#Zlateh the Goat

[outofcontextrifftrax]

How will the Maccabees and their reindeer get through all this snow tonight?

Kevin Murphy, Zlateh the Goat

[tomoleary]

Maurice Sendak “Zlateh The Goat And Other Stories” by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1971)

Source

[mosertone]

Maurice Sendak - for 'Zlateh the Goat' by Isaac Bashevis Singer

[forthegothicheroine]

Time for my personal Hanukkah tradition: watching the Rifftrax "Zlateh the Goat"! Because it turns out that adapting a short story where a boy drinks milk directly from a goat's udder looks really weird when filmed in live action!

[mybeingthere]

Maurice Sendak illustrates Zlateh the Goat, a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

"I remember my own childhood vividly…I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn’t let adults know I knew. It would scare them." -

Maurice Sendak

«(…) The child continues to be that independent reader who only trusts his own criteria.»

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Zlateh the Goat was a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer that Sendak illustrated. Deitch decided that the best way to interpret Sendak’s art was via photography as opposed to animation. So he shot a live-action version of the movie in 1971. The movie was essentially dialogue-free. So why was it lost? Because of No Child Left Behind. That Act stipulates that films of books must include every word of the book if they are to be used as classroom material. So, Weston Woods dropped Zlateh from their catalogue. (See the photograph)

https://shrineodreams.wordpress.com/.../in-the-night.../

[thislittlekumquat]

end of the year book asks: 7, 16, 24

7: oldest book you read this year

Lol so I'm interpreting this as age of the story not age of the physical book. I went on A Journey with this one so I have to share. I assumed from memory that it was Carmilla by Le Fanu. Began scrolling my list. No, it was Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving. Or, you know, maybe some of these stories out of Zlateh the Goat etc, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, are older. Then I scrolled to the earliest books I read this year. No. Despite a strong contender in the form of a collection of housewife recipes and remedies from the Elizabethan era, the oldest story I read this year was Njal's Saga, an Icelandic saga written in the 13th century about events that likely took place a century or two prior, translated in the edition I read by Robert Cook. I highly recommend it (and the others!)

16. A book you already want to reread

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS BY ROBIN WALL-KIMMERER. Everyone should read this book. She genuinely made me want to cover myself in mud and watch the forest and not talk to anyone. For fun. I love earth, and I love what humans have done in the past in conjunction with our plant brothers and sisters, and I think that just maybe we can find our way back there again, if we want to.

24. The book with the best title

The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic. This is a book (a bit old now) on synesthesia, that I think inspired the burst of Scientific American-type articles about it in the early 00s that was when I first learned about synesthesia. Not only was it a fascinating deep dive from a medical expert, but it also gave the author a chance to very beautifully talk about humans, our brains, and the beauty we're capable of. Excellent stuff.

[arconinternet]

Three of the Scott, Foresman & Company Gateway Readers (Books, 1984)

You can digitally borrow them here. Reflections includes handwritten notes.

You can buy the Weston Woods short film adaptation of the short story shown above, Zlateh the Goat, with less-than-educational commentary from Rifftrax, and you can read director Gene Deitch's recollections about the making of the film here.

[mi4011nayaninarayana]

3. Gene Deitch

From an early age Gene Deitch has had an interest in drawing and considered Walt Disney and Jim Flora to be his main graphic influences.

He first started out as a technical illustrator at North American Aviation, he later got a side project to draw cover illustrations and interior comics for a jazz magazine, The Record Changer.

Deitch started working at the animation studio, UPA as a creative director of Terrytoons and created characters such as Sidney the Elephant, Tom Terrific, Clint Clobber and Gaston Le Crayon.

He collaborated with Zdeňka Najmanová on the animated short based on the children's novel Munro, which is about a boy who mistakenly enroll in the American army without nobody realizing his age. He also collaborated with Rembrandt films to direct Popeye and Tom and Jerry intended for television.

In Tom and Jerry, Deitch created a new owner for Tom called Clint Clobber and also gave an unintentional surreal tone to their version of the series. The animation was simple and jerky with angular backgrounds that lacked depth. With many gags mistimed and dialogues replaced by gibberish, the cat and mouse duo was also often found in different contexts from their original domestic setting, the viewers had not reacted well due to the drastic reimagining.

His Academy Award winning creation, Munro was inspired by his time in the US military. He decided to find a unique way of attacking the morally corrupt institution while actually making an impact. Which led him to make a deceptively sweet film about the pernicious machinations of war.

Deitch had explained: “I came up with the story of Munro because I understood that if you’re really in a rage and really want to attack someone in cartoon form, the least effective way is to jump up and down and scream and yell and to be polemical—something a lot of cartoonists have never learned. The best way is to go in the other direction and feign innocence, and bring the reader along in a quiet way."

Over the years, Deitch co-adapted other children's books and novels into animated cartoons such as; Crockett Johnson's 'A Picture for Harold's Room' (1971) and 'Harold's Fairy Tale' (1974), Isaac Bashevis Singer's 'Zlateh the Goat' (1973) etc.

[franki-lew-yo]

I know it’s long past Hanukkah but I have a question

Is this book considered a classic at all?

If you haven’t somehow read it and a copy is in close proximity, you should do it: the goblin king gets dance-magic-danced by Hershel’s good vibes at the end, how can you not love that!!? 10/10 glorious.

This was my favorite book that popped up around December and I didn’t even celebrate Hanukkah. I wonder about it’s significance within the Jewish community though. Is it a classic? Just curious.

----

I was about to ask why this hasn’t been made into a movie yet when the only pure Hanukkah film out there is Zlateh the Goat.

THEN I remembered that had they done that in the 2000s Robert Zemeckis would have been the go to guy to replicate the art style. And that makes me sad. He reanimated enough holidays into horror and the only one it worked with was Monster House on account of it being a Halloween film.

