Suggested Movies for MUS 210
These are some of my favorites. Call local stores to see if they are in stock. Also check public libraries.
Amadeus
For this film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Broadway hit, director Milos Forman returned to the city of Prague that he'd left behind during the Czech political crises of 1968, bringing along his usual cinematographer and fellow Czech expatriate, Miroslav Ondricek. Amadeus is an expansion of a Viennese "urban legend" concerning the death of 18th-century musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. From the vantage point of an insane asylum, aging royal composer Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) recalls the events of three decades earlier, when the young Mozart (Tom Hulce) first gained favor in the court of Austrian emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). Salieri was incensed that God would bless so vulgar and obnoxious a young snipe as Mozart with divine genius. Why was Salieri-so disciplined, so devoted to his art, and so willing to toady to his superiors-not touched by God? Unable to match Mozart's talent, Salieri uses his influence in court to sabotage the young upstart's career. Disguising himself as a mysterious benefactor, Salieri commissions the backbreaking "Requiem," which eventually costs Mozart his health, wealth, and life. Among the film's many pearls of dialogue, the best line goes to the Emperor, who rejects a Mozart composition on the grounds that it has "too many notes." Amadeus won 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for F. Murray Abraham. - Hal Erickson
The Red Violin
Canadian director Francois Girard spans 300 years in this episodic Canadian-Italian drama following a violin through various owners. Created in 1681 by the Italian master craftsman Nicolo Bussotti, the famed Red Violin is "the perfect marriage of science and beauty," according to New York authority Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson). At a Montreal auction, Morritz begins an investigation into the instrument's authenticity, a linking device for the film's four stories: The first covers the Red Violin's construction by Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi), distraught after the death of his wife. In late 18th-century Austria, monks oversee orphans who are encouraged to play the Red Violin. British composer Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng), sexually involved with novelist Victoria Byrd (Greta Scacchi), acquires the musical instrument in 1893. When Pope's Chinese servant returns to Shanghai, he carries the Red Violin with him. The concluding tale involves the fate of the Red Violin during the Cultural Revolution. Shown at 1998 film fests (Venice, Toronto). the film was a recipient of 8 Canadian Film Awards. - Bhob Stewart
Farinelli
The performer known as Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi (and played in this film by Stefano Dionisi), was famous in the 18th century as the world's greatest castrato, a male singer whose testicles were removed in childhood so that he would retain the high, clear voice of a child while gaining the control and power of an adult vocalist. A strikingly gifted singer with a range of more than three octaves, Farinelli was given little choice but to sacrifice his manhood in exchange for his art, and as his career was founded on the surgery that would dramatically restrict his off-stage life, his art was in turn hemmed in by his family. Carlo's father declared early on that he should only sing the songs of his brother Riccardo (Enrico LoVerso), and while Farinelli's fame gives Riccardo's career a needed boost, the mediocrity of Riccardo's compositions holds Farinelli back. When the singer is given the opportunity to work with the great composer Handel (Jeroen Krabbe), his brother's jealously and Farinelli's own poorly chosen career alliances stand in his way. The brothers' often contentious partnership also extends to the bedroom; while Farinelli's performances set women on fire, he's physically incapable of satisfying them sexually, so he provides the foreplay in a bizarre game of seduction and then turns his conquests over to his brother. Farinelli il Castrato received a Golden Globe award as Best Foreign Language Film of 1994 and an Academy Award nomination in the same category. - Mark Deming
Madame Souatzka
Shirley MacLaine is Madame Sousatzka, an aging piano instructor of Russian extraction. Entrenched in a dilapidated London rooming house, the Madame gives lessons only to the most gifted. She does not stop at mere instruction; Sousatzka insists that her pupils conduct their lives in the same genteel, cultured manner in which she was raised. Her prize student at the moment is an East Indian teenage boy (Navin Chowdhry), who forms a strong and loving bond with the old woman. Director John Schlesinger occasionally cuts away from the Madame and her pupil to allow comic space for the other tenants in Ashcroft's building, including an erstwhile songstress (Twiggy) and a gay osteopath (Geoffrey Baydlon). Navim Chowdhry's mother is played by Shabana Azmi, an important star of Indian films. - Hal Erickson
All The Mornings in the World
