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Series for Film Group Discussions Clash of Lifestyles |
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This series deals with the transitions from the Eastern European shtetl, with its traditional Jewish values and strict roles for women, to the opportunities and dangers presented by modernity and American society. Many writers, playwrights, and, later, filmmakers have mined this rich material, portraying the colliding worlds, changing mores (particularly with regard to women), and, often, ensuing loss of identity and a spiritual center. New opportunities and freedoms brought immigrants to America but at the same time a clear danger faced the morally cohesive way of life, governed by Jewish community and family values, they had brought with them. The first film in the series look at those early clashes: Two focus on the impact of the American experience and one, Yentl, written by Isaac Bashevis singer before he immigrated, predicts future collisions to come. The last four films feature Jewish women, young and old, in America at different time periods, from the 1930s to the 1980s. They are no longer immigrants, clearly American, yet not completely absorbed by the mainstream society. While still affected by a clash of values, they evaluate and redefine themselves as Jews, Americans, and women. But the issues they deal with now are more than Jewish dilemmas. These films depict Jewish women at the center of what becomes an American struggle for identity–one that must balance ethnicity and assimilation, activism and self-containment, conventionality and individuality, worldly success and true happiness.
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