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After her passing at the end of 2020, obituaries celebrated Joan Micklin Silver s pioneering directorial work on feature and made-for-television films like Hester Street (1975) starring Carol Kane, Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976) starring Shelley Duvall, and Crossing Delancey (1988) starring Amy Irving. In the Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen pointed out that with the recently renewed focus on female filmmakers in Hollywood, Silver s work has enjoyed revived interest in recent years. However, discussions of Silver s career routinely ignored some of the gems in her filmography: the highly original, progressive, and delightful educational films she made in New York City at the start of her film career in the early 1970s.
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The first time I entered Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery on Houston Street, I was greeted, across from the signs selling cherry-flavored cream cheese knishes and egg creams, by the poster for Joan Micklin Silver’s
Hester Street (1975). I’d just moved from Los Angeles to New York City, unsure of where to go or what to do for paid work, and was spending a lot of hours milling about the Lower East Side, browsing bookshops. On the walls of Yonah Schimmel’s I would pore over the strips of yellowed newspaper clippings, which told stories of the local Yiddish theater players who’d come there in the ’20s to unwind over a knish after a night of performances, and who would stay talking into the next morning. When I finally sat down with a black-and-white egg cream, I made sure to face that
Joan Micklin Silver, who died on Dec. 31 at age 85, proved that for American Jewish women, being a film director means facing challenges of assimilation not unlike those confronted by immigrant ancestors generations ago.
Like the “Bintel Brief” Yiddish advice column in The Forverts, “Yekl,” like “Hester Street,” seethed with passions of Russian Jews trying to adapt to a new world.
The low-budget informality and authenticity of “Hester Street,” much of it performed in Yiddish, was augmented by editing rhythms that recalled the silent movie era, as did the truly unearthly performance by Carol Kane as Gitl, a wife who initially experiences problems coping with American ways.