Movies featuring pianists?

[bernhard]

What about movies featuring pianists? Here are some that I enjoyed:

32 shorts about Glenn Gould – This is my favourite (and I am not even a Glenn Gould fan). Besides the fascinating subject it is a beautiful piece of cinema making.

Shine – David Helfgott goes nutter under the stress of having to play Rach 3!

The competition - Amy Irving and Richard Dreyfuss compete against each other and (surprise!) fall in love. Amy Irving’character plays the 2nd Prokofiev concerto.

Impromptu - The life of Chopin. I could not take this movie too seriously mostly because I could not really see Hugh Grant as Chopin (But Julian Sands was perfectly cast as Lizst).

The piano lesson -  Isabelle Hupert plays the piano teacher from hell. A lot of Schubert, but definitely not for the faint hearted (or the below 18s).

There is another French film (by Claude Chabrol) I cannot recall the name, again with Isabelle Hupert this time playing the murderous wife of a famous pianist. Liszt’s Funerailles is the centrepiece (played by Claudio Arrau). There is not much of piano playing though, since most of the plot revolves around the wife’s machinations.

Madame Sousatzka – Another piano teacher, this time played by Shirley Maclaine. Her student gets to kiss Twiggy and to play the Schumann concert.

Immortal beloved – Gary Oldman was more convincing as Beethoven, than Hugh Grant as Chopin. Nevertheless too many clichés and inaccuracies to make it memorable instead of simply watchable.

Fingers – A very intriguing movie with Harvey Keitel (of “The piano” fame), this time playing a gangster who also plays the piano. He wants to enter a music school but he is unable to perform in public, so instead he tries to present to the school’s admission board a tape of his playing, which is refused. Depressing but interesting.

There is also a 50’s biopic of Lizst (played by Dirk Bogarde) – I do not remember the name – The movie is not very good, but the soundtrack is played by Jorge Bolet – who up to that point (he was already in his forties) was a completely unknown pianist. Being in that movie (not as an actor  - as the pianist) pretty much launched his career.

Mr. Holland’s opus – After competing against Amy Irving, Richard Dreyfuss this time plays a frustrated pianist and composer who has to go into teaching in order to make ends meet.

I know many of you may suggest “The pianist” and “The piano”. I have not really seen “The Pianist”, so I may be wrong here, but neither one of these movies –it seems to me - are really about the piano or pianists. The piano seems incidental to the main story. The characters could be architects or furniture makers and it would not make too much of a difference to the story line. You can get some ideas on how to play the piano if you loose a finger with “The piano” though!


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[thracozaag]

Fingers – A very intriguing movie with Harvey Keitel (of “The piano” fame), this time playing a gangster who also plays the piano. He wants to enter a music school but he is unable to perform in public, so instead he tries to present to the school’s admission board a tape of his playing, which is refused. Depressing but interesting.

 That is one WEIRD movie.....

[BoliverAllmon]

I thought it was Prokofiev's 3rd in the competition?

The mephisito waltz (sp?): A world renowed pianist is also a Satanist and is about to die. Before he dies he performs a ceremony where his soul and piano ability will be given to the man that he is living with. I don't know how it ends. I fell asleep.

What about Amadeus? I just love that movie.

Artur Rubinstein has a movie that is suppose to have a little story line, but in reality it only is him playing for an hour or so. It is real good though.

This has to do with violins, but has anyone seen the Red Violin. I saw people performing the soundtrack and just loved it.

boliver

[eddie92099]

This has to do with violins, but has anyone seen the Red Violin. I saw people performing the soundtrack and just loved it.

I've heard it's very good,
Ed

[Noah]

The Red Violin's ok... cheesy though.

[bernhard]

Boliver wrote:

“I thought it was Prokofiev's 3rd in the competition?”

You may be right. I saw that movie more than twenty years ago.

”The mephisto waltz (sp?): A world renowned pianist is also a Satanist and is about to die. Before he dies he performs a ceremony where his soul and piano ability will be given to the man that he is living with. I don't know how it ends. I fell asleep.”

