Piano flicks

[Petter]

Whats your favorite one? I intend to buy a few in the nearest future.

 My older friend told me about a movie that she watched in her 20´s (she´s 70 now) about Chopin that was a real tear jerker. Anyone have any idea of what movie that might be? I also remember seeing a film with the doctor guy from Boxing Helena with that paige haircut as Franz Liszt a long long time ago. Maybe´I got it mixed up...

[thalbergmad]

The Chopin one might have been this:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038104/

Historically inaccurate, but i still enjoy it.

Not as bad as Dirk Bogard as Liszt.

Thal

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Not as bad as Dirk Bogard as Liszt

That film is unintentionally hilarious especially the scene where he plays the Mephisto Waltz (if I remember it is when Chopin comes to visit him, about 20 years before he actually wrote it). Not as funny as Lisztomania though..

[Petter]

Whats the one called with Dirk Bogard?

This is the one I was looking for with Liszt, Impromptu. I can totally imagine Liszt with that brat haircut. And Hugh Grant as Chopin, sounds like fun.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Song without end.

Dirk Bogarde, as Liszt "plays" a cut version of the Rigoletto paraphrase (the pianist actually playing is Jorge Bolet).

[rachfan]

My recollection is that for "Song without End" (the Liszt movie), the piano performances were played by Jorge Bolet, which was both good and bad for him.  The good thing is that Bolet did a great job and showed himself to be a master of Liszt's music early on.  The bad thing is that where he was totally "behind the scenes" of the movie and only a closing credit (if many noticed it at all), it turned out to be not much of a career booster for him.

[thalbergmad]

it turned out to be not much of a career booster for him.

I don't think it did Dirk Bogard many favours either.

Thal

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I don't think it did Dirk Bogard many favours either.

Thal

It did the original director even less favours. He died during the making of it.

[thalbergmad]

Of intense boredom probably.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Of intense boredom probably.

Harsh    I'm sure he shot the first half, and that's the better bit of the film.

[cmg]

Favorite piano flick?  What's that one with Bette Davis and Claude Raines?  You know, where Davis plays the "Appassionata" at a cocktail party that Claude Raines, her mentor/lover who's a world-famous composer, crashes?  And Korngold provided his one-movt cello concerto that Claude is composing throughout the first part of the film.

"Deception?"  Is that it?  Arensky, are you reading this.  I bet you know the right answer.

Aside from that I love Isabelle Huppert in "The Piano Teacher."  The one written and directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke?  Total kickass.  You'll never hear Schubert the same way again.

[arensky]

Favorite piano flick?  What's that one with Bette Davis and Claude Raines?  You know, where Davis plays the "Appassionata" at a cocktail party that Claude Raines, her mentor/lover who's a world-famous composer, crashes?  And Korngold provided his one-movt cello concerto that Claude is composing throughout the first part of the film.

"Deception?"  Is that it?  Arensky, are you reading this.  I bet you know the right answer.

Aside from that I love Isabelle Huppert in "The Piano Teacher."  The one written and directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke?  Total kickass.  You'll never hear Schubert the same way again.

Yes, it is "Deception". It's a good one.

My favorite piano flick is "Detour", a 1940's film noir about a sleazy second rate jazz pianist caught up in crime with the "wrong" girl. From the 70's there's "Fingers" in which Harvey Keitel plays an aspiring concert pianist who is an enforcer for his mob boss dad. This is an excellent ( if somewhat violent) little known and underrated film. Check it out!

[pianochick93]

Well so far the only piano flick I have seen is The Piano.

It was good, a little strange, but still good.

[dnephi]

I've seen part of LIsztomania--- Just... Whoa....

[Petter]

From the 70's there's "Fingers" in which Harvey Keitel plays an aspiring concert pianist who is an enforcer for his mob boss dad. This is an excellent ( if somewhat violent) little known and underrated film. Check it out!

Aha! I was looking for that one too, they made a french remake recently (english title: The beat my heart skipped) which apparently is very good too.

[quantum]

I've seen part of LIsztomania--- Just... Whoa....

I was watching the Gershwin movie, then right after it was Lisztomania.  I know exactly what you mean.

[minor9th]

"Vitus" gets my vote. It's about a gifted child who's a piano prodigy, yet he yearns to be "normal." One especially cool element is that the actor actually plays the pieces (and very difficult ones)--no faking! The kid has won a few competitions. Be sure to watch the bonus features--has lots of cool behind the scenes material.

[thalbergmad]

I think Mephisto Waltz is my favourite.

Thal

[kard]

hey what about "the legend of 1900?" I enjoyed that one. It was on IFC a while back. I don't think it portrays any history though. 

[rachfan]

How about "Madam Sousatzka"?     Ok, OK, already.  Then what about "Moonlight Sonata" (1937) with Paderewski playing himself in the role?

[thalbergmad]

"Madam Sousatzka"?   

Great film.

Even more so if you fancy twiggy.

Thal

[rachfan]

Yeah, I have to admit, I did like "Madam Sousatzka", although Shirley McLean probably was miscast for the role.  They really needed someone to emulate a legendary, demanding and perfectionist pedagogue like Isabella Vengerova to make the whole thing truly credible.  Still, there were things to like in the film. 

[dignam]

While Autmun Sonata isn't really a piano flick I'd like to suggest it here.  Ingrid Bergman plays a concert pianist and Liv Ullman plays her daughter.  They play Chopin's second prelude for each other and the sequence is very powerful.

