‘A Film is Born’

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 13

‘A Film is Born’

In 1968 Barbra Streisand was sent a short story written by the Nobel Prizewinner, Isaac Bashevis Singer. In 1983 she finally completed the film of that story - “Yentl.”

She starred in it, directed for the first time, produced and co-wrote it. It was the culmination of a 15-year fight to persuade people to invest in a project in which she passionately believed, but in which no-one else did. In the summer of 1982 she began filming and allowed 8.8. C. cameras to observe her at work. In an candid interview with lain Johnstone she revealed for the first time her doubts and insecurities about this mammoth undertaking. “A Film is Born” (One, 7 p.m. today) includes extracts and musical numbers from the completed film.

“Nobody wanted to make this film” Ms Streisand says. Despite the years of discouragement from agents and studio executives, she refused to give up. Although her original interest was simply to act in “Yentl,” she soon began to consider the challenge of directing the film herself.

“I wanted to direct, but I was also very frightened,”

she admits. “It was considered a very risky project.” Although her film career proceeded with such films as “Hello Dolly,” “On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever,” “The Way We Were,” “The Main Event” and “A Star Is Born,” Ms Streisand could not forget “Yentl.”

"I had the images in my head and I wanted to see them on film,” she says. “I also wanted to stretch myself as an artist. I was ready to take on more responsibility and direct. The older I get, the more I realise you have to take chances. Or, to coin an old phrase, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Like Yentl, a young women who ventures into a world open only to men, Ms Streisand encountered problems securing studio interest in her as a director.

“I was attempting to do what is considered a man’s job,” she says. “I was fighting for the opportunity to be respected in a man’s world and yet at the same time, trying to maintain my feminity. Perhaps being an actress, I was not viewed as being responsible for money. For many years, noone was willing to take the gamble.”