Green Fields Grine Felder USA, 1937, 97 minutes, B&W Yiddish with new English subtitles Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer & Jacob Ben-Ami RESTORED with New English Subtitles by The National Center for Jewish Film Buy Now Public Exhibition Formats: Beta, 16MM, 35MM

 

“Rejecting the already familiar immigrant saga, this groundbreaking Yiddish pastoral turns instead to the lost world of the Eastern European shtetl stunningly recreated in New Jersey by Edgar G. Ulmer's newsreel crews.”
– The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008 Screening)

Synopsis

In Edgar G. Ulmer's soulful open-air adaptation of Peretz Hirshbein's classic play, an ascetic young scholar ventures into the Lithuanian countryside, searching for "true Jews." One of the most critically acclaimed and beloved of American Yiddish talkies, Green Fields celebrates an idyllic world of tribal wholeness and innate piety. Rarely has a film represented the shtetl with such lyricism.

Awards

Best Foreign Film (1938), France

Selected Screenings

Ocean County Jewish Film Festival (2015)
Doc Films/ University of Chicago (2014)
Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, MA (2013)
Washington DC Jewish Film Festival Year Round, Special Event Screening (2013)
Edgar G. Ulmer Retrospective, Cinémathèque Française, Paris (2012)
Edgar G. Ulmer Retrospective, Filmhouse Cinema, UK (2009)
HOLLYWOOD ON THE HUDSON: FILMMAKING IN NEW YORK, 1920-1939; The Museum of Modern Art; New York, NY (2008)
Cape Town/ Johannesburg Yiddish Film Festival (2008)
UC Berkley Art Museum, Berkley, California (2005)
Toronto Jewish Film Festival (2005)
Haifa Jewish Film Festival (2005)
British Film Institution (2004)
Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York (2004)
Rhode Island Film Festival (2004)

NCJF Film Restoration

Restoration was completed with funding from Lorraine and Martin Beitler in loving memory of their parents Jean and Sol Weiner and Anna and Michael Beitler.

1978 Restoration © The National Center for Jewish Film
Producer Sharon Pucker Rivo
Director Henry Felt
Subtitles David Fishman
Prologue Michael Swirsky
Production Assistants Miriam Saul Krant, Fredda Band Lowenstein
Animation Edward T. Joyce
Camera Phred Churchill, Jeffery Liberman, Anne Schaefer

Credits

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer & Jacob Ben-Ami
Original play by Peretz Hirshbein
Music by Vladimir Heifetz

Cast
Michael Goldstein
Helen Beverley
Isidore Cashier
Anna Appel
Leah Noemi
Max Vodnoy
Saul Levine
Herschel Bernardi
Dena Drute

Critical Acclaim

“Sunlit and air-filled, yet suffused with yearning, the film recalls Renoir and Vigo... It exudes a dreamy pantheism..."
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“The cast is brilliant… The direction by Jacob Ben-Ami and Edgar G. Ulmer has caught the beauty and poetry of the classic work and transferred it to the screen in a masterful manner."
– Film Daily (upon its release in 1937)

“A new high in vernacular art!"
– New York World Telegram (upon its release in 1937)

Purchase the Film

	Home Use DVD: $29.95 Does not include Classroom or Library Use Rights or Public Performance Rights. More Information
	Classroom/Library Use DVD: $250 Does not include Public Performance Rights. More Information

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