Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness - A riveting portrait of the great writer whose stories became the basis of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.
"Throughout his life, Sholem Aleichem lived an extraordinary contradiction. He was at one and the same time, the most popular and successful Jewish writer of his era .....while facing constant financial hardship. It's clear this was partly due to the fact that he was a terrible businessman; (that) he was as bad at business as he was brilliant at writing! So there’s that. He had a large family to support as well and so sold off the rights to his work to make ends meet and suffered the consequences in the long run. Was there something more than this, something inside him that needed to fail in this way? It's impossible to know. His own father experienced a terrible financial loss in Sholem Aleichem’s youth. Was he recreating this as an adult? I’m afraid that’s above my pay grade," explained director Joseph Dorman when asked whether his subject was a masochist or an optimist.
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