Films/DVD Asylum

Thank you all! But my question concerned depiction of the creating and/or playing experience, not soundtrack use of the music itself. But...

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clarkjohnsen

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In Reply to: What are the best movies ever made, that depict the bona fide classical music experience? posted by clarkjohnsen on July 27, 2000 at 09:54:24:

...now that you mention it, I'll never forget seeing Louis Malle's The Lovers as a college freshman. I was totally intrigued by the music, which upon investigation turned out to be a Brahms String Quartet, I think the op.51 #2, which I immediately went out and bought and I've never been the same.

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Re: Thank you all! But my question concerned depiction of the creating and/or playing experience, not soundtrack use of the music itself. But... Dmitry 10:36:56 07/28/00 (0)
In my opinion, most of the films depicting any kind of creative process, be it music, visual arts, architecture or writing are weak and gimmicky.
There are very few films that come close to what the creativity of their subject was based on, first of all because most of the great composers are dead and have been dead long enough to create myths about their lives - Mahler(Mahler;Death in Venice),Mozart(Amadeus - I quite like that film, but being based on an empyrical play it's nothing more than fiction), Van Beethoven(Un Grand Amour de Beethoven is interesting, but who knows how it really happened;The Magnificent Rebel;Immortal Beloved - that's the worst one of the bunch), Liszt(Lisztomania - no comment), Tchaikovsky(The Music Lovers).
The other side is composing(!) a film based on a seemingly fictional composer/musician as a protagonist.-Trois Couleurs: Bleu; Bird; The Constant Nymph;Jean Volgean(sp?);Round Midnight,etc. show us either sociopathic wankers, drug addicts or happy-go-lucky geniuses, surrounded by friends and hookers without any insight into what it's all about.
Where the truth lies, nobody knows. Perhaps the best representation of the composing as an immesurable gift are in the products of composing. As one poet put it "If only you knew from what rubbish the poems are assembled."
If we take the road less tortuous, then music documentaries are the best way to find out about composition and performance -
Mozart-Aufzeichnungen Einer Jugend
Vladimir Horowitz:The Last Romantic
Charles Mingus -Triumph of the Underdog
Monk-The American Composer
Horowitz in Moscow
For some reason or another most of these documantaries are produced in Western Europe, which is just as well.
Of course, there are some great films about music -
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach
Taxi Blues
Igor Talankin's Tchaikovsky.

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