Tchaikovsky

There has been many complaints and objections against this film, but they are of no consequence, since all betray one and the same thing: they haven't understood that this is exclusively a film about music and a musician. Although there is a story, it is not told straight but rather hinted at all the way, while the main body of the film is the composer's dreams, his fancies, his hallucinations sometimes but above all his moods. This is a film of moods and an admirable attempt to set moods to music with the use of film sequences to illustrate them and put them into life and colour. Innokenti Smoktunovsky makes a great performance although it is not quite convincing, since he is too good-looking, while Tchaikovsky in reality suffered from aging too quick and too soon - at the age of 53, when he died, he was still a young man, but he looked at least twenty years older. He grew white very early, and this enforced aging process by nature has been much discussed and never been quite understood, but since he was a highly oversensitive and overstrung nature, he most probably just consumed himself too fast, mainly by nervous worrying and stress. His sponsor Mrs Meck is played by Antonina Shuranova more convincingly, and one of the great credits of the film is bringing her fully to life. There is a brief but splendid guest appearance by Maya Plisetskaya, one of Russia's many major ballerinas, Ivan Turgenev also appears in Paris, as does Nicolai Rubinstein in an important part, while Tchaikovsky's wife (in a short and failed marriage) only appears casually in the first part, that ends with his (probably) attempted suicide, just like Robert Schumann, with whom Tchaikovsky felt closely spiritually related - they both made music to Lord Byron's "Manfred", one of Tchaikovsky's most remarkable and greatest symphonies, bypassed here. The main interest of the film, although beautiful and wonderfully photographed all the way, bringing all the loveliest sides of 19th century Russia to life, is the way Dimitri Tiomkin has treated Tchaikovsky's music. Tiomkin, originally Russian, was one of the very best composers of Hollywood, if not the very best one, and he really put his soul into this job of suiting Tchaikovsky's music to a film made as a tribute to Russia's greatest and probably eternally most loved composer. His tempos are rather fast, but that's the way of film music - it's a common trait that film music always has to run too fast. Perhaps the very finest sequence is that of the "Waltz of the Flowers", the only piece in the film played in full, before the final elegy. The one character you really miss in the film is Modest, Tchaikovsky's brother, who survived him many years and his chief collaborator in opera librettos, above all of "The Queen of Spades". One of the highlights of the film is how the film makers put Mrs Meck's abandonment of Tchaikovsky in relation with the old duchess in the opera - her great dying soliloquy follows directly on Mrs Meck's final disconnection. No one was closer to Tchaikovsky than his brother Modest and, second, Mrs Meck, although they never met, while the film interestingly suggests some telepathic connection between them. In brief, as a Russian tribute to Tchaikovsky it is wholly successful and worthy as such, although probably Tchaikovsky himself in his modesty would have objected against this next to apotheosis of him.

That is correct. i deem this film to be the worst I've ever seen in my life. and im not a new comer on the scene. i am also an ardent tchaikovskyite. so i would have been more than glad to give this movie high praise if indeed it was worthy of it. what makes a good movie? it moves. it makes you want to see what happens next. it has a cohesive narrative that is logical and persuasive. i have never relegated a movie to be the worst ever till now. the cinematography is terrible. the story line is an unlikely jumble. there is little veracity here. its music making and performances are nil. i was barely able to watch this movie once a year ago. there is nothing in it that would want me to see it again. so it sits on the shelf. the portrayals were wooden and unlifelike. by golly, "the music lovers" was a cinematic masterpiece next to this, travesty of tchaikovsky's life as it was. it still was entertaining. i don't know where these Russian directors get their training but i can tell you that any American or English director would have done a much better job. in reading some of the other reviews i felt that i was living on another planet. give this movie high praise and extol it to the skies? beats me thats for sure. i relegate this one to the trash bin. a complete and total disappointment.

"Music of passion" is a biopic about (the last thirty years) of the life of the Russian classical composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The film is told in series of more or less independent episodes. Maybe for every Russian the story of the life of Tchaikovsky is well known, but for Western eyes this way of telling the story is a little confusing.

It is generally believed that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual, but in the Russia of 1970 it was still difficult to be frank about this fact (as it still is in the Russia of 2021 I think). More surprising to me was the fact that in Russia Tschaikovsky is mainly seen as a composer of opera's and not so much of symphonies. The opera's of "Jevgeni Onjegin" and "Queen of spades" play an important role in the film.

As may be expected in a biopic about a composer the music is very beautiful. The cinematography is also OK, especially in the scene with the coach riding through a birch forest (the symbol of Russia's vastness). There is however nothing more kindly to report about this film. The acting is rigid and the dialogue is bombastic.

All in all "Music of passion" is no match for other biopics about composers such as "Amadeus" (1984, Milos Forman, about Mozart) or "Immortal beloved" (1994, Bernard Rose, about Beethoven). I saw "Music for passion" in a program with three films from Russia in the movie house of the city where I live. With directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, Mikhail Kalatozov and Andrei Tarkovsky I I really wondered if "Music of passion" was the right choice for this program.

Starring the remarkable Innokenti Smoktunovsky in the title role, this film is completely unlike the Ken Russell debacle 'The Music Lovers.' Talankin's film is absolutely breathtaking in its fidelity to the story of the composer's life as I know it from numerous sources. The resemblance of Smoktunovsky to Tchaikovsky is striking and it's very easy to suspend disbelief and imagine one is watching the composer himself -- and in color!

The film doesn't try to go far afield from simply telling the facts of the composer's life, but then it really doesn't have to: the true story is vastly interesting. Brought to life splendidly are Nadejda von Meck, the Rubinsteins, Hermann Laroche -- all those characters familiar from the musical life of Russia in the late 19th century. Executive Producer Dmitri Tiomkin returned to Russia to arrange and conduct the soundtrack before such cultural exchanges became commonplace. Tiomkin's work with Tchaikovsky's music is respectful and also highly creative at the same time. While 'Tchaikovsky' is certainly not as fanciful as Hollywood or Ken Russell it's all the more rewarding for it.

The film faithfully recounts the last twenty years of the Russian composer's life, bringing to the big screen a pathetic character, full of emotions and contrasts, like his last opera, "Pathétique," written after the news of his beloved's death. I greatly appreciated the visual quality of Margarita Pilikhina's cinematography and the arrangements, which earned Dimitri Tiomkin an Oscar.

Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy), after his latest success, faces a period of crisis due to constant criticism. During this period, he is supported by his faithful servant Aliosha (Evgeniy Leonov), his friend Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein (Vladislav Strzhechik), a successful pianist, and above all by his patron Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (Antonina Shuranova), with whom he establishes a relationship of deep respect and love, without ever meeting, thanks to the intermediation of Wladyslaw Pachulski (Kirill Lavrov), the composer's former protégé, hired as a music teacher by the noblewoman.

Director Igor Talankin sets a slow, measured pace for the film, without delving into the psychological implications of the characters; the screenplay, by the director himself in collaboration with Yuriy Nagibin and Budimir Metalnikov, is very conventional, almost ceremonial and excessively paced, like a succession of episodes; the acting by the entire cast is quite good; personally, I preferred the suffering soul of Antonina Shuranova, pining for love, rather than the tormented one of Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, constantly searching for immortality.

Worth seeing, as already mentioned, certainly for the music and cinematography, but also for the 19th-century romanticism of impossible love.