THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD
A Film Review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Colm Feore. Screenplay: Francois Girard and Don McKellar. Director: Francois Girard.
What I know about classical music, I could explain to you in ten minutes. I had never heard of Glenn Gould before I heard of this film. It is possible that with greater background knowledge, I might have appreciated THIRTY-TWO FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD more... although I can't imagine how. GLENN GOULD is a thoroughly remarkable film experience, as confident as it is ambitious, as masterfully realized as it is skillfully constructed. It is difficult for me to conceive of a biography which more vividly conveys its subject, in all his complexity, and it is easy for me to state that it is the best film I have seen in 1994.
THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD is exactly what its title would suggest: a series of vignettes examining in various ways the life and music of Glenn Gould, the acclaimed and enigmatic Canadian classical pianist who died in 1982 at the age of 50. Gould caused a sensation with his unique interpretations of Bach, Schoenberg and others, and even more of a sensation when he retired from live performance at the age of 32. Among the thirty-two films (the number taken from Bach's Goldberg Variations) are dramatizations of events from the life of Gould (Colm Feore), as well as interviews with friends, family and professional associates. There are also abstract interpretations of Gould's work as a performer and as a composer.
While each of the thirty-two individually titled segments in GLENN GOULD is self-contained, it is the manner in which they are connected which makes the film so compelling. "Lake Simcoe," a fairly straightforward narrated look at Gould's childhood, leads into our first look at Gould the man in "Forty-five Seconds and a Chair." We only just have time to register reaction to Gould before an acquaintance describes _his_ first meeting with Gould, and how he turned out to be quite a different person from what his appearance might suggest. Later, Gould picks up snatches of conversation while dining in "Truck Stop," then uses that experience as an inspiration for his unique radio production "The Idea of North." Despite the changes in perspective and varying film techniques, GLENN GOULD never seems fragmented; it maintains an unmistakable flow which is rarely anything but gripping.
It helps that Francois Girard has chosen such a fascinating subject, but it is Girard's brilliant direction which makes GOULD, the movie and the man, come alive. Girard never tries to pin Gould down, the way a conventional biography might; rather, he uses his singular format to allow the complicated and multi-faceted Gould emerge slowly. Although he gives up life performance to go into virtual seclusion, he so longs for contact that he spends hours each day talking to people on the telephone; in fact, the segment "Solitude" might in many ways be considered the centerpiece of the film. Suffering throughout his life from high blood pressure and other chronic circulatory problems, Gould becomes a virtual slave to his medical conditions, highlighted in "Pills" and "Diary of One Day." And while the dramatized sequences tend to present a man of almost other-worldly talent and insight, the inclusion of the interviews with real acquaintances of Gould's gives him a fundamental humanity.
There is the occasional misstep. A few of the sequences seem repetitive, particularly "Practice" and "Passion According to Gould," both of which show Gould's rapture in response to his own music; and "The Tip," while amusing, seems somewhat out of place. I was also less than enthralled by the lengthy animated segment "Gould Meets McLaren," and "Variation in C Minor," another FANTASIA-like visual representation of music. When the music was separated from the man, I grew impatient. THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD introduced me to a fragile, uniquely humanistic genius I wanted to know more about, and in a way I doubt I'll ever forget.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Goldberg Variations: 9. -- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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