Green Fields

“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)

Clip

Awards

BEST FOREIGN FILM 1938 (France)

Selected Film Festival Screenings

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)

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 (Grine Felder) celebrates an idyllic world of tribal wholeness and innate piety. Rarely has a film represented the shtetl with such lyricism.

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 Film Critic

“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)

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

Purchase DVD

Green Fields
$36.00 plus shipping
Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use)
Does not include Public Performance Rights
Home Use Policy (pdf)

Green Fields
$72.00 plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVD

Does not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional Use Policy (pdf)

Special Offer

Save when you purchase this DVD as part of the Edgar Ulmer Collection! More

Also Based on a Peretz Hirschbein Play

A Vilna Legend

Also Starring Helen Beverley

The Light Ahead

Overture to Glory