“YOU GOTTA GET A GET”

By Raymond Benson

(NOTE: Much of this review is repeated from an earlier Cinema Retro review of a previous Blu-ray release.)

In the world of the Jewish Conservative Orthodox community, a divorce is truly final only when the husband presents his wife with a “get”—a document in Hebrew that grants the woman her freedom to be with other men. Likewise, the wife must accept the get before the man can re-marry, too.

This is the crux of the story behind Hester Street, an independent art-house film that appeared in 1975, written and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Starring Carol Kane, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Gitl, a newly arrived immigrant to New York City in 1896, and Steven Keats as her husband Yankl, who, in an attempt to assimilate, in public goes by the name “Jake.” Jake has been in America for a while and isn’t looking forward to the arrival of his wife and son from Europe, for he has begun an affair with a wealthy, assimilated actress in the Yiddish theatre named Mamie. When the very traditional Gitl arrives with her son, the marriage disintegrates.

Luckily, Gitl meets Bernstein, an Orthodox man who is much more suited for her requirements, seeing that Jake has become something of a capitalist cad. Therefore, she needs a “get” from Jake so that both husband and wife can divorce and go their separate ways. That’s when Mamie’s money comes into play.

Silver beautifully rendered this period drama on a miniscule budget. Location shooting took place in and around New York’s lower east side, where much of the flavor of the late 19th Century Jewish Orthodox community is still pretty much the same. Replace the cars with horses and buggies, get the correct vintage costumes, and you’re more than halfway there. The dialogue is mostly in Yiddish (with English subtitles), thus making it an American foreign language film—an oddity in 1975, to be sure (although Coppola’s The Godfather Part II appeared a year earlier with a great amount of its dialogue spoken in Sicilian).

Keats plays Jake as a rake and a rascal, but our perception of him is not that of a villain. In many ways, he is the generic immigrant who came to America and sincerely tried to assimilate, become “American,” and leave the Old Country traditions behind. His fault is that he dreams of making big money in the States and this becomes his all-consuming desire, forgetting that he has a wife and son. Kane’s character and spot-on portrayal not only illustrates the role of females in the Orthodox community, but in many ways is a commentary on the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s.

Hester Street is a terrific little film that went out of print on DVD years ago and became a collector’s item on the resale market until a Blu-ray release appeared in 2015. With that also now out of print, Cohen Media Group has issued a welcome new edition in a 4K restoration. Filmed in black and white by Kenneth Van Sickle, the picture is grainy and flat—much like the early silent cinema of the that era!—which actually is quite appropriate for the movie’s setting. That said, the new restoration considerably sharpens the images and the display is the best seen since the movie’s 1975 theatrical release. The feature comes with an archival audio commentary with director Silver and producer Raphael D. Silver.

Also new to this release is supplementary material not present on the previous Blu-ray. Approximately eight minutes of an alternate opening sequence, with commentary by Daniel Kremer (author of an upcoming book about Silver and her work), is an interesting find. There are two relatively recent video conversations with director Silver and film historian Shonni Enelow about the making of Hester Street and Silver’s career as a filmmaker (Silver died in 2020). There are also vintage interviews with Carol Kane, Doris Roberts, and both Joan and Raphael Silver, likely ported over from the old DVD release. The restoration trailer rounds out the package.

Hester Street is an excellent synagogue discussion-group item for American Jews who want to explore the immigration scene and the topics of tradition and assimilation; but it is also a good educational piece for non-Jews who want to learn a little bit about New York history and the Jewish Orthodox religion. Recommended.

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