Barbra Streisand's YENTL - Extended Director's Edition 2-Disc DVD (Feb 3)

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Nominated for five Academy Awards - and Oscar-winner for: "Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score."

Steven Spielberg proclaims YENTL is...
"The best directing debut since Citizen Kane!"

"Streisand gives Yentl a heart that sings and spirit that soars." -People Magazine

"Three cheers for chutzpah!" -Richard Corliss, Time

"…charming and moving." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

YENTL Extended Director's Edition
2-Disc DVD Special Edition (Feb 3) »

Los Angeles, CA – In turn of the century Eastern Europe, a Jewish girl disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue a religious education in YENTL, available on DVD for the first time February 3rd from MGM Home Entertainment and timed to the films 25th Anniversary.

Starring multiple award winner Barbra Streisand (A Star Is Born, The Way We Were), Golden Globe® nominee Mandy Patinkin (The Princess Bride, TV's Chicago Hope) and Amy Irving (Traffic, Crossing Delancey) in her Academy Award®-nominated role, YENTL is based on a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer's original short story "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy."

When Yentl's (Streisand) father (played by Nehemiah Persoff), who secretly tutored her throughout her childhood in the Talmud–the primary source of Jewish religion law–dies, she faces a life of female drudgery with no hope of continuing her studies. Frustrated by her feminine destiny, feisty Yentl transforms herself into looking like a boy, renames herself Anshel, and heads for the nearest Talmudic academy where she hopes to pass as a male student. There she falls in love with fellow student Avigdor (Patinkin), who in turn is in love with Hadass (Irving). After numerous complications ensue, Yentl, determined to get what she wants, leaves Europe for America to pursue her dream of serious study without needing to hide her identity as a woman.

Incorporating humor and music to relate Yentl's journey, the film won an Academy Award in 1984 for best original score and received four other Oscar nominations including Amy Irving for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Art Direction/Set Direction, and Best Original Songs including "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel," both sung by Streisand. Additional accolades include two Golden Globe award wins and four nominations, and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Album of Instrumental Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special.

Historical Info (from Wikipedia)
Yentl was a stage play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer (based on his short story) that opened at the Eugene O'Neil Theater on October 23, 1975 and ran for 223 performances starring Tovah Feldshuh.

As early as 1968, Barbra Streisand had expressed interest in a film adaption of Singer's short story. Using the Napolin/Singer play as her source material, she wrote a detailed forty-two page treatment, the first to conceive of the movie version as a musical. The reulting 1983 production veered dramatically from the original short story and play by allowing Yentl to reveal her true feelings for Avigdor and having her return to her female self and sail for the United States at the end.

The film was shot on location in Prague, New York City, and Liverpool. Barbra Streisand received a Golden Globe for Best Director for the film, and Yentl was nominated for four other Golden Globes.

The YENTL Extended Director´s Edition 2-Disc DVD set includes never before seen bonus features such as Barbra Streisand´s Original Concept Reel, rehearsal/final film comparisons, storyboard montages for musical numbers, deleted scenes, and much more, and will be available for a suggested retail price of $29.98.

BONUS FEATURES:
(Presented on two discs)
Disc One:
• Barbra Streisand Introduction
• Commentary with Barbra Streisand and executive producer Rusty Lemorande
• 11 Deleted Scenes
Disc Two:
• Barbra Streisand Introduction (#2)
• Barbra Streisand´s Original Concept Reel
• The Director´s Reed
• Rehearsal/Final Film Comparisons:
-Where is it Written? (Rehearsal)
-Where is it Written? (Rehearsal/Final Film Comparison)
-No Wonder (Rehearsal)
-No Wonder (Rehearsal/Final Film Comparison)
-The Way He Makes Me Feel (Rehearsal) -The Way He Makes Me Feel (Final Film Comparison)
-No Wonder (Reprise Rehearsal)
-No Wonder (Reprise Rehearsal/Final Film Comparison)
-Tomorrow Night (Rehearsal)
-Tomorrow Night (Rehearsal/Final Film Comparison)
-Will Someone Ever Look at Me That Way? (Rehearsal/Final Film Comparison)
• Storyboard Montages for Musical Numbers
• Deleted Number: The Moon and I
• Deleted Number: Several Sins a Day
• Papa, Can You Hear Me? (Collector´s Edition)
• A Piece of Sky (Collector´s Edition)
• Tomorrow Night (Collector´s Edition)
• Teaser Trailer
• Theatrical Trailer
• Photo Gallery

» Barbra Streisand Video CLIP (YouTube) »
(discussing the Extended Director's Edition DVD on Oprah Winfrey's show - 2 minutes)

» YENTL Theatrical Trailer (YouTube) »
(3 minutes)

"Carefully and lovingly done in every respect... Streisand is constantly vibrant and inventive before the camera." -Variety

Film Synopsis:
Nothing's Impossible.
A Jewish girl disguises herself as a boy to enter religious training.

The legendary Barbra Streisand shines as producer, co-writer, director and star of this radiant film about a young woman who risks everything for her insatiable passion to learn. Masquerading as a young man, she enters the Yeshiva to fulfill her forbidden desire for knowledge. But in a place where even the strongest mind can be betrayed by the body, how long can she uphold her secret before her new friends – and the young man she´s come to love – discover the shocking truth?

Nominated for five Academy Awards, Barbra Streisand cowrote, produced, and directed as well as starred in this popular motion picture, based on a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. The story follows the adventures of Yentl, a courageous young woman growing up in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century. Inspired by her father's teaching to become a Talmudic scholar--despite the religious restrictions against her doing so--she manages to make her dreams come true by disguising herself as a boy and entering an orthodox Jewish school.

But her masquerade causes big problems when she falls in love with her fellow scholar Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) - and his fiancée (Amy Irving, in an Oscar-nominated performance) falls in love with her! In an interesting twist on the musical genre, Streisand performs each song as an interior soliloquy, as if she were speaking to herself. This lends the film an air of analysis and introspection, two notions not commonly found in a musical but which would later be employed to great effect in movies such as Velvet Goldmine.

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