Jazzman-turned-director Alain Corneau brings his extensive musical savvy to All the Mornings of the World. Jean-Pierre Marielle stars as legendary 17th-century baroque composer and cellist M. de Saint Colombe. Believing the only "true" music is that which is written down, Sainte Colombe is vehemently opposed to performing in public. This stance is challenged by the composer's protégé, Marin Marais (Gerard Depardieu), a man of more commercial sensibilities. Leisurely and luxurious, All the Mornings of the World deservedly swept France's Cesar Awards (the Gallic equivalent of the Oscars). Watch for Gerard Depardieu's real-life son Guillaume Depardieu as the younger Marin Marais. All the Mornings is better known by its original French title, Tous les Matins du Monde. - Hal Erickson
Impromptu
Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, better known in the literary world as George Sand, not only took a man's name, but trotted around wearing pants and smoking cigars in public. No great shakes today, but in the 1800s she was perhaps the most famous (or infamous) woman in the world. One of the first original celebrities, aside from her garb and literary output, she was known to inspire many duels and broken hearts among other famous hedonist artists. One character describes her in Impromptu, as "that graveyard." The film engages in a sexual roundelay among George Sand's (Judy Davis) many friends - Eugene Delacroix (Ralph Brown), Alfred DeMusset (Mandy Patinkin), Franz Liszt (Julian Sands), and Frederick Chopin (Hugh Grant). The entire crew heads off to the summer estate of the Duke and Duchess d'Antan (Anton Rodgers and Emma Thompson), invited there by the culture-vulture hosts. George Sand takes a bead on the sickly Chopin and spends her time throwing herself at him. Also on hand is Liszt's mistress Marie d'Agoult (Bernadette Peters) and Felicien Mallefille (Georges Corraface), Sand's recently jilted lover. Mallefille is jealous of any of the other guests who glance in Sand's direction and continually challenges them to duels. Marie, on the other hand, is enlisted by Sand to deliver a note to Chopin. But Marie, jealous of Sand, delivers the note substituting her name for Sand's. And as the weekend continues, the sexual merry-go-round continues at full tilt. - Paul Brenner
La Traviata
Tenor Placido Domingo and soprano Teresa Stratas star in director Franco Zeffirelli's lushly cinematic version of Verdi's opera La Traviata (The Woman Gone Astray), a story of doomed love in 1840's Paris. Violetta (Stratas), who is the mistress of a wealthy baron, hosts a lavish party to celebrate her improved health after a bout with tuberculosis. There she meets Alfredo (Domingo) and becomes smitten with him as he, she, and the guests join in the famous "Drinking Song." Violetta leaves the baron, and she and Alfredo move into a secluded country villa together, where they live happily for a while. But unknown to Alfredo, his father (baritone Cornell MacNeil) convinces Violetta that continuing her relationship with Alfredo will prevent Alfredo's sister from making a good marriage. With great sadness, Violetta decides that she must not only break permanently with Alfredo, she must keep him at a distance by returning to the baron. Misunderstanding her motives, Alfredo goes into a jealous rage that leads to tragic consequences. La Traviata features charming locations, elaborate sets, and elegant costumes, and in it Zeffirelli achieves a nearly perfect blend of cinematography, drama, and music. - All-Movie Guide
The Magic Flute
A longtime pet project of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute was finally brought to the screen in 1973. In so doing, Bergman used a device he'd been toying with in other films, notably Persona: he offers a stage production of the opera while detailing the backstage intrigues of its participants. While the opera itself is offered in a highly stylized and theatrical fashion, the fluidity of the camerawork turns the affair into a purely cinematic experience. Sung in Swedish, the libretto remains as ever: a gentle parody of the initiation ceremonies of the Masons, offered as an other-worldy fantasy involving a kidnapped princess (Irma Urrila), a vengeful Queen of the Night (Ulric Cold), and a carefree wanderer who periodically plays the titular flute. - Hal Erickson
The Music Lovers
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given the Ken Russell treatment in The Music Lovers, which means that there is plenty of music, plenty of passion, plenty of debauchery, and plenty of excess. Tame by Russell's later standards (Lisztomania), The Music Lovers nevertheless thrives on creative and sexual anguish. Richard Chamberlain plays Tchaikovsky with a bug-eyed intensity as a composer consumed by his art - so consumed that his romantic attachments become bisexual and irrational. He falls in love with Nina (Glenda Jackson), the hysterical trollop he marries with dire consequences. As he explodes in emotion, his public performance of his Piano Concerto in B flat minor becomes a cue for flashbacks to a series of discomforting childhood events that suggests incestuous relations with his sister. Back in real time, Tchaikovsky has to deal with Nina's outbursts while juggling his homosexual urges and his almost hidden desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable). The film also details the curious relationship between Tchaikovsky and his rich patroness, the middle-aged widow Madame Nadedja von Meck (Isabella Telezynska), who loves Tchaikovsky deeply but refuses to meet him - their only communications being by letters, even though he lives on her estate. Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's music. - Paul Brenner