Yentl

Infobox Film
name = Yentl


image_size =
caption =
director = Barbra Streisand
producer = Rusty Lemorande
Barbra Streisand
writer = Jack Rosenthal (screenplay)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (story)
Barbra Streisand
narrator =
starring = Barbra Streisand
Mandy Patinkin
Amy Irving
music = Michel Legrand
cinematography = David Watkin
editing = Terry Rawlings
distributor = MGM/UA Entertainment Company
released = November 18, 1983
runtime = 132 min.
country = flagicon|USA U.S.
language = English
budget = $12,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $30,400,000
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0086619

"Yentl" is a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," it centers on a young girl who defies tradition by discussing and debating Jewish law and theology with her rabbi father. When he dies, she cuts her hair, dresses as a man, and sets out to find a yeshiva where she can continue to study Talmud and live secretly as a male named Anshel. When her study partner Avigdor discovers the truth, Yentl's assertions that she is "neither one sex nor the other" and has "the soul of a man in the body of a woman" suggest the character is undergoing a gender identity crisis, especially when she opts to remain living as Anshel for the rest of her life.

After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Robert Kalfin, opened on October 23, 1975 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, where it ran for 223 performances. The cast included Tovah Feldshuh, John Shea, and Lynn Ann Leveridge.

Broadway awards and nominations

*Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Feldshuh, nominee)
*Theatre World Award (Feldshuh and Shea, winners)
*Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play (Feldshuh, nominee)
*Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Leveridge, nominee)
*Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience (nominee)
*Drama Desk Award Special Mention (Feldshuh, winner)

creen adaptation

As early as 1968, Barbra Streisand had expressed interest in a film adaption of Singer's short story. In 1971, First Artists announced "Masquerade", written by Jerome Kass and directed by Ivan Passer, would be her next project, but nothing came of it. Eight years later, using the Napolin/Singer play as her source material, she wrote a detailed forty-two page treatment, the first to conceive of the movie version as a musical. A year later, Orion Pictures greenlighted the project, with Jon Peters co-producing and Streisand starring and directing, but soon the studio lost interest.

In 1981, United Artists (currently owned by MGM, which also purchased Orion in 1997) agreed to a $14.5 million budget, with the studio getting final cut approval. British screenwriter Jack Rosenthal and Streisand completed the script, Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman composed the score, and principal photography began in April the following year, with a cast including Mandy Patinkin and Amy Irving. The production wrapped six months later, only 11% over budget.

The following July, United Artists approved the director's cut and, fifteen years after Streisand first contemplated the film, it premiered on November 16, 1983 in New York City and Los Angeles, opened in thirteen theaters in those cities and Toronto two days later, and went into wide release the following month. The film's domestic gross was $39.3 million, with foreign box office adding an additional $22.8 million to the till.

The film veered dramatically from the original short story and play by allowing Yentl to reveal her true feelings for Avigdor and having her return to her female self and sail for the United States at the end.

Except for an incidental melody hummed by Irving during one scene, the solo vocals for all the songs in the film are performed by Streisand in the form of soliloquies. Perhaps the best known of these are "The Way He Makes Me Feel" and "Papa, Can You Hear Me?." Some numbers, such as "This is One of Those Moments" and "Tomorrow Night," are woven intricately into the dialogue and action of their respective scenes. Two of the songs - "The Way He Makes Me Feel" and "No Matter What Happens" - were recorded in studio versions by Streisand and released prior to the film's opening as a form of promotion. Remarkably, Patinkin has sung extensively on stage and made numerous recordings, but Streisand failed to provide a song for him in the film.

The film received a scathing review from Singer [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/27/reviews/streisand-singer.html] . It was subsequently heavily edited to tighten the story; this version has been shown on television and home video.

Film awards and nominations

*Academy Award for Best Original Score (winner)
*Academy Award for Best Art Direction (nominee)
*Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Irving, nominee)
*Academy Award for Best Song ("The Way He Makes Me Feel" and "Papa, Can You Hear Me?," nominees)
*Academy Award for Best Costume Design (nominee)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy (winner)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Director (winner)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominee)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Patinkin, nominee)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Streisand, nominee)
*Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song ("The Way He Makes Me Feel," nominee)
*Grammy Award for Best Album of an Original Score Written for A Motion Picture or a Television Special (nominee)
*Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Musical Score (nominee)
*Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor (Streisand, nominee)
*Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Irving, nominee)
*Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Special Silver Ribbon for Best New Director of a Foreign Film (winner)

Trivia

*As of June 2006, "Yentl" remains the only movie to have been nominated for both Best Musical Score at the AMPAS and Worst Musical Score at the Golden Raspberry Awards. In addition, Amy Irving became the first actress to be nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie as Best and Worst Supporting Actress (respectively) for her performance in the same film (The first double nods came to James Coco for Best and Worst Supporting Actor for the movie "Only When I Laugh"; to this day, Irving and Coco are the only actors to receive both nods for the same performance).
*"Yentl" was mentioned in the "South Park" first season episode "Mecha-Streisand". When Leonard Maltin picks up Chef to help track down Barbra Streisand he asks him whether or not he has seen her and Chef replies, "No, not since "Yentl"."
*"Yentl" also was referenced in the "Drawn Together" episode "Terms of Endearment" when the housemates are playing Pictionary. Spanky Ham has drawn the movie poster for "Jaws", and describes the movie as being about "a horrible, violent monster." When the time is up, Spanky claims he was talking about "Yentl".
*There is another reference of Yentl in "In & Out", during Howard Brackett's (Kevin Kline) bachelor party. One of his friends exclaims: "She (Barbra Streisand) was too old for "Yentl"!".
*In an episode of "The Simpsons" ("Sleeping with the Enemy"), Bart hears Nelson sing "Papa, can you hear me?" as he wonders where his father is. He later comments about Lisa (who madly starts swimming in a cake), "Well, at least she's not singing Streisand." Also in the episode "Girls Just Want to Have Sums", when Lisa reveals at the award ceremony that she is a girl one of the students in the audience, more specifically Dolph, one of the three bullies, shouts out "We've been Yentled."
*Yentl is also briefly mentioned in the book 'The Devil's Arithmetic'.
* The phase "Papa, can you hear me?" is used in a song "You won't succeed on Broadway (If you don't have any Jews)" in Monty Python's musical "Spamalot"
* In an episode of "M*A*S*H" ("Deal Me Out"), Captain Pak (Pat Morita) refers to "a little girl at Berkeley" who is "a Yentl now"

ee also

* Cross-dressing in film and television

References

* Napoleon, Davi. "." Includes a chapter on "Yentl," the story, the play, and the movie. The dramatic chapter goes into detail about several controversies between strong individuals--Isaac B Singer and Kalfin, Singer and Streisand, and Kalfin and Streisand. It also includes descriptions of the play and movie. Iowa State University Press. ISBN-0-8138-1713-7, 1991.

External links

* [http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=3762 Internet Broadway Database listing]
*imdb title|id=0086619|title=Yentl
* [http://www.bjsmusic.com/Yentl15/ Yentl - 15 Years]
* [http://www.barbra-archives.com/Films/streisand_yentl.html Barbra Archives: Yentl (Preproduction & Cut Scenes)]