Movies about music and musicians

[MDL]

Ken Russell's contribution to the genre is huge and wildly uneven. I haven't seen his early films about Bartok, Prokofiev or Vaughan Williams, and have merely vague memories of his Martinu and Bruckner TV biopics from the early '90s, neither of which impressed me greatly.

But Elgar and the Delius film Song of Summer are wonderful, deeply moving works. Mahler has its moments, although the conversion fantasy sequence isn't one of them (Mahler as Al Jolson and Stan Laurel?!?!  ).

The Music Lovers probably tells us more about Ken Russell than it does about Tchaikovsky, but I've always enjoyed it.

Has anybody mentioned Lisztomania yet? Jeez, what was he on when he dreamt that one up? Wagner as a vampire who rises from the grave as a machine-gun-wielding cross between Frankenstein's monster and Hitler? Cosima killing her father with a voodoo doll? And Roger Daltrey as a rock-god Liszt dressed in a frock waving his ten-foot rubber penis over a gaggle of ladies? They really don't make 'em like that any more.

[George]

The Piano Teacher.

GREAT movie! 

[George]

Some of my favorite films:

Passion, about Percy Grainger, covering one year of his life (1914, I think).  Not recommended for the prudish or easily offended:

Frühlingssinfonie
about Robert and Clara. It stays fairly faithful to the historical facts (unlike the Hollywood film based on their early life) and has the additional plus of Nastassja Kinski as Clara  

Notturno, a very dark film about Schubert's last days. Disturbing but strangely beautiful and haunting:

Man, I need to rent (or buy) all three of these.  

[George]

Man, I need to rent (or buy) all three of these.  

Alas, Netflix has only one of them - Frühlingssinfonie. Thanks Sarge! 

[petrarch]

Just watched this on pay-per-view. Heartwarming and well-acted. An orphaned musical prodigy and the events that re-unite him with his birth parents.

I found August Rush quite poor (overly syrupy and pandering, in true Hollywood fashion, and the music wasn't that great).

On the topic of prodigies, Vitus was great and has the advantage that the young actor really plays everything his character plays.

Also Vier Minuten/Four minutes was a good one.

[DavidRoss]

Via instant streaming from Netflix, we just watched A Wayfarer's Journey: Listening to Mahler, largely consisting of interviews with Christoph Eschenbach and a couple of physicians about the spiritual dimensions of Mahler's music, along with a gorgeous soundtrack of his music performed by various orchestras under Eschenbach's baton.  My wife--not a fan of Mahler due to his longwinded wallowing--overcame her objections and watched and she liked it as much as I.

Non-classical but a fine concert film documenting what was one of the most thrilling performances I ever attended (almost up there with McCoy Tyner, Stanley Clarke, and Billy Cobham together at Yoshi's a few years ago!), Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense.

And I sure agree with istanbul (welcome--haven't seen you before!) about Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (François Girard, 1993) and Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984).  Both are first-rate!

[Harpo]

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts. I watched this a few weeks ago and liked it. His music is much more varied than I had thought. He is a true workaholic; the film shows him breaking up with his young wife (I think his 3rd) who can't deal with his compulsiveness.

[Szykneij]

And Roger Daltrey as a rock-god Liszt dressed in a frock waving his ten-foot rubber penis over a gaggle of ladies?

It was rubber? 

[Harpo]

Taking Sides: about the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler being interrogated by a (fictional?) American officer about whether or not he was a Nazi during WWII. It's the classic question of whether art transcends politics. No easy answers. A bit talky, adapted from a play by Ronald Harwood who also wrote  The Pianist.

[MishaK]

Just reading through this thread.....

I must say, I have severely disliked most Hollywood movies about classical music. Most of them (e.g. Shine, Amadeus, Hillary and Jackie) advance this silly superficial idea of the musical artist as this mad genius who, struck by lightning, has this bizarre inexplicable ability to make amazing music that he himself cannot understand, but who is otherwise mentally and socially completely dysfunctional. None of them ever show that it actually takes real intelligence, discipline and hard work to achieve such pinnacles of music making. They never believably get into the head of a musical genius. It all becomes a bad freakshow. I found the portrayal of Jacqueline du Pre in Hilary and Jackie particularly offensive. She comes off as a total bimbo without the slightest shred of intellect.

That being said, I did like the previously mentioned Tous les matins du monde, crazy as it is,



with a wonderful soundtrack of music by Lully and Sainte-Colombe performed by Jordi Savall, and I liked Woody Allen's The Sweet and Lowdown



(about an imaginary jazz guitar virtuoso second only to Django Reinhard). Allen being a quite respectable jazz clarinetist himself, he shows so much more sympathy for his protagonist than other non-musical directors of movies about musical characters do. He gives us a three-dimensional figure. A character who needs to make music like you and I need to breathe, a guy for whom the guitar is the only voice that feels like his own and who is plagued by insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, but who cannot express that to the people who care about him. Sean Penn does an amazing job as the lead character.

Taking Sides was interesting, but more for its legal and moral issues than for the musical aspects (notwithstanding the fine contributions from Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin). Here at least Keitel's character admits that he doesn't 'get' what makes Furtwängler Furtwängler. That being said, the movie doesn't really help the viewer 'get' it either. Stellan Skarsgard's expressionless portrayal of Furtwängler I found pretty flat and unconvincing. What the movie does very well is give a very realistic portrayal of the opportunistic atmosphere of occupied Germany with all the German supplicants in Keitel's office claiming that they appreciated the martyrs of Operation Valkyrie etc. and going out of their way to acknowledge Keitel's secretary who is an offspring of one of the conspirators. It's a simultaneously hilarious and scary window into spineless human psyche.

I'll have to check out the "Frühlingssonate" that Sarge recommended. Herbert Grönemeyer as Schumann is a hilarious concept on so many levels. (Kind of like casting Phil Collins as Elgar!) I now half expect Schumann walking through the streets of Düsseldorf singing an ode to the Currywurst!

[DavidRoss]

O Mensch recently posted a youtube link to Conducting Mahler.  This documentary was shown on Dutch TV and has been posted on youtube in 7 parts.  The intro is in Dutch, but after that it's mostly in English with some German and Italian.  The film explores Mahler's symphonies sequentially though the eyes of 5 leading conductors:  Abbado, Chailly, Haitink, Muti, and Rattle.  In addition to hearing them express their views about the music, we get to see them rehearsing their orchestras.  Chailly has long been one of my most favorite conductors (as has Abbado, with Haitink not far behind) and I really loved seeing him especially working with the RCO; he's so emotionally expressive, so much at one with the music, as if he's channeling it through every fiber of his being, with the joy and love he feels for it radiating from his visage like light from the sun.

[Harpo]

Taking Sides was interesting, but more for its legal and moral issues than for the musical aspects... Here at least Keitel's character admits that he doesn't 'get' what makes Furtwängler Furtwängler. That being said, the movie doesn't really help the viewer 'get' it either. Stellan Skarsgard's expressionless portrayal of Furtwängler I found pretty flat and unconvincing. What the movie does very well is give a very realistic portrayal of the opportunistic atmosphere of occupied GermanyIt's a simultaneously hilarious and scary window into spineless human psyche.

I agree. I think Furtwangler's flat emotion was "supposed" to portray inward suffering. His musical talent was not in evidence--it's supposed to be a given. There was little or no action, except for people walking in and out of rooms and up and down stairs. It's a different type of movie about music, anyway.

[henry]

Farinelli

[DavidW]

Intermezzo is on at 3 am Eastern this Friday on TCM for those that get that channel.



Set your dvrs!

[SonicMan46]

Intermezzo is on at 3 am Eastern this Friday on TCM for those that get that channel.



Set your dvrs!

David - wasn't she just beautiful!    I 'burned' that one off the TCM channel well over a year ago - Dave 

[Joe Barron]

Song of Norway, about Grieg, is simply one of the worst movies ever made. "It drags out cliches you didn't know you knew," as Pauline Kael put it. See it for laughs.

Anyone know Song of Love, relased in 1947? Paul Henreid as Robert Schumann, Katharine Hepburn as Clara, and Robert Walker as the young Brahms. Sounds awful, but I'd be interested in it for historical reasons. And I like the three stars.

[DavidW]

David - wasn't she just beautiful!    I 'burned' that one off the TCM channel well over a year ago - Dave 

Don't know why the  but she is indeed beautiful.

[George]

Don't know why the   ...

I suspect that SonicDave's intention was this one:

Which reminds me, we could use about 15-20 new emoticons.  

[DavidRoss]

I suspect that SonicDave's intention was this one:

Ahh...that's the special "George spies a new Beethoven Sonata cycle in the discount bin" emoticon.

[Harpo]

Don't know why the  but she is indeed beautiful.

From what I know of SonicMan, that tongue sticking out was supposed to represent drooling and panting.