OCTOBER 8 • 2020 | 35
ever,
” he said. “I can still talk
about them, and I still know
exactly who was in them. Now
today, you see some movies
— yeah, they entertain you.
But afterwards? It doesn’
t leave
much behind.
”
Zydower suggests some of
this may be due to the loss of
stars and the relationship that
viewers could form with them
across their many frequent
works.
“Most movies they are mak-
ing today, it’
s very seldom they
have top stars like they used to
have before,
” he muses. “Even
though you never met some of
them in real life, you felt like
they belonged to you.
”
LIFE IN AMERICA
But Zydower remains sensi-
tive to painful recollections.
Movies that address the
Holocaust can stir memories
of both the hate he experi-
enced and the violence he
observed and heard about
against those around him.
“It upsets me terribly,
” he
says of watching Holocaust-
themed films. “I start crying.
”
Even now, he describes a sense
of disbelief at the horrors he’
s
heard of and seen.
Fortunately for Zydower,
his time since his arrival in
America has been almost
exclusively free of antisemi-
tism and hate.
“I tell you, the minute I got
off the boat I felt I was in par-
adise. When I arrived in San
Francisco, the driver — who
had to be Jewish — he told us
that Israel had been created
that day.
”
Immediately upon arrival,
he made the most of the coun-
try’
s then-penchant for show-
ing double features.
“By the time I came to
America, I only had seen 174
movies. And I was 18 years
old. In San Francisco, I went
almost every other day — the
theaters were open night and
day. There was this one on
Market Street, I’
d go and watch
two movies. And then, the next
day I would again watch two.
”
The habit continued when
his family migrated to Detroit,
and he began working in
industry. Zydower still vividly
remembers a range of neigh-
borhood theaters in Detroit
that have gone over the years;
the Linwood and the Jersey
were frequent fixtures in his
life, and he still remembers
when each would rotate its
weekly programming.
Today, Zydower’
s vision has
declined enough that he can no
longer drive, and theaters have
been closed amid the pandem-
ic. But he still watches a lot at
home on Amazon (he praised
Once Upon a Time in Odessa, a
recent series about a Jewish
gangster) and appears lively
and undaunted even amid a
historically difficult time.
When asked if movies pro-
vide an escapist function, he
agreed they often can, espe-
cially in “the bad times.
” As an
example, he recalled a conver-
sation overheard in Shanghai
between a couple, a pair of
foreign refugees contemplating
the price of a Strauss operetta;
they were weighing, as he
and his family often did, the
value of an artistic experience
against what they needed to
survive.
Whether escapist or not,
Zydower’
s story suggests the
experience of watching movies
has largely been worthwhile.
Though not every film’
s a win-
ner, impressions of the finest
viewings, stars and theaters
seem to live on for him as viv-
idly ever.
“I tell you what,
” he says
of Here Come the Waves, a
long-ago viewing experience
among an incredible many: “I
remember every bit no matter
what.
”
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