought, you

1:06:23

know, seeing

1:06:23

this through that lens of 50 years of

1:06:25

John Williams' work,

1:06:27

it's just astonishing how clearly

1:06:29

him it is for a thing that's not

1:06:32

talked about when talking about John Williams.

1:06:34

Yeah. I didn't know how to begin

1:06:37

to articulate that, but like watching it

1:06:39

again as an adult and like listening specifically

1:06:41

to the John Williams orchestrations of that, like the

1:06:43

help,

1:06:44

I guess, Prussian's not the right word, but just like, yes,

1:06:47

this is that. This is what you know of John Williams.

1:06:49

And it was there all before, like you knew John Williams.

1:06:52

And that's a really beautiful way of putting it. I didn't

1:06:54

want to put one more fun fact about the cadenza

1:06:56

that he composed for Isaac Stern. And I should

1:06:58

say for our listeners who are younger, Isaac Stern

1:07:00

was the preeminent violinist of the time, who

1:07:03

himself was also a Russian Jewish

1:07:05

person. And also

1:07:07

like he was like, basically, I'm like, I guess you would say

1:07:09

he was the Itzhak Perlman of the day. And

1:07:11

basically,

1:07:12

Norman Jewison went out and bought a Marc

1:07:14

Chagall painting and put it in front of Isaac

1:07:17

Stern. And they only got him for like two days to record

1:07:19

the music. And they bought, they buck a

1:07:21

fucking Marc Chagall and put it in front of Isaac

1:07:23

Stern. And they're like, play for us. And like, that's

1:07:25

also one of the other fun favorite pieces

1:07:27

of trivia about this. Yeah, yeah,

1:07:30

yeah. It's, it's, again, there's a really fun documentary

1:07:33

about the making of this movie that is great.

1:07:36

It's, I think it's literally called The Making of

1:07:38

Fiddler on the Roof. It came out last year and it's a very delightful

1:07:40

watch. And I think it's a tremendous movie.

1:07:42

I don't get to mention how much I think like the actual cinematography

1:07:45

is gorgeous. I just love like

1:07:47

everything about it. It's just beautiful, like kind of naturalistic

1:07:50

until it gets weird and

1:07:51

magical and whatnot kind of movie. But

1:07:54

anyway, yeah, we're running, running long. So

1:07:56

yeah, I was gonna say one last point on that

1:07:59

too is like, I didn't realize that

1:08:01

it basically came out like a year before the Godfather,

1:08:04

but it does have a similar kind of feel in terms

1:08:06

of like the film stock and like the limited palette

1:08:08

and like this sort of white, black,

1:08:10

and you know, brown or red or whatever it

1:08:12

is. And it does,

1:08:14

to me, in a lot of ways live within that same

1:08:16

kind of, um,

1:08:18

film world, I guess for like the tradition.

1:08:21

Yeah, obviously not the mafia

1:08:23

part of it, but

1:08:25

it's interesting that it's a story

1:08:28

about these, uh, these people who aren't

1:08:30

at the time immigrants, they're people who are just like living

1:08:33

in, you know, this little part of Russia that they carved

1:08:35

out for themselves within this town. And yet it still

1:08:37

retains a lot of those same themes.

1:08:39

Um, it's almost like a prequel. It feels sort

1:08:41

of like the prequel to Godfather two in that way.

1:08:44

I'm sorry, you know, the cut to sequence

1:08:46

in the, in the Godfather two. So it

1:08:49

feels like you could, you could do a double screening with it

1:08:51

right there. And then you sprinkle over to Dr. Zhivago

1:08:54

in it, and it sort of all, it feels like a cross

1:08:56

between those two. So it does

1:08:58

feel like it belongs in that, that hall of greats

1:09:01

that way. But

1:09:02

anyway, you guys, um, thank you

1:09:04

Austin for joining us and listeners. Thank you for

1:09:06

listening so much. I'm sure everybody

1:09:09

has thoughts and opinions on Fiddler

1:09:11

on the Roof. Uh, if you do, please go

1:09:13

ahead and share them with us. We are at

1:09:15

musicalsplainin with no G on the

1:09:18

app, formerly known as Twitter. And

1:09:20

we are at musicalsplainin on Instagram.

1:09:23

Um, Austin, why don't you

1:09:25

tell us where you are, where we can

1:09:27

find you, what you got coming up. Are

1:09:29

you asking me to talk to myself? Where

1:09:32

are you? Your social security number or your

1:09:34

bank account. I will show my

1:09:36

tax returns. Um, the,

1:09:39

uh, I am a wintery,

1:09:41

a first initial last name

1:09:44

on all the things except

1:09:46

Instagram because someone stole it and

1:09:48

I just couldn't

1:09:49

get it from them. It's like a fake

1:09:52

me that was there before I signed up for Instagram

1:09:55

frozen in time to what my bio looked like

1:09:57

in like 2010 or whatever. Uh,

1:09:59

but, um,

1:10:00

There I'm a dot wintery

1:10:02

on Instagram because of that

1:10:05

rap scallion and

1:10:08

let's see here bank accounts social security. What else

1:10:10

am I missing? By

1:10:13

the time this

1:10:15

releases this episode that our fine

1:10:17

listeners are listening to the

1:10:19

game stray gods will have come

1:10:21

out. It is in fact coming out, you

1:10:24

know, in two days relative to when we are

1:10:26

recording

1:10:27

and yeah,

1:10:29

it should be it should be quite something to see

1:10:32

what people's reaction of to it is

1:10:34

given that

1:10:35

really know what to compare it with. It's

1:10:38

sort of it's sort of unusual in that

1:10:40

way. Branching. Besides

1:10:41

Buffy the musical. Yes,

1:10:44

it is. It does share in common with

1:10:46

Buffy, which was this episode

1:10:48

was secretly about all along.

