RESTORED
BY NCJF
This rare,
newly restored feature was originally advertised as "the first Yiddish
talkie from Soviet Russia." The plot centers on Nathan Becker, a
Jewish bricklayer who returns to Russia after twenty-eight years in America.
After reuniting with his father (played with comic eccentricity by Solomon
Mikhoels) Nathan leaves the shtetl to work in the new industrial center
of Magnitogorsk.
There, he
soon finds that the work habits he acquired in America conflict with the
Soviet system. While the film's resolution emphasizes the triumph of socialist
productivity, the screenplay by Yiddish author Peretz Markish reflects
the warmth and humor of the Jewish spirit.
CRITICAL
ACCLAIM
“An
interesting view of a cross-section of the Jewish population and... the
best side of the industrializing of the Soviet Union being pushed forward
ruthlessly by the government in a hurried effort to make the country economically
self-sufficient.”
– New York Times April 15, 1933
“The
only Yiddish talkie ever made in the Soviet Union, The
Return of Nathan Becker tells the story of a Russian-Jewish
bricklayer who returns home from Depression-era America to a bustling
new Soviet Union where Jews are abandoning decrepit shtetls--and
their old ways--to build industrial powerhouses and a multiculti nation.
Though it contains playful scenes, the rarely seen (and newly resubtitled)
1932 film is mostly on message: The Soviet Union is more dynamic, motivated,
and accepting than the United States (Becker even brings an African-American
friend with him to the new worker's paradise). The movie actually was
made during a period in which Soviet anti-Semitism was receding, but of
course that didn't last: Both scripter Peretz Markish and star Solomon
Mikhoels were subsequently victims of Stalinist purges."
- Washington
City Paper
"...the
42-year old Mikhoels is delightful. As in Jewish
Luck, Mikhoels constructs his persona out of stylized
bits of business. (In one comic throwaway, he picks up a handy bust of
Marx, stares at it, and reflectively strokes his own beard.) His is an
overwhelmingly tactile performance, as rigorous in its movements as a
ballet dancer's. The fractured language he speaks is virtually his own
-interspersed with chuckling, clucking and the continual humming of a
nign (traditional prayer chant).
The
Return of Nathan Becker fulfills the Zhdanov capsule formula
for Socialist Realism ('a combination of the most matter-of-fact, everyday
reality with the most heroic prospects'). True to its genre, the movie
ends with a hymn to labor. 'We must win, we will win," the workers'
chorus sings. 'Long live the day of victory!'"
- From Inside the Film Factory edited by Richard Taylor and Ian
Christie
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