I watched this movie tonight, eight years after I first saw it and wrote my original review. I'll insert my additional comments in the original, below.
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This is a movie about a young man and his mother. She sacrifices everything so that he can study to be a classical pianist. He falls in love with big band music and decides to pursue that. His mother is heart-broken. In other words, one long, slow cliché that has been done better elsewhere.
If that's all there were to this movie, I would say "forget it." But in between these scenes of melodrama there are live performances by some of the greatest classical musicians of the 1930s and 40s. Their performances, often truly great, are not wedged in in bits and pieces. Rather, we get to watch Arthur Rubinstein perform the entire Chopin Military Polonaise - and then de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance. We get to watch Jascha Heifitz perform the entire last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto - and with what fire and richness of tone! We get to wonder as Leopold Stokowski completely distorts the tempo markings for an entire movement of a Tchaikovsky symphony, producing a series of remarkable moments that, for this listener, never came together as a whole - but still, what daring to pull Tchaikovsky apart like that. Stokowski and Rubenstein both remind us of an era when classical musicians were also stage performers. Rubenstein bangs away at the keyboard in the de Falla with fantastic arm gestures. Stokowski is very clearly conscious of the angle from which he is being filmed. These are spectacular musicians devoted to the music, yes, but these are also colossal, theatrical egos. (Note: Rubinstein is much more controlled in the Chopin. A fierce intensity.)
Stokowski''s theatrics contrast very clearly with Fritz Reiner conducting Heifetz. He just stands there and waves his baton, but oh what music he and Heifetz make!
The same goes for Artur Rodzinski conducting Beethoven's Fifth. No, he does not look dramatic on the podium, but boy is that one powerful performance.
Risë Stevens sings a beautifully executed number from "Carmen". Lily Pons, however, does a very sloppy job with the "Bell Song" from "Lakmé", one of her staples.
We get to see Ezio Pinza stand there in a costume that would be grounds for a law suit, yet sing Don Giovanni's Brindisi like no one else - and the opening recitative of Il lascerato spirto, from Verdi's Simon Bocanegra. They are both brilliant performances, notable among other things for Pinza's crystal clear diction.
It's available on DVD. I hope the DVD recognizes the dual nature of the movie and has the tracks arranged so that one can skip over the melodrama, which is really very bad, and just enjoy the remarkable musical performances. It's a very long movie - almost two and a half hours - and the drama is really slow going.
It's also unfortunate that it ends on a weak note, a pseudo-Gershwin jazz rhapsody that is by far the weakest number in the movie.
It's worth watching for the great performances of great music, but there is a LOT of uninteresting drama between those highlights.
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This is a movie about a young man and his mother. She sacrifices everything so that he can study to be a classical pianist. He falls in love with big band music and decides to pursue that. His mother is heart-broken. In other words, one long, slow cliché that has been done better elsewhere.
If that's all there were to this movie, I would say "forget it." But in between these scenes of melodrama there are live performances by some of the greatest classical musicians of the 1930s and 40s. Their performances, often truly great, are not wedged in in bits and pieces. Rather, we get to watch Arthur Rubinstein perform the entire Chopin Military Polonaise - and then de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance. We get to watch Jascha Heifitz perform the entire last movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto - and with what fire and richness of tone! We get to wonder as Leopold Stokowski completely distorts the tempo markings for an entire movement of a Tchaikovsky symphony, producing a series of remarkable moments that, for this listener, never came together as a whole - but still, what daring to pull Tchaikovsky apart like that. Stokowski and Rubenstein both remind us of an era when classical musicians were also stage performers. Rubenstein bangs away at the keyboard in the de Falla with fantastic arm gestures. Stokowski is very clearly conscious of the angle from which he is being filmed. These are spectacular musicians devoted to the music, yes, but these are also colossal, theatrical egos. (Note: Rubinstein is much more controlled in the Chopin. A fierce intensity.)
Stokowski''s theatrics contrast very clearly with Fritz Reiner conducting Heifetz. He just stands there and waves his baton, but oh what music he and Heifetz make!
The same goes for Artur Rodzinski conducting Beethoven's Fifth. No, he does not look dramatic on the podium, but boy is that one powerful performance.
Risë Stevens sings a beautifully executed number from "Carmen". Lily Pons, however, does a very sloppy job with the "Bell Song" from "Lakmé", one of her staples.
We get to see Ezio Pinza stand there in a costume that would be grounds for a law suit, yet sing Don Giovanni's Brindisi like no one else - and the opening recitative of Il lascerato spirto, from Verdi's Simon Bocanegra. They are both brilliant performances, notable among other things for Pinza's crystal clear diction.
It's available on DVD. I hope the DVD recognizes the dual nature of the movie and has the tracks arranged so that one can skip over the melodrama, which is really very bad, and just enjoy the remarkable musical performances. It's a very long movie - almost two and a half hours - and the drama is really slow going.
It's also unfortunate that it ends on a weak note, a pseudo-Gershwin jazz rhapsody that is by far the weakest number in the movie.
It's worth watching for the great performances of great music, but there is a LOT of uninteresting drama between those highlights.