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Leonard Nimoy narrates our film, Carpati.
By now you realize it… Yes, Leonard Nimoy was Spock on Star Trek.
But his life is full of many other amazing successes and interests. For example, he produces plays and television programs, directs films, is an accomplished actor both in radio and on television, and he writes books.
Anyway, you get the idea. He is a very kind and giving person, and Yale and I loved working with him.
Here are two samples of Leonard Nimoy’s narration for Carpati (in RealAudio)
- Humorous opening (35 seconds)
Opening (56K RealAudio)- Most of the film follows the life of Zev Godinger, Jewish ice cream man of the Carpathian Mountains. This is the only time we are told about general Jewish life in the Carpathain Mountains, Carpati, Ukraine (1 minute)
Interesting History (56K RealAudio)
Do you want to hear samples from the astounding Klezmer and Rom (Gypsy) soundtrack?
So, you wanna see a little more about Nimoy?
Leonard Nimoy grew up in an orthodox Jewish home. He knows Yiddish, the language Jews spoke in Eastern Europe before WWII. He was very intrigued by our film…
In fact, the morning that we recorded him, he insisted, before we recorded him, that he see the beginning of the film. As he watched he became more entranced. He laughed and pointed out things to us, and insisted on continuing. We ended up watching the entire film with him!
While shooting Carpati we went to a few Jewish cemeteries. (In some towns, unfortunately, this is all that remains today of a once vibrant and beautiful Jewish life.) On one of the gravestones we found this:
In the Jewish cemetery in Beregovo, Ukraine, in the Carpathian Mountains, we came across this beautiful stone, showing the blessing of the cohen. Leonard Nimoy used this in creating his blessing on the Star Trek television program.
As a child he saw the Cohen (certain men in any Jewish synogogue are the “Cohen”) blessing the congregation by raising their hands together in an interesting way. This hand gesture became a part of Nimoy’s character in Star Trek.
Nimoy says that much of Spock’s alien identity — not just the hand gesture — came from an Orthodox Jewish upbringing in Boston.
Spock, who existed in a kind of diaspora because he belonged nowhere, was comfortable neither on earth nor on Vulcan.
“Mr. Spock is a character of dignity and a good role model,” Nimoy says, “and I have no problem being him.”
I included the first shot above in Carpati… if only as a private laugh for those who know this fact about Jewish life…
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