Trailer
Plot summary
Yentl Mendel is the only child of Reb Mendel, a widowed Talmud teacher in an Ashkenazi shtetl in Poland in 1904. He instructs her in the Talmud in secret, since the custom of their community allows only men to study the law, and her wish to study is judged a masculine trait. She refuses the matches proposed for her. After her father dies she is left alone in the world, so she trims her hair, dresses as a man, takes the name of her late brother, Anshel, and is admitted to a yeshiva in Bychawa. There Avigdor, a fellow student, becomes her friend, and she gets to know his fiancée, Hadass Vishkower.
Cast
- Ruth Goringas Esther Rachel
- Jack Lynnas Bookseller
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Yentl (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Peters tried to talk Streisand into dropping the project and performing at Wembley Stadium in London instead, for $1 million. She refused that and a $2 million follow-up, and also turned down an offer in excess of $10 million to perform in Las Vegas, in favour of pursuing Yentl.
- Streisand became increasingly determined to make Yentl after visiting her father's grave at Mount Hebron Cemetery in the summer of 1979; a photo taken there revealed that the neighboring grave belonged to a man named Anshel, the name Yentl adopts when she takes on a male identity.
- Irving is one of just three performers to be nominated for an Oscar and a Razzie for the same performance; the others are James Coco in Only When I Laugh and Glenn Close in Hillbilly Elegy.
- Streisand's misgivings about her age for the part changed quickly after she disguised herself as a man and temporarily confused Peters into thinking that a stranger had broken into the house.
- Orion Pictures canceled the already-budgeted $14 million Yentl after Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate lost $35 million and pushed the studio to axe every film costing over $10 million to survive.
- Streisand's Golden Globe win for directing Yentl made her the first woman ever to receive that award, part of a broader haul that included the Globe for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.
- Despite that historic Golden Globe win for directing, Streisand received no Academy Award nomination at all for Yentl, an omission that sparked considerable controversy at the time.
- In 1971, Czech director Ivan Passer was originally hired by First Artists to direct the film; Singer wrote the screenplay and retitled it Masquerade, but backed out because he believed Streisand's age and celebrity would detract from the film.
