Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

The eccentric behavior of rock and pop icons usually take center stage in the media, but here's a classical musician and virtuoso performer that literally steals the show, both in achievements and lifestyle.

Glenn Gould popped pills, gave up performing live concerts because not everyone in the audience could hear the music the same way, created radio documentaries that mirrored symphonies and played the stock market like an expert. Glenn Gould was a typical hermit who only called people to talk when he was bored, he wanted to visit the arctic in the dark of winter and he donated his estate to charity.

He died from a stroke at age 50, but recordings of his music have been sent into space. Glenn Gould lives on in the hearts of classical music fans and those who have seen 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.

the concept works. i like how the film is composed of individual films, yet the individual films do an excellent job of telling a singular, cohesive story. the best aspect is that we don't have to deal with the boring plot proceedings- we just fill in the blanks ourselves. learning about gould's personality through the dialogue kept my interest, but looking back, it was actually the strictly instrumental pieces that really kept my interest. fortunately gould's actual performances are mesmerizing enough on their own to really supplement the visuals. a couple of favorites off the top of my head are "man sitting in chair" and "a day's journal" (sorry, not the exact titles i think). colm feore, i've seen you in about a dozen pictures, but this is the one that made me really notice your name.

Let me preface this review by saying: the music of Bach permeates my existence. Over the years, I've listened to nearly every recording there is, repeatedly. That said, I had trouble watching this movie. The first time I tried, I quit after five minutes. Last evening, I made it all the way through. While at times moving, the film disturbs.

For one, it does not do visual justice to the music. Bach's compositions are not about waving hands in the air, geometry animations, or men walking off into infinity. They're complex literary statements. This variety of music is akin to the best silent cinema; it says volumes, but without words. Like pantomime, it tells a nuanced story, weaving multiple plot lines together into an evocative fabric. Few of the 32 vignettes approached that ideal. Could it be that some of Bach's greatest admirers fail to grasp the deeper meaning within the music?

In addition, Gould's personal faults grate on the nerves. It's clear he wasn't an ideal specimen. He mistook music for life. Music is a condiment, a catalyst perhaps. It frames life, drawing attention to