10 Best Musical Numbers In Film

Like West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof hasn't aged well in the pacing department. It has the length of a David Lean film, and as a result often loses modern audiences after around 90 minutes from sheer exhaustion. But the actual filmmaking of this musical has aged incredibly well. The camera zips and flies around the room and cuts are perfectly timed with the beats of the music.

While this editing technique is most noticeable in the opening number "Tradition" - where sound cues make the cuts even more obvious than in the rest of the film - the best use of cinematography, sound, editing, and performance is in L'Chaim, the drunken dancing number toward the opening of the second act.

In translating this number from the stage to the screen, director Norman Jewison made this dance scene feel far more confined inside a tavern, meaning the Russian Gentiles and the Jews are much tighter packed together than on an enormous stage.

And this decision works like gangbusters. Not only is the energy pumped up by the confinement, but the mixing of the Gentile and Jewish dancers feels like a natural result of these people living in close proximity for so long. It's a show-stopping performance, perfectly capturing the feeling of hitting the town with your drinking buddies.