Barbra Streisand was WAY to old to play a teenage girl
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Yentl
kedem524 — 17 years ago(April 07, 2008 08:52 PM)
Why is a 40 year old woman playing a teenager in this film? I know she's Barbra and that it was her film, but still they should have found someone younger. It's bad enough when they use people in their 20s to play teenagers but someone who is old enough to be the teen's mother is just horrible. They should have used someone like Kristy McNichol, Melissa Gilbert, or better yet some unknown with good musical talents to play Yentl. Barbra could have sung songs that were used for narration and been the singing voice for Yentl if the other actress would not have had a good musical talent.
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stuartbthomas-1 — 17 years ago(April 10, 2008 03:32 PM)
You have half a valid point, in that the character of yentl was indeed in her teens - in Singer's original short story. But the character in the movie is 28 when the film begins: Streisand and Rosenthal changed the character's age to avoid criticisms similar to the one you have just voiced.
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joelovesbabs — 17 years ago(May 01, 2008 08:12 PM)
A 40 year-old woman is playing this role, whose age is NEVER stated in the movie (it is an ADAPTATION, not a literal translation of the source material), the same way Matthew Broderick at 26 and Alan Ruck at 29 played teens in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and most of the cast of The Breakfast Club was in their mid-twenty's playing high schoolers, and Jennifer Grey was 27 when playing Baby, a teenager, in Dirty Dancing.
Learn to post intelligent and useful comments before posting such arrogant stupidity.
"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL -
kedem524 — 17 years ago(May 09, 2008 12:19 AM)
Jennifer Grey did NOT look like a teenager in Dirty Dancing. They should have chosen someone younger for her role also, or made her character older. Someone stated that in the movie Barbra's character was supposed to be 28. However, I do not remember this being stated and in the original novel her character was a teenager and most people think who write about this film think of Yentl as a teenager also. I still say they should have used an unknown teenage actress to play her and just had Barbra Streisand write the songs and sing a couple of them as background music in the movie.
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minia — 17 years ago(June 24, 2008 02:09 PM)
What's funny is that I think the point the person is making is that the lady didn't look 28 either
I was a bit shocked she was 41 at the time, I must say But, Barbara has one of those never looked young, but never looks old looks So it's hard to get a reasonable gauge on whether she fits the bill or not -
stuartbthomas-1 — 17 years ago(October 18, 2008 06:07 PM)
Re: the age of Yentl. I posted previously on the character being 28: this was widely quoted in the attendant publicity material at the time of the film's release and I'm sure a trawl through the internet would throw something up to this effect. Another thing to bear in mind: one of the women in the market scene (early in the movie) says to another: 'If she (Yentl) can joke about finding a husband at her age, I should worry.' Even allowing for changed times, it's hard to imagine this been said about a teenager! The character was 28 in the movie.
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trowinup — 17 years ago(February 05, 2009 04:29 AM)
"Matthew Broderick at 26 and Alan Ruck at 29 played teens in Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
But they look like teens. The cast of Breakfat Club are in their twenties but they look like teens. Barbra is 40 and she looks like 40. -
joelovesbabs — 16 years ago(October 20, 2009 08:32 PM)
And that is fine, the age of Yentl is never discussed in the movie. And neither Matthew or Alan looked like teens, they looked like Hollywood's notion of what a teen looks like.
"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL -
mel2000 — 11 years ago(June 02, 2014 02:03 AM)
And neither Matthew or Alan looked like teens, they looked like Hollywood's notion of what a teen looks like.
As a former HS teacher, I can state without a doubt that there are high-schoolers who look older than Broderick and Ruck did at the time of Ferris Bueller. -
joelovesbabs — 16 years ago(October 20, 2009 08:34 PM)
Regardless, that is never mentioned in the movie, so it is not a problem for me to accept Barbra in the role, the only actress who could have played her with that voice and the enigmatism and star-wattage the character needed.
"NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE"
BARBRA STREISAND AS YENTL -
crazyeightyeight — 17 years ago(March 07, 2009 11:31 AM)
They do comment on her age at the beginning of the movie. When Yentl goes to the market and she's buying fishthe exchange goes kind of like this:
"Yentl, what's this I hear? You finally got engaged?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? Well, did you?"
"What, hear about it or do it?"
And then the other woman says, "If she can joke about finding a husband at HER age"
I think she's still a little too old, and obviously not particularly convincing as a man, but I think it kind of works because they made a big deal of her not having a beard, which made her look like a young man, whatever else she looked lik.
"Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once." -
kedem524 — 17 years ago(March 16, 2009 06:39 PM)
All right, it seems like in the movie they did try to make her older than a teenager. But she was a teenager in the book it was based on and I feel that the concept of the movie- about a free spirited female who pretends to be a male so she can study books intended only for males- is more fitting for a teenager, or at the oldest a woman in her early twenties. But not the 28(?) year old they made her in the movie and definitely not the 40 year old age of the woman who played her.
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jennifer-maki — 17 years ago(March 30, 2009 05:38 PM)
The character of Yentl was actually in her late 20'sas Barbara pointed out in the DVD at that age it was more of a travesty that she wasn't married yet. I am not a huge Barbara fan, but in this particular movie I don't know if anyone else would have made it as special as it was.
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vindicatedplum — 16 years ago(April 02, 2010 03:42 AM)
There was nothing in the movie that made me think the character of Yentl was a teenager. There were plenty of lines and circumstances to suggest she was much older than the other unmarried women in her town. Her father's age was another indication that Yentl was well past the normal age a woman would of been married.
Babe has her own individual beauty that is ageless. If you have seen her lately, she doesn't look her age yet. I don't know if Babs has been under the knife, if she has they have done a very good job of retaining that special unique look that belongs only to Barbra Streisand. We all should be so lucky to have a look that no one else in the world possesses. Rather so many strive to have the very same face.
(_/) So, Just what do you think
(=..=) talking to a tyrant will
{"}{"} Accomplish? -
blackhawkswincup2010 — 12 years ago(November 30, 2013 08:50 AM)
The age thing doesn't bother me as much as Barbra simply never sold me on being a male. Not sure whether it was her lack of acting ability, or that she simply looks too feminine to carry it off, but the point is, I never bought it. Now Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, I totally bought that he was a woman, and thought of Dorothy Michaels as her own woman and her own character.