1:10:51

It does share that

1:10:53

a bit in common. I mentioned that all in our

1:10:56

preamble so that no need to belabor

1:10:58

that. But hopefully folks could check it out there on

1:11:01

Spotify and whatnot. There will be four separate

1:11:03

soundtrack albums for incredible

1:11:06

incredible five and a half hours of music. God

1:11:08

help you if you are interested.

1:11:11

And yeah, so hopefully, you know,

1:11:15

check the game will be on every platform except mobile. Basically

1:11:17

PlayStation four or five Xbox X

1:11:19

series. S series X,

1:11:22

which PC

1:11:23

all the various PC stores. All of them.

1:11:26

And Epic.

1:11:27

It's all the places. It's not a monopoly. I

1:11:31

wish I feel like I feel like that game would be perfect

1:11:33

on on on an iPad. But

1:11:35

because it doesn't require a controller. Nice.

1:11:38

But but

1:11:39

it's not an iPad because it's actually a real

1:11:42

real motherfucker to port things for

1:11:45

us. And so

1:11:47

yes, in any case, yeah, no,

1:11:49

thanks so much for having me. I

1:11:53

you know, I'm a fan. I

1:11:55

would like I didn't really make a point of it while we

1:11:57

were recording, but it was definitely one of those

1:11:59

fun.

1:11:59

funny things, Kaveh,

1:12:02

when I was already listing the show and then at

1:12:04

some point realized, we're

1:12:07

already watching each other online.

1:12:09

How did that happen? Yeah, I got

1:12:11

to say, you've been such tremendous fun

1:12:13

to have on this show and just really insightful, but

1:12:16

also just tremendous fun. Thank

1:12:18

you so much for showing up.

1:12:20

You have a ... No, it's my pleasure.

1:12:23

I'm stepping into big shoes. You guys

1:12:26

do ... I just love the

1:12:28

passion and the energy. I also just so love this

1:12:31

premise. I just love ... This is

1:12:33

episode what again? 72, I believe?

1:12:36

72 something?

1:12:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in the 70s now. Yeah, 72.

1:12:40

For the general premise being, this isn't my thing. The

1:12:42

fact that you've managed to milk 70 plus

1:12:45

hours of podcast recording plus all

1:12:47

the hours spent watching the shows. Believe

1:12:49

me, the scars are real. They won't go last my

1:12:51

whole life.

1:12:52

Meanwhile, I'm just thriving. I'm vibing.

1:12:54

I'm glowing. It's like ... Just getting

1:12:56

started. Basically your best self. Right.

1:12:59

I'm just living right now, but thanks again.

1:13:02

Yeah, thanks. Austin, you're welcome back any time. I'm sure

1:13:04

the audience is going to be very excited to hear this. Please,

1:13:06

any time you want to come back, we would definitely love to have you again.

1:13:09

Whenever you're ready to talk about Buffy, I'm

1:13:11

on here. We might have to now.

1:13:13

If the fans demand it.

1:13:16

Now you've done it. Now you're absolutely

1:13:18

going to open that up. Now there's no one who doesn't

1:13:20

love the Buffy music.

1:13:21

You've torn off the band-aid. You've done it. Fair

1:13:25

enough. Yeah. Anything

1:13:27

else about it? Angie, you can go ahead. Yeah. Yeah,

1:13:30

if you want to ... Yeah. I'm ... I'm ... You didn't

1:13:32

forget about you. Do

1:13:35

you like seeing terrible art?

1:13:37

Do you like memes? I'm why,

1:13:39

Angelina. Why on Twitter? Great art. Angelina

1:13:42

underscore S-E-E on Instagram,

1:13:44

as always. I love all my fans.

1:13:47

I love all my friends. Life's good. But

1:13:49

yeah, yeah. I think besides that, got

1:13:52

nothing to say besides, you know what? Fiddler holds up.

1:13:54

And no regrets.

1:13:57

Big way holds up. Go watch it if you haven't. Check

1:14:00

it out. Lastly, I'm of course still at Covitarian

1:14:02

on Twitter and at permafriends on Instagram.

1:14:05

Please you guys, if you get a chance, check out our

1:14:08

sponsor links. Leave us a review.

1:14:11

Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell

1:14:13

your family, tell people on the street,

1:14:15

tell the person who wants to marry your daughter.

1:14:17

Yeah.

1:14:18

Tell the person

1:14:19

who wants to marry your daughter. Yes. Tell your father-in-law

1:14:21

when you ask for your hand in marriage, go also tell him about

1:14:23

the podcast. Yes. Follow them. Yes.

1:14:26

Follow them. Follow the podcast. Yes. Yeah. Right. Clap

1:14:28

really hard and say it emphatically and you're

1:14:30

good to go. Exactly. Until

1:14:32

then, we'll- Yeah.

1:14:33

Thank you guys for listening. Oh, I'm

1:14:35

sorry, Angie. Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say thank you. Until

1:14:37

then, I guess see you on the floorboards,

1:14:40

see you on the podcast-averse. See you at the theater.

1:14:42

See you at the theater. See

1:14:45

you treading the floorboards.

1:14:47

You look very tell-tale heart.

1:14:50

Yes. See you where Kava's body is buried underneath,

1:14:53

just like beating me. Please don't subject me to

1:14:55

any more of this nonsense. But

1:14:57

thanks again.