[newlimitededition]

Zlateh the Goat- SIGNED Limited Edition https://ift.tt/30epsoW

[downordic-blog]

Aaron's Magic Village

When God distributed wiseness and foolishness through a newly created world, one of the cherubs accidentally dropped all the foolishness on a tiny village called Chelm. So everyone in the village is very dumb. Recently orphaned boy Aaron and his friendly goat Zlateh live there with Aaron's uncle Shlemiel. When an evil sorcerer and his monster attack the village, Aaron and Zlateh have to defend it themselves.

Aarons.Magic.Village.AKA.Da.Aron.Kom.Til.Schelm.1995.DANiSH.288p.WIZZ Type.................: Film Language.............: Danish Audio Format.........: AAC LC Bitrate..............: 126 kb/s Hz...................: 44.1 kHz Channels.............: 2 Channels Video Format.........: x264 Video Bitrate........: 622 kB/s Resolution...........: 562x480 FPS..................: 25.000 Genre................: Animation, Family, Comedy Imdb Rating..........: 5.3 Movie Information....: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114349 Read the full article

[90secondnewbery]

Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

1967 Newbery Honor Book

Adapted by The Benali Family (2019)

From Boston, MA

Judges' Remarks: What a charming romp through this tender story of a boy and his goat! I love that you took the trouble to cast a real, living goat as Zlateh . . . and I’m even more delighted that it seems the goat resolutely does not want to make a movie, and pointedly eats hay and ignores the demands of the story throughout the video! The voiceover from the point of view of the goat was an inspired touch, and I loved all the little touches, like the fun piano tinkling in the background, the “heartbeat” sound when the boy seems to be close to dying, and the maniacal guy with the knife who is waiting to slaughter and eat the goat (”I’ve been waiting . . . THREE MINUTES!”). The other supporting performances, such as the little girl at the end or the father at the beginning, were also well-acted. The boy was portrayed with an appealing mixture of determination and haplessness, with hilarious “conversations” between him and the goat (Boy: “Can I have some milk?” Goat: “Let me think about it . . . no,” or Boy: “I’m dying!” Goat: “Sounds like a personal problem, boy”), and with a properly melodramatic near-death scene. The goat is the perfect straight man to the boy’s increasing panic, both indifferent and even slightly supercilious. The cinematography is assured and the editing kept the whole thing brisk and tight. I loved the singing at the end, too! Great work on this!

[spectraspecs-writes]

So when I was in maybe the third or fourth grade, maybe as early as second, we read a story in my literature book about a Jewish family and a goat named Zlateh. I don’t remember most of the story but I remember that it said the Sabbath day was Friday. I had heard the word Sabbath before but nobody ever defined it. I knew it had something to do with religion, but that was it. I had read the book of Exodus and the Ten commandments before, after all, and I remembered “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy”, but nobody ever told me what it meant. And I didn’t think to ask. But when I read it in that story, I saved that information.

Fast forward to fifth grade. As part of catechism (which is like First Communion for Lutherans - it’s when we’re allowed to take communion for the first time and we actually, you know, learn the tenets of the faith), we were required to read Luther’s Small Catechism, or at least the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, and the Ten Commandments, memorize each, and in the case of the commandments, memorize Martin Luther’s interpretation. Which led to me, a memory box, reciting every time I was asked the commandments “You shall have no other Gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Every time, I would recite the commandment and the What does this mean?

This bothered my mom a little. We were taught the recitation but not what the commandment actually meant. And in me this was no more apparent than in the third commandment - Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Mom asked me, “What’s the third commandment?” And I recited it. “What does that mean?” And I naturally started to recite, from memory, the What Does This Mean from the Small Catechism. And Mom stopped me. “No,” she said, “What does that mean? What do the words mean, in your own words?”

And I thought for a moment. No one had ever asked me that before. I didn’t know. So I finally shrugged and said “Respect Friday?”

I had no idea why Mom laughed so hard. Seemed to me like someone wasn’t respecting the Sabbath Day. 

It wasn’t for another two years that I learned why.

[forthegothicheroine]

There is actually one Hanukkah movie which I watch annually- the Rifftrax of Zlateh the Goat.

[rivervox]

By Tomorrow Today Will Be A Story     “When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, humans would live like the beasts, only for the day.” Reb Zebulun said, “Today we live, but by tomorrow today will be a story. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.”     Children are as puzzled by passing time as grownups. What happens to a day once it is gone? Where are all our yesterdays with their joys and sorrows? Literature helps us remember the past with its many moods. To the storyteller yesterday is still here as are the years and the decades gone by.     In stories time does not vanish. Neither do people and animals. For the writer and his readers, all creatures go on living forever. What happened long ago is still present.

I.B. Singer, Nobel prize laureate, Yiddish literature, from Zlateh the Goat

[rifftrax]

Short: Zlateh the Goat

http://www.rifftrax.com/zlateh-the-goat

Over two thousand years after the victory of the Maccabees and the fall of the fortress of Antonius, someone apparently got the idea that the best way to celebrate Hannukah was to make a short film based on a peculiar story by Nobel prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer about a boy and his goat. “Good,” you might say, “I am glad. I enjoy goat stories very much.” And I’m not saying that you’ll eat your words, exactly, if only because eating might be a little difficult for a short time after watching Zlateh the Goat, but you may well look back wistfully on your unthinking naivete.

Now it’s possible, of course, that some people may be able to overlook The Terrible Thing That Happens and see Zlateh for the sweet fusion of  childlike simplicity, shtetl nostalgia and the abomination special bond between a young lad and his goat. Possible, but not very likely. 

Chag sameach!

http://www.rifftrax.com/zlateh-the-goat