Summary Of The Right Time By Hasia Diner
The article “The Right Film at the Right Time” by Hasia Diner discusses the social climate of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that influenced Joan Micklin Silver’s crafting of her 1975 film Hester Street. She introduces this time period as one of revival and progressivism, marked by the trends of many minorities turning back to their “roots,” as a reminder of how their immigrant families lived before them, as well as a wave of feminism and increased focus on the rights of minority groups. Initially summarizing the film’s plot, Diner takes pause at several key scenes to analyze their role in representing the broader social landscape of the contemporary revivalist period which the film was released in. Contrasting Jake and Gitl’s transformation
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For example, in her discourse about the “quest for roots” trend, she mentions the publication of books and movies, focused on recounting immigrant lifestyles, in addition to passed legislature focused on the preservation of languages and cultural communities. She then dives into how Hester Street was influenced by this movement, the prefacing evidence setting up her deductive argument before her conclusion via evidence from the film. In this case, Diner performs an analysis of the film’s final scene, comparing the commitment to tradition demonstrated by Gitl and Bernstein as they walk away from conflict, triumphant in their bright futures, cruising through the crowded streets of the Lower East Side. Diner’s deduces that their triumph over evil (aka Jake’s infidelity) and resistance to shallow Americanization not only mark the film as product of its revivalist “roots” time period, but also cause it to appeal to a wide audience of the day. Such is the basic structure of Diner’s argument, initially introducing the themes of the film, explaining the dynamics of the 60’s-70’s time period with specific examples of literature, social movements, and legislature, then tying these back into the film to prove their influence over Micklin’s direction. Basically, Diner encapsulates the specific ways in which Hester Street synthesizes 1960’s revivalist movements with the call for equality, feminism and civil rights of the day, all through the lens of a Jewish immigration tale based in a time period decades
For example, in her discourse about the “quest for roots” trend, she mentions the publication of books and movies, focused on recounting immigrant lifestyles, in addition to passed legislature focused on the preservation of languages and cultural communities. She then dives into how Hester Street was influenced by this movement, the prefacing evidence setting up her deductive argument before her conclusion via evidence from the film. In this case, Diner performs an analysis of the film’s final scene, comparing the commitment to tradition demonstrated by Gitl and Bernstein as they walk away from conflict, triumphant in their bright futures, cruising through the crowded streets of the Lower East Side. Diner’s deduces that their triumph over evil (aka Jake’s infidelity) and resistance to shallow Americanization not only mark the film as product of its revivalist “roots” time period, but also cause it to appeal to a wide audience of the day. Such is the basic structure of Diner’s argument, initially introducing the themes of the film, explaining the dynamics of the 60’s-70’s time period with specific examples of literature, social movements, and legislature, then tying these back into the film to prove their influence over Micklin’s direction. Basically, Diner encapsulates the specific ways in which Hester Street synthesizes 1960’s revivalist movements with the call for equality, feminism and civil rights of the day, all through the lens of a Jewish immigration tale based in a time period decades