Yes, I forgot about this one. This is how it ends: the evil pianist succeeds in transferring his soul to the body of a music critic (!). But the critic’s wife finds out about it, and cunningly transfers her own soul to the body of the evil pianist’s lover (without him knowing about it). This ending did not make much sense to me, after all she did not get her husband back, just her husband’s body. But maybe that was all she was interested in after all (Curd Jurgens is the evil pianist, Alan Alda is the critic and Jaqueline Bisset his wife).

”What about Amadeus? I just love that movie.”  

Yes, that was very good too. Although Tom Hulce (I had just seen “Animal’s House”) did not really convince me as Mozart, and the heavy American accent of Constanza was a distraction. But the Austrian Emperor was perfectly cast (and so was Salieri – forgot the name of the actor).

And I have just remembered a few more:

Moonlight Sonata – the movie is pretty bad, but it has Paderewski in it, playing himself (and playing the piano). I saw it on video.

I cannot remember the name of this one. But it has Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in it. Liz is married to a pianist who cracks down once she decides to leave him for Richard Burton. He stops playing and becomes a depressive wreck. She then decides to come back to him and help him regain his piano prowess. Must be the only piano movie that has someone practising scales and Hanon!

Serafina – A failed performer, now a piano teacher helps an African refugee to rescue her husband from prison, falling in love with her in the process. Nice soundtrack (Scriabin, Grieg and Mendelssohn).

Bernhard

[BoliverAllmon]

I forgot this one. Beethoven lives upstairs. This movie has terrible acting, no real story line, and overall boring. I don't recommend it to anyone.

There was this group of movies done by a man. They were little biographies of beethoven, mozart, and a few others. I enjoyed these. They had lots of piano playing in them and good stories about the composers.

boliver

[bernhard]

Here is another one:

Truly, madly deeply. This is about a woman (cannot remember the name of the actress) who plays the cello. Her partner (played by Alan Rickman) plays the piano and they form a duo. He dies unexpectedly, and she is grief stricken. So Alan Ricknman’s ghost comes back to continue playing with her. Eventually she finds someone else and both their lives move on – he to other realms beyond the limbo he found himself in. Beautiful soundtrack (mostly the Bach Cello sonatas).

Bernhard.

[bernhard]

The Baker Boys - Jeff Bridges and his real life brother star as fictional brothers that have a two-piano act that ravels from hotel to hotel. Everything starts to fall apart when they decide to revamp their act by hiring a singer (Michelle Pfeifer). No classical music (except for a brief mention of Clair de Lune), but hugely enjoyable.

[L.K.]

The legend of 1900 is a good movie. It has some truly dazzling jazz.

[chopinetta]

yeah, I like the legend of 1900... he's like a modern mozart... only he does not write what he plays

[bernhard]

L' Effrontee (don’t know how they translated the title in English – saw it on the French channel) – director: Claudia Miller.

Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a  young working class teenager who lives in a rundown neighbourhood. Life picks up a little color when a new friend (Clothilde Baudon),  comes into the picture, a pianist from the other side of the tracks who is going to give a recital in town. The more sophisticated pianist jokes that maybe Charlotte should be her manager, and that sets off a series of misunderstandings that lead to some pretty wild moments.

[bernhard]

The tic code - A young boy with Tourette's syndrom is a piano (jazz mostly) prodigy. He befriends a jazz sax player (palyed by Gregory Hines) who suffers from the same condition. More about Tourette's syndrom than piano playing. There are some historical clips of Art Tatum and the suggestion that he too might have had the condition.

[Amygdala]

Movies featuring pianists?..There's anothe one and it's "The Eddie Duchin Story"..with Tyrone Power as E.Duchin..The recording though was done by Carmen Cavallaro..Nice mushy film of the 60's..

[bernhard]

Great Balls of fire - Jerry Lee Lewis (played by Dennis Quaid) marries 13 year old cousin (played by Winonna Rider) and sets fire to pianos on stage. Great fun.

[minsmusic]

An American In Paris.  Yes, it's a musical.  (You either love em or hate em).  One of the characters is a piano player who fantasises about being a great concert pianist.  It has some wonderful Gershwin pieces througout.