Hester Street
UW Cinematheque 821 University Ave., UW Vilas Hall, Room 4070, Madison, Wisconsin
press release: J.M. Silver series
USA | 1975 | DCP | 92 min. | Yiddish with English subtitles
Director: Joan Micklin Silver; Cast: Carol Kane, Steven Keats, Doris Roberts
Jake (Keats) has become an assimilated Jewish immigrant in New York City of the 1890s. After five years separation, Jake is reunited with his wife, Gitl (Kane), who arrives from the old country and soon learns of her husband’s infidelities and shady business dealings. A milestone in American independent cinema, Hester Street earned Kane an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and established screenwriter-director Silver as one of the most formidable talents of her era. “[An] ingratiating little movie...it makes a pleasant and efficient entertainment” (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader).
Screenings mostly take place at 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Avenue. Once-a-month Sunday afternoon screenings take place at the Chazen Museum of Art, 750 University Avenue. In accord with current UW Madison policies, masks are required for entry to our venues. All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public. Please visit our website for a complete listing of programs and descriptions from September 3 through December 18.
REMEMBERING JOAN MICKLIN SILVER
The sole series tribute to a director on our fall calendar will honor a true American cinema pioneer, Joan Micklin Silver, who passed away on December 31, 2020. In the mid-to-late 1970s, almost fifty years since the evolution from silence to talkies, less than a dozen women had been hired to direct movies for Hollywood studios. In a 1979 interview, Silver said a top movie executive told her “Feature films are very expensive to mount and distribute, and women directors are one more problem we don’t need."
Learning her craft making a few short children’s films for Encyclopedia Brittanica, Silver ignored the sexist system and made the independent, low budget immigrant drama Hester Street (1975), earning Silver critical acclaim, and the film was recognized by the industry when Hester’s star Carol Kane received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Silver’s ambitious follow-up, Between the Lines (1977), was another independent project that used a large ensemble cast of stars-to-be (including Jeff Goldblum and Marilu Henner) to tell the story of a Boston alternative weekly newspaper that’s about to fold. By the 1980s, Silver was making movies and finding larger audiences within the Hollywood system, where she still had to struggle to continue making the kind of personal projects she was accustomed to making, like the 1988 romantic comedy released by Warner Bros., Crossing Delancey. Silver had a close ally and producer in her husband, Raphael Silver, who grew motivated to help his wife when he became frustrated seeing her denied so many opportunities. Our series will also include the excellent 1978 prison drama On the Yard, directed by Raphael Silver and produced by Joan Micklin Silver.