[timland]

I just saw Moonlight Sonata with Paderewski playing himself. You can get it at Netflix.
It was interesting to see Paderewski play even though he was well past his prime at 77.
The movie itself was a little amateurish. Silly little plot, ridiculous camera work where the different cameras had varying film quality. Some shots were out of focus and blurred.
There was one funny scene where Paderewski was in the audience of some childrens dance performance and the person playing the piano couldn't perform. So they asked if anyone in the audience could fill in. Paderewski gets up to the piano and the director (who didn't recognize him), asks him if he can play the piece of sheet music on the music rack. It happens to be his Minuet in G and he says "I think I can manage".

[rachfan]

Two flicks that I didn't enjoy too much were "The Piano", just way too depressing, and "The Pianist", more about the pianist as a detached observer to the horrors of WWII Warsaw than his being a pianist per se.  As to the second film, I believe the title is the problem, perhaps a little misleading.  It could have just as easily been titled The Lawyer, The Streetcar Conductor, The Librarian, The Merchant, or anyone else as the observer to history for that matter.  And I don't recall all that much piano music given the length of the film and the expectation for same for a film titled "The Pianist".

[gerry]

What I always delight in with many of these "piano flicks" is the cheesy way they try to make the star look like he/she is playing the instrument. The male pianists invariably sort of rock right and left, lifting and dropping their elbows (no matter what their playing) while talking to the starlet listening to them. When it's serious classical stuff, they grimace and make movements totally out of character with what they would actually do if playing the piece often with their hands and shoulders in the wrong positions. Occasionally they would cut in an actual performer's hands on the piano but they never looked anything like the star's hands. The ones depicting conductors are always hilarious, the star almost always appears stilted, no fluidity at all, often with no sense of rhythm and bearing no resemblance to the way an actual conductor would behave. And what about those violinist who actually put their arms around the star and played while the star's head was on the chin rest--that must have been an interesting experience!

Just think, without flicks like these we wouldn't have "Warsaw Concerto".

[shortyshort]

What I always delight in with many of these "piano flicks" is the cheesy way they try to make the star look like he/she is playing the instrument.

I think you may find that Holly Hunter AKA "Ada", in "The Piano", is an accomplished pianist, and played in the film.

[gerry]

I think you may find that Holly Hunter AKA "Ada", in "The Piano", is an accomplished pianist, and played in the film.

I said MANY not ALL piano flicks.

[shortyshort]

I said MANY not ALL piano flicks.

Oh! SORRY.

[rachfan]

A slight digression, where jerry mentions the "Warsaw Concerto" by Addinsell.  I've been playing piano since I was 8, and I always undertake serious repertoire.  Anyway, last summer I just had an urge to do something entirely different for awhile, so I decided on playing some of the old film music warhorses. 

In short order, I had my first victory with Charles Williams' "The Dream of Olwen" from the film "While I Live", using the composer's own solo piano transcription--pretty easy actually.  Then I moved on to Hubert Bath's "Cornish Rhapsody" from the film "Love Story", again from the composer's own bravura piano solo piano transcription.  A couple of challenges in there, but no showstoppers.  For all of these pieces I had decided to do the transcriptions rather than the piano part of the piano/orchestra versions, as I knew I would not be playing this stuff with orchestras any time soon  . 

Well, I saved Richard Addinsell's "Warsaw Concerto" for last.  In England the movie opened as "Dangerous Moonlight" but was known as "Suicide Squadron" in the U.S.  I got this one to about the 80% point, but found that this particular solo transcription by one Henry Geehl was different.  Geehl certainly to his credit integrated the orchestra and piano parts such that the full sound was captured in the score--but it was sometimes unpianistic writing!  I could have overcome it with more practice, but this was to have been a fun project.  Plus my serious music list was beckoning to me.  So I shelved it.  Two for me though, and I did have a blast playing that film music!   

[forzaitalia250]

Two flicks that I didn't enjoy too much were "The Piano", just way too depressing, and "The Pianist", more about the pianist as a detached observer to the horrors of WWII Warsaw than his being a pianist per se.  As to the second film, I believe the title is the problem, perhaps a little misleading.  It could have just as easily been titled The Lawyer, The Streetcar Conductor, The Librarian, The Merchant, or anyone else as the observer to history for that matter.  And I don't recall all that much piano music given the length of the film and the expectation for same for a film titled "The Pianist".

I felt that The Pianist was very aptly titled. I felt that there was quite a lot of music, albeit some of it was cut off. The scene where he plays Chopin's 1st Ballade for the Nazi is especially moving despite a large middle portion having been removed. The music was the one thing that kept Wladyslaw (the protaganist played by Brody) sane through the horrors of the war. All that aside, it was based on a true story. It is an excellent movie that doesn't focus solely on music, but has a variety of Chopin tunes and truely demonstrates the power of music.

[gerry]

This isn't exactly on topic (not being a piano flick) but since the concept of the power of music was brought up:

A very powerful moment that has stuck with me ever since I saw/heard it was in a scene from the movie "Exodus" where, the boatload of Jewish holocaust survivors attempting to flee to Palestine were unable to leave the harbor at Famagusta due to a British blockade. They staged a hunger strike and in the midst of the misery on board, one of the men brought out his violin and played Dvorak's Humoresque as all fell silent and listened. It was incredibly poignant.