Hester Street (1975)

Shooting in black-and-white, using no established name performers, and allowing some characters to speak Yiddish, first-time director Joan Micklin Silver took plenty of chances with her 1975 debut feature. They all paid off, as Hester Street rode a wave of critical acclaim all the way to the Academy awards, where its "star," a then-unknown Carol Kane, was nominated for Best Actress. Silver's independently produced film was among the first off-Hollywood features to break the art house stigma of inaccessibility by telling a genuinely entertaining story whose historical setting proved to have resonance for mid-'70s audiences, especially women who identified with Gitl, the character Kane played. A woman trying to hold together a marriage in the face of unfaithfulness and then trying to build a new life with minimal resources, Gitl was a prototypical feminist heroine. However, Silver's evocation of early 20th century New York and the immigrant experience went beyond any political agenda, giving film audiences hungry for a taste of authenticity in their historical movies a satisfying meal. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide