New one out called The Devil's Violinist (on Paganini) .. from the same director of Immortal Beloved (Beethoven) ..
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-devils-violinist-2015
Perhaps we can use this thread to bring into focus .. news, info & discussion on Feature Films that are about classical music, classical composers biopics (Docudrama/Biography/Historical drama) ..
Walt Disney's television show in the 1950's offered The Peter Tchaikovsky Story. I recall an opening scene where the boy Tchaikovsky is seemingly tortured by music in his head: those original melodies just will not leave him alone!
IMDB says it is included in this expensive collection: I could not verify it, however on Amazon.
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Quote from: Cato on January 31, 2015, 08:17:45 AM
Walt Disney's television show in the 1950's offered The Peter Tchaikovsky Story. I recall an opening scene where the boy Tchaikovsky is seemingly tortured by music in his head: those original melodies just will not leave him alone!
IMDB says it is included in this expensive collection: I could not verify it, however on Amazon.
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Do I read that right? A two-disc set for $180?
Gotta give Disney credit for refusing to water down the noun treasures 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on February 02, 2015, 06:22:08 AM
Do I read that right? A two-disc set for $180?
Yes, one REALLY wants to walk down memory lane to buy this set! :laugh:
To be somewhat fair, this was a limited edition, and is no longer available directly from Amazon. So you are looking at collector prices.
Ken Russell's more straightforward composer biopic are all uniformly fantastic: Debussy Film, Song of Summer [Delius], The Music Lovers [Tchaikovsky], Mahler. I haven't yet seen his Elgar or Bruckner films, though I expect good things. Lisztomania is too fantastic to be considered a biopic, but still really entertaining
My favorite of the ones I've seen, Song of Summer is available on Youtube (with French subtitling).
https://www.youtube.com/v/Vyy2SagDwcY
Quote from: karlhenning on February 02, 2015, 06:22:08 AM
Do I read that right? A two-disc set for $180?
Available on Youtube with Spanish subtitles. :)
https://www.youtube.com/v/itZGI-CSv9U
There is a film about Paganini directed and starred by Klaus Kinski, more about Kinski than Paganini but I seem to remember liking it.
There are two films about Chopin. One with Hugh Grant and one, La note bleue, directed by Andrzej Zulawski with pianist Janusz Olejniczak in a role of Chopin. Again I seem to remember liking both.
Also Death in Five Voices, an off-beat sort of documentary on Carlo Gesualdo by Werner Herzog. I definitely liked that one.
Also Le roi danse, a favorite of mine but not strictly a biopic, more about relationships between Loius XIV, Lully and Moliere.
http://www.youtube.com/v/OO2HBhwk05g
TCHAIKOWSKY 2-DVD edition from RUSCICO with English subtitles
btw: And they have a 2-dic set of a master class and concert by the Borodin Quartet playing Shostakovich and Beethoven
... Schnittke and Kipling ? the film score for Rikki Tikki Tavi ? http://www.ruscico.com/
The Great Glinka seems to be out of print.
I really enjoyed the film After the Storm -- about Bartok's life in America. It includes interviews with his son Peter and others who knew the composer. I don't think it is on YT, though.
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And there's always this amazing series, which is responsible for many favorite pieces of mine:
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And yes, James, they talk about Gruppen ;). BTW I love Rattle's quote, which was something like "I cannot claim to understand Gruppen -- I simply like how it sounds".
Quote from: listener on February 02, 2015, 01:18:21 PM
TCHAIKOWSKY 2-DVD edition from RUSCICO with English subtitles
I saw this one. It's a very Soviet production in two ways: it makes Tch. out to be some sort of progressive who was looking forward to the glorious future, and it doesn't go into the real reason why his marriage broke up.
I've really enjoyed John Bridcut's documentaries on Elgar, RVW, Britten, and Delius. I wish the Elgar, RVW, and Delius would get released on DVD. I'd buy them all! I already own one of the Britten ones titled Britten's Endgame.
Disney's Fantasia surely ought to count despite Stokowski. But the animations are still spell-binding, and then there's Mickey Mouse in his greatest role.
Ingmar Bergman's early To Joy concerns the love between two orchestral musicians.
Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours, about a conductor with an unfaithful wife. It has had several remakes.
Dustin Hoffman's only directed film, Quartet.
Madman Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo starring madman Klaus Kinski, about a madman building an opera house in Peru, and lugging a huge ship over the Andes.
A Late Quartet, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last films, unfortunately not very good.
Copying Beethoven, a god-awful flick about a girl who became Beethoven's copyist. It's even worse than Immortal Beloved. Paul Morrissey also did a film on Beethoven's Nephew, very hard to find.
Milos Forman's Amadeus is both highly entertaining as film and wretchedly inaccurate as biography.
Zeffirelli did something with C. Thomas Howell as Young Toscanini. I'm sorry to say I've seen it.
I think Mr. Holland's Opus with Richard Dreyfuss is absolutely wretched, but it does concern a high school musician with ambitions to write a Great Symphony. As if to prove he can be bad not only once, Dreyfuss also starred with Amy Irving in a silly film called The Competition. (At the end the Amy character decides at the last minute she doesn't want to play the concerto she's rehearsed, so without notice she substitutes the Prokofiev Third. See how far that would get her in real life.)
People Will Talk, with Cary Grant and Hume Cronyn, is only in part about classical music, but it does end with CG conducting the Brahms Academic Festival, and Grant's taciturn assistant is (intentionally?) made up to look almost exactly like Anton Bruckner.
Visconti's Senso "opens in an opera house and in a way never leaves it" (Ebert). And then his Death in Venice transforms Gustav Aschenbach from Thomas Mann's writer to a composer modeled on Mahler. I have not yet seen Visconti's Ludwig, about Wagner's royal patron.
Fellini's "Orchestra Rehearsal."
Jane Campion's The Piano, and there's also a film called The Pianist.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is quite good.
Farinelli is a fanciful biopic about the great castrato. I don't believe the operation was performed on the star.
There is a film called The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach which I have not seen.
Louis Malle's Au Revoir les Enfants is not really about classical music, but a Schubert moment musicale plays an important part in the relationship between the two schoolboys.
Five Easy Pieces is partly about classical music, considering that the Jack Nicholson character (Bobby Eroica Dupea) was a failed classical pianist before becoming an alienated youth.
Satyajit Ray's The Music Room, a great film in my opinion, is about Indian classical music, the endeavors of an insolvent but music-loving aristocrat to keep presenting classical concerts in a world of encroaching modernization.
Last but hardly least: the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera!
(And I stop here.)
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on February 02, 2015, 05:29:34 PM
A Late Quartet, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last films, unfortunately not very good.
I rather liked it, though it could have been better.
QuoteThirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is quite good.
Agreed.
QuoteThere is a film called The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach which I have not seen.
I haven't seen it either, but I think this is the one that stars Gustav Leonhardt as JSB. That piques my interest.
One not yet mentioned:
Testimony, directed by Tony Palmer, with Ben Kingsley as Shostakovich (1988)
Though based on a dubious source, this is an interesting take on the life of DSCH: notable for Kingsley's performance, and the elegant B&W photography which evokes classic films of the period.
And how could I forget Mike Leigh's "Topsy Turvy," his marvelous biopic about the genesis of G+S's "The Mikado." (There was also a biopic many years back called "The Great G+S," starring Robert Morley as G and Maurice Evans as S - fun in a kind of campy way.)
Not to mention some of the best Looney Tunes cartoons like "What's Opera, Doc?" - with Elmer Fudd's immortal "Kill the Wabbit!" line sung to the Ride of the Valkyries.
And Depardieu père et fils in "Tous les Matins du Monde," a fictional biopic about Marin Marais.
"Copying Beethoven" is terrible, I dis-recommend it. I am not sure if I ever saw "Immortal beloved" from the '90s, probably not good either. Also stay away from "Spring symphony" (starring Kinsky's daughter Nastassia and German pop singer Herbert Groenemeyer as Clara and Robert Schumann), although this might mercifully be hard to find anyway.
It's been almost 20 years, but I rather liked "Tous le matins du monde" about Marais and St Colombe.
Fitzcarraldo is good, I don't know the film on Paganini with Kinsky.
Also not bad: "Taking sides" about Furtwängler and his "de-nazification"
Does anyone know a good documentary of Strauss on DVD?
There is the Ken Russell's BBC film, Dance of the Seven Veils, but I doubt it'll be on DVD anytime soon since the Strauss estate have forbidden the use of the music. Can be seen on youtube though.
http://www.youtube.com/v/u7r2JHq7LMs
Quote from: Drasko on February 03, 2015, 08:41:07 AM
There is the Ken Russell's BBC film, Dance of the Seven Veils, but I doubt it'll be on DVD anytime soon since the Strauss estate have forbidden the use of the music. Can be seen on youtube though.
http://www.youtube.com/v/u7r2JHq7LMs
Thanks, but I'm not really looking for a 'biopic' but more along the lines of an actual documentary. Would love it if Bridcut did one on Strauss.
Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting
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Some more:
Richter the Enigma - a fascinating bio of the great pianist
David Oistrakh, Remembering a Legend
Speaking of Ken Russell - Lisztomania. One viewing is more than enough
A Song to Remember - Film about Chopin
The film about Beethoven's Nephew is called..........Beethoven's Nephew. A terrible film.
What? No one has yet mentioned The Red Violin? I found that one a beautiful film. 8)
Immortal Beloved is worth seeing for one reason only: Gary Oldman absolutely nails the Beethoven role. :) Oh, and the scenery is not bad. (That comment can be taken several ways. ;) )
There is an obscure Italian film called Basileus Quartet that, better than any other film I've seen, portrays the excitement, drudgery and psychology of being part of a chamber-music group. 8)
Quote from: jochanaan on February 05, 2015, 07:54:52 AM
What? No one has yet mentioned The Red Violin? I found that one a beautiful film. 8)
Haven't seen it yet, but it's by the same director who did the 32 Short Films about GG.
Alexander Sokurov, a great film director (Alexandra, The Sun,...) made this Shostakovitch biopic
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The editing job is very nice.
I recommend also Monsaingeon, a documentary specialist on Richter
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and to a lesser extend on Yehudi Menhuhin
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For the most motivated, he also made bios on Fisher Dieskau (6 Blu-ray which I havent seen)
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and a tribute to Valeriy Sokolov
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I watched "Mozart's Sister" last night (original French title, Nannerl, la sœur de Mozart).
It was not very good.
Riot at the RIte (bbc '05) was entertaining. I rather enjoyed the movie's Pierre Monteaux :) Eroica (bbc '03) is a good flick about the first rehearsals and performance of that symphony. I recall a Mahler movie in which Gustav goes to visit Hugo Wolfe at the asylum. Copying Beethoven was great fun for me :)
fiction: THE CONDUCTOR (1980) dir. Andrzej Wajda, starring John Gielgud dubbed in Polish seems to still be in VHS only
Quote from: Draško on February 02, 2015, 09:39:20 AM
There is a film about Paganini directed and starred by Klaus Kinski, more about Kinski than Paganini but I seem to remember liking it.
There are two films about Chopin. One with Hugh Grant and one, La note bleue, directed by Andrzej Zulawski with pianist Janusz Olejniczak in a role of Chopin. Again I seem to remember liking both.
Also Death in Five Voices, an off-beat sort of documentary on Carlo Gesualdo by Werner Herzog. I definitely liked that one.
Yeah, 'La note bleue' is one we watched fairly recently.
I can't think of anything else that fits the criteria and hasn't already been mentioned, although a harmless piece of nonsense titled 'Le Concert' is one we've seen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Concert (2009)
Also -
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on February 02, 2015, 05:29:34 PM
Last but hardly least: the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera!
Absolutely.
Tonight Friday March 18th, the film
http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/048600-000-A/paganini-le-violoniste-du-diable (http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/048600-000-A/paganini-le-violoniste-du-diable)
is broadcasted at 20:55 on ARTE TV. The violonist David Garett plays Paganini role. I'll watch
If you miss it, you will have a second chance on Sunday Mach 20th 9:30.
Ken Russell's BBC docudramas have just been released on blu-ray in the UK.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_reviews_71/ken_russell_great_composers_blu-ray.htm
Another great UK blu-ray is "Battle For Music" (1945) which dramatizes the struggles the London Philharmonic went through to survive WW2.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134309/
Battle For Music has great extended scenes of Boult and Lambert conducting and the blu-ray has some good extras.
For comic relief, sort of a "Big Bang Theory" about music students sharing an apartment RAISING THE WIND
remembered another (which I haven't seen) 100 MEN AND A GIRL
The daughter of a struggling musician forms a symphony orchestra made up of his unemployed friends and through persistence, charm and a few misunderstandings, is able to get Leopold Stokowski to lead them in a concert that leads to a radio contract.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511OKjANSiL.jpg)
My favorite.
I am having a special "Astor Piazzolla" evening with these biopics and music tribute films
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Plus some of the CD's I own
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Quote from: Drasko on February 02, 2015, 09:39:20 AMThere is a film about Paganini directed and starred by Klaus Kinski, more about Kinski than Paganini but I seem to remember liking it.
There are two films about Chopin. One with Hugh Grant and one, La note bleue, directed by Andrzej Zulawski with pianist Janusz Olejniczak in a role of Chopin. Again I seem to remember liking both.
Also Death in Five Voices, an off-beat sort of documentary on Carlo Gesualdo by Werner Herzog. I definitely liked that one.
Quote from: Roy Bland on April 09, 2024, 09:59:03 AM
controversial
Many movies with the wild
Klaus Kinski were/are controversial!
Quote from: listener on March 25, 2016, 01:42:52 AMremembered another (which I haven't seen) 100 MEN AND A GIRL
The daughter of a struggling musician forms a symphony orchestra made up of his unemployed friends and through persistence, charm and a few misunderstandings, is able to get Leopold Stokowski to lead them in a concert that leads to a radio contract.
With the great
Deanna Durbin, who had an excellent voice.
Stokowski had no trouble doing such cameos: note his billing! ;)
Of course, he had to endure things in the dialogue like "
That's enough of that long-hair stuff * , baby! How about singing some real music?"
* ( "Long-hair stuff" = Classical Music)
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51AiGSZ9IXL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg)
On the other hand, any movie with the great comic
Billy Gilbert is worth watching...or at least his scenes are worth watching! 8)
Its inevitable limitations notwithstanding, I remain fond of Jas Lapine's Impromptu. And, to be sure, it amuses me to reflect that my first sight of Hugh Grant on the screen was in the role of Chopin.
The 40th Anniversary of Amadeus - loved that film (and the original play at London's National Theatre with Frank Finlay and Simon Callow)
Quote from: Roasted Swan on April 09, 2024, 10:47:01 AMThe 40th Anniversary of Amadeus - loved that film (and the original play at London's National Theatre with Frank Finlay and Simon Callow)
I was cast as Salieri in my College's production of the play. The theatre majors were somewhat vexed with the Department chairwoman, but she wanted a musician in the role and she had me coached in the part.
Quote from: Karl Henning on April 09, 2024, 10:56:40 AMI was cast as Salieri in my College's production of the play. The theatre majors were somewhat vexed with the Department chairwoman, but she wanted a musician in the role and she had me coached in the part.
The film of Amadeus still works very well I think. I never quite understood why Tom Hulse was cast with such an obvious American accent but in the DVD extras apparently it was to emphasise how much of an outsider Mozart was in the well-spoken (ie 'proper' English) Austrian court. I still don't know why Simon Callow in the film as Emanuel Schikaneder also has a naff American accent..... I did wonder whether he was parodying Hulse out of some kind of envy that he'd got the title role instead of Callow who was brilliant in the National original.....
Oh Boy! A memory was dredged up, when I saw this topic!
An old
Walt Disney short about
Tchaikovsky!
One scene in particular has remained in my memory, and in the YouTube comments, the same scene struck several other people when they were children.
The boy
Tchaikovsky, tortured by music in his head which will not go away, is prevented from playing the piano, and so plays his music on the window instead.
Quote from: Cato on April 09, 2024, 11:10:19 AMOh Boy! A memory was dredged up, when I saw this topic!
An old Walt Disney short about Tchaikovsky!
One scene in particular has remained in my memory, and in the YouTube comments, the same scene struck several other people when they were children.
The boy Tchaikovsky, tortured by music in his head which will not go away, is prevented from playing the piano, and so plays his music on the window instead.
I don't believe I'd ever seen this before.
Quote from: Karl Henning on April 09, 2024, 11:21:10 AMI don't believe I'd ever seen this before.
Probably few people under 70 know anything about this curiosity! ;D It was an episode of the
Walt Disney television show (in 1959).
Somebody in the YouTube comments said it was included as an "Extra" with the Disney movie
Sleeping Beauty on DVD/Blu-Ray.
Quote from: Cato on April 09, 2024, 12:00:24 PMProbably few people under 70 know anything about this curiosity! ;D It was an episode of the Walt Disney television show (in 1959).
Somebody in the YouTube comments said it was included as an "Extra" with the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty on DVD/Blu-Ray.
Trivia:
Grant Williams, playing the adult
Tchaikovsky, was part of the stable of 20/30-something actors at Warner Brothers in the '50's and '60's, (
James Garner being the most successful, others less so e.g.
Peter Brown, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Clint Walker, Jack Kelly, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, et al.
The latter was known for his pile of hair: "
Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb!" was a playground chant for a while! :D
THE HANS ROTT SCREENPLAY
Once upon a time (2009) I decided to write a screenplay about Hans Rott, the now forgotten composer child from Vienna. I liked his single Symphony, and thought it a tragedy that he was so maligned by the Vienna establishment of his day and died in madness. So in a neverending series of cascades and crescendos like his fourth movement, I set out to write some of his life.
Oh my.
I had a 120 page script within 6 months. It was terrible. Non linear jumbled mess. Really, REALLY bad. For some years after this, on and off, I tried to rewrite it, changed things, added scenes, took away scenes, this, that...in the process I was helped by a Member here in GMG, who sent me by POST from the USA photocopies, translations and a great deal of other things related to my Hans Rott research. I still have all that research, and I value it very much.
Anyway, I kept coming back to it from time to time - in June 2021, I decided to finsih the bugger once and for all. So I did. I 'completed' the damn thing on 21.12.2021. At last it was done! I sent it away to Berlin Associates - they replied thus:
Dear John,
Many thanks for sending us your work and apologies for such a delayed reply. Your work was actively considered by the team but unfortunately, we will not be offering you representation at this time.
Please note that our agents take on very few new clients as we typically represent writers for the duration of their careers. A rejection from us says more about our current workload than our judgement as to your potential & talent!
Thanks again and all best wishes for the future."
Well, that was a nice rejection note, but I wonder about the comma between 'unfortunately' and 'we' in the second sentence! Three months after this, I did a full voiced reading of it, and...well...it sucked. Some events were not foreshadowed or placed in logical order. The dialogue was absoloutely wrong, sounding forced and contrived, almost written with a middle English accent, not even close to how things were said in Vienna 1870 at all. Even worse, whilst I was tidying it up in Novemeber 2021, I happened upon a documentary on TV about Auschwitz survivors and the music they made. Two things happened from my watching that Documentary. I decided to change my tune on Messiaen, and I would explore him more fully than the Turangalila Symphony which until then I found completely unapproachable and even unlistenable.
The other thing I learned from that TV show was about Richard Wagner. I knew he was anti-semite back in the day, but I did not realise just HOW agressively anti-semite he was. So I decided to portray Wagner with that trait, and rewrote the only scene in which Richard Wagner appears. That was a BIG mistake. First of all, it had no part in the actual story. It didn't need to be referenced. There was no need for it in the story. But my fury at Wagner had me rewrite his single scene with Bruckner as a CLEAR and DAMNABLE anti-semite, because he WAS. I had Wagner saying anti-semetic things about Mahler which had no place, just because I wanted to extract revenge on Wagner for being a despicable person. I wanted people to HEAR him saying repulsive things. Wagner supported a Judaic genocide and WROTE about it - it had to be revealed - people needed to know!
No they didn't. Not in this Screenplay anyway.
It was totally wrong. So three months after submitting it to one of the UKs biggest agencies for representation, I immediately took out the references and anti-semite remarks by Wagner. The danger through igniting such an incendiary subject in the script became clear, it was there for no reason. I am certainly NOT anti-semetic, though my Wagner dialogue could easily be turned against me...So I rewrote Wagner again.
On the run up to getting it finished also, I had no idea how to finish the thing. Would I put in the final Hospital scenes? Would I have a link to a visit from Freud in the Hospital? Will I have him die? Over the years the Script had become a very hard slog - I needed an end page. So here we go, I got that through identifying who in Vienna was responsible for issuing State funding of musicians in 1880, found the guy, and had him rather than Johannes Brahms put a stop Hans Rotts ambition to become a State sponsored musician. It was a convoluted end, and most unsatisfactory, but it was the only one I could come up with.
In conclusion, that was the hardest and longest write I've ever done in the Screenplay format. "The Symphony" is probably the worst thing I've ever written, despite my wanting it to be one of the better works in my oeuvre. It was troublesome, hard writing, hard re-writing, hard to arrange, and I despise it. I really do. It is much MUCH easier to write an original story than a bio-pic. On top of that, I am NOT a musician, I gave up Violin for Batman on TV, and I played the Cello a bit, but eventually dropped that in favour of football (soccer). What a silly boy I was in youth! So I was not always certain I was getting things musically right in the script...There's a scene in the script where Hans (Rott) is playing a Grand Piano under the direction of Krenn which is so musically niaeve that for musicians, the word laughable is probably what comes to mind. I even had the venerable old Bruckner throwing students books around the place in disgust at musical process. The whole bloody thing is STILL a mess (dialogue, etc), because I haven't went back to it, and I don't currently plan to.
That's the Hans Rott story. I might go back to it, but I don't see that happening. The Hans Rott screenplay is now DEAD. But, you know, if you know about this kind of thing, you're welcome to have a PDF copy, just PM me. In January 22 I sent copies to my research fellow in the US, he's in GMG, you might know him, and I even had the gall to send it to a fully fledged classical composer, also in GMG, you might know him too!
I have accepted the ridiculousness of someone like me trying to write about someone in Vienna in the late 1800's. Some of it is definitely well written, but MOST of it...well, it's not going anywhere, so ANYONE is welcome to it.
Quote from: mahler10th on April 09, 2024, 02:58:52 PMTHE HANS ROTT SCREENPLAY
I have accepted the ridiculousness of someone like me trying to write about someone in Vienna in the late 1800's. Some of it is definitely well written, but MOST of it...well, it's not going anywhere, so ANYONE is welcome to it.
Greetings John!
Check your e-mail addresses!
Quote from: Roasted Swan on April 09, 2024, 11:03:39 AMThe film of Amadeus still works very well I think. I never quite understood why Tom Hulse was cast with such an obvious American accent but in the DVD extras apparently it was to emphasise how much of an outsider Mozart was in the well-spoken (ie 'proper' English) Austrian court. I still don't know why Simon Callow in the film as Emanuel Schikaneder also has a naff American accent..... I did wonder whether he was parodying Hulse out of some kind of envy that he'd got the title role instead of Callow who was brilliant in the National original.....
Outsider status would apply to Schikaneder, I should think, so the logic of American accent=outsider would work there.
Quote from: jochanaan on February 05, 2015, 07:54:52 AM...
There is an obscure Italian film called Basileus Quartet that, better than any other film I've seen, portrays the excitement, drudgery and psychology of being part of a chamber-music group. 8)
I saw that in a cinema back circa 1984 and enjoyed it.
In the curiosity category Werner Herzog's Gesualdo film
Death for Five Voices, from which I expected much, enjoyed for a while, but by the end found bogus.
Quote from: JBS on April 09, 2024, 04:09:04 PMOutsider status would apply to Schikaneder, I should think, so the logic of American accent=outsider would work there.
The primary logic of the American accent is whether or not the particular actor was capable of some other accent.
Quote from: JBS on April 09, 2024, 04:09:04 PMOutsider status would apply to Schikaneder, I should think, so the logic of American accent=outsider would work there.
Good point - and I much prefer the idea that the acting choice is animated by Art than Envy!
Has anyone seen this one?
Based on the life of Myslivecek.
Quote from: Madiel on April 09, 2024, 04:16:56 PMThe primary logic of the American accent is whether or not the particular actor was capable of some other accent.
I am afraid so. I never liked that movie very much. Maybe I'd be a bit more relaxed about it today. Because regardless of the accent there is no basis for Mozart being an "outsider" at the court or among the nobility. He had been among such society since he was a child and I doubt he would have had a country bumpkin's manners or accent, compared to the Viennese upper crust, neither in German nor in French or Italian.
I should probably watch Amadeus one of these days, I've only seen clips. I gather that it makes Salieri out to be a hack as well as a murderer, but what music of his that I've heard has been very attractive. So historical fantasy, then, but it must be better than Ridley Scott's miserable Napoleon.
It's a well produced movie. The core idea of the jealous Salieri (and divine genius vs. hard work) goes back to legend and a play by Pushkin. I don't know if this is in the original play (I doubt it) but Shaffer/Foreman made Mozart not only into a superior genius but the special offense for the stiff Salieri is that Mozart as portrayed by Hulce is also a ridiculous childish jokester and horny satyr.
While the real Mozart was fond of ribald and scatological jokes, this was a) fairly common at the time and b) strictly in private (letters) and there is AFAIK no indication at all that he would have been a clownesque groper and prankster in public.
(I cannot avoid the comparison with other 1980s stuff (comedies like "Police Academy") where one has today the impression that the sexual liberation of the previous decade now shows itself mostly in tasteless jokes and lots of (accidental?) groping of breasts and buttocks.)
Quote from: Daverz on April 10, 2024, 01:41:19 AMI should probably watch Amadeus one of these days, I've only seen clips. I gather that it makes Salieri out to be a hack as well as a murderer, but what music of his that I've heard has been very attractive. So historical fantasy, then, but it must be better than Ridley Scott's miserable Napoleon.
The original play by Peter Schaeffer was never intended to be historically accurate. It was a "what might have happened" fiction based on the rumour that Salieri in his deathbed claimed to have murdered Mozart. It's great fun and very well written and the film looks just glorious with so many original Prague locations used. The film is very well acted too and the large amount of music played by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martins is glorious.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 10, 2024, 12:25:17 AMI am afraid so. I never liked that movie very much. Maybe I'd be a bit more relaxed about it today. Because regardless of the accent there is no basis for Mozart being an "outsider" at the court or among the nobility. He had been among such society since he was a child and I doubt he would have had a country bumpkin's manners or accent, compared to the Viennese upper crust, neither in German nor in French or Italian.
This, in spades. Leopold Mozart was and educated and cultured man, well-versed in court-and-nobility manners and speech, and surely imparted his knowledge to Wolfgang.
As for
Amadeus, it's okay as a piece of fiction. The big problem is that many, if not most, people who see it are not in a position to sift facts from fictions on the topic and are left with the completely false impression that such was the real Mozart who was poisoned by Salieri. Both points are nonsense on stilts.
I don't know if it has dubbed in english
Quote from: Karl Henning on April 09, 2024, 10:30:38 AMIts inevitable limitations notwithstanding, I remain fond of Jas Lapine's Impromptu. And, to be sure, it amuses me to reflect that my first sight of Hugh Grant on the screen was in the role of Chopin.
The most historically inaccurate (cringe-inducingly so, actually) film on Chopin is
A Song to Remember.
Quote from: Florestan on April 10, 2024, 02:30:09 AMThis, in spades. Leopold Mozart was and educated and cultured man, well-versed in court-and-nobility manners and speech, and surely imparted his knowledge to Wolfgang.
As for Amadeus, it's okay as a piece of fiction. The big problem is that many, if not most, people who see it are not in a position to sift facts from fictions on the topic and are left with the completely false impression that such was the real Mozart who was poisoned by Salieri. Both points are nonsense on stilts.
My sense of the "outsider" is more a question of genius rather than understanding the in and outs of society. So simply put Mozart is operating on a level of creative brilliance that no-one else can even possibly understand. Hence the great speech when Salieri curses God for giving him enough talent to recognise the genius in Mozart and thereby be aware of his own (Salieri's) limitations. Of course the wider understanding that this is a fiction which happens to have a starting point in historical fact. Probably if the central characters were Eddie Mozart and Bill Salieri folk would be less exercised and just enjoy the cracking story......
I wouldn't mind an exploration of the Pushkin/Shaffer idea of the incomprehensible genius and the jealousy of the "mediocre" (although it's a romantic cliché and little evidence that the adult Mozart was perceived like that by his environment, and Salieri clearly was not perceived as mediocre).
But why has it to be exaggerated by making Mozart a silly idiot in everything but music? I think this was very unsubtle.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 10, 2024, 04:42:06 AMI wouldn't mind an exploration of the Pushkin/Shaffer idea of the incomprehensible genius and the jealousy of the "mediocre" (although it's a romantic cliché and little evidence that the adult Mozart was perceived like that by his environment, and Salieri clearly was not perceived as mediocre).
But why has it to be exaggerated by making Mozart a silly idiot in everything but music? I think this was very unsubtle.
Treat it as fiction and a rattling good yarn and don't be worried if/when it diverges from historical fact is my approach.....
Quote from: Jo498 on April 10, 2024, 04:42:06 AMI wouldn't mind an exploration of the Pushkin/Shaffer idea of the incomprehensible genius and the jealousy of the "mediocre" (although it's a romantic cliché and little evidence that the adult Mozart was perceived like that by his environment, and Salieri clearly was not perceived as mediocre).
But why has it to be exaggerated by making Mozart a silly idiot in everything but music? I think this was very unsubtle.
The movie is more egregious there, than the stage-play. Related: the movie misleads the audience by luring them into the thought that the movie is a documentary, where in the play, it is clear that Salieri is telling the story for his own reasons.
Quote from: Jo498 on April 10, 2024, 04:42:06 AMI wouldn't mind an exploration of the Pushkin/Shaffer idea of the incomprehensible genius and the jealousy of the "mediocre" (although it's a romantic cliché and little evidence that the adult Mozart was perceived like that by his environment
Precisely. Mozart's unique level of creativeness did not isolate him from society and did not translate into any social clumsiness. On the contrary, all available evidence shows that actually Mozart was socially involved and active, had a taste for the fine things in life, including clothing, food and drink, was fond of playing billiards and in general was very far from the image of the reclusive, misanthropic and misunderstood genius --- he was no Beethoven.
I'll give you a film about Mozart that is not famous but that I think is better than Amadeus, at least for people who prefer historical accuracy more than fiction.
The film "Mozart, more than a prince" is a recostruction of the life of Mozart from childhood to adulthood.
In reality, the film is not completely accurate from a historical point of view, but it's still better than Amadeus.
Take for example the scene at the minute 09:26 in the first video, where Mozart is writing his first symphony.
Well, the reconstruction is not historically accurate, because Mozart wrote the symphony in London, not in Salzburg.
In the third video, at the minute 42:46, Mozart is writing the Requiem while he is dying.
The idea of Mozart who can't stop composing music even when he is facing death, and who he is writing a Requiem for himself, is epic, but from what I read is not historically accurate.
Mozart wrote the last notes some days before his death, before he "collapsed" in his bed. If you have ever seen a person in his last 2-3 days of life, you know that in that conditions you have not the forces for doing anything.
I wonder how many others little errors like that are there in the film. However, if you focus on the big picture and not on little details, this film is the best one I've found till now. Overall, it looks like a good portrait of Mozart. What do you think?
I like the scene in the first video at the minute 24:44, where Mozart is writing the score of the Miserere of Gregorio Allegri by ear.
There is also an other film about Nannerl Mozart, set in the period where Mozart was 11 years old and Nannerl 15-16.
Some people say that it's not so historically accurate, and I still have to figure out if it's true that Leopold didn't teach composition to Nannerl and that the lessons were reserved for Mozart.
I also don't know if it's true that Nannerl had a love relationship with the Dauphin of France and composed some pieces for him, but it might be fictional.
Quote from: W.A. Mozart on April 10, 2024, 07:04:33 AMIn reality, the film is not completely accurate from a historical point of view, but it's still better than Amadeus.
In reality, it is an error to regard
Amadeus as a historical account.
Amadeus is an excellent piece of theatre, taking creative license with historical elements. It is no more intended as history than is
Pushkin's verse drama which was its inspiration.
Quote from: Karl Henning on April 10, 2024, 08:18:51 AMIn reality, it is an error to regard Amadeus as a historical account. Amadeus is an excellent piece of theatre, taking creative license with historical elements. It is no more intended as history than is Pushkin's verse drama which was its inspiration.
That Amadeus doesn't want to be a historical film is an obvious fact, but there are people like me who would like to have a serious film about Mozart.
The film I shared in this discussion is also not serious.
The scene at the minute 22:10 with the little Mozart who plays a concerto alone is a serious error. Where is the orchestra?
I like however the scene at the minute 06:38, where the little boy imagines a melody in his head and then he tries to play it with the harpsichord and he is angry because it sounds like poop: he says that the music sounded much better in his mind.
A wise man said that chldren always say the truth! :laugh:
Quote from: Roy Bland on April 12, 2024, 05:32:59 PM
Thanks, I know this one, but the resolution in Youtube is very low and I was trying to find a better version. I'd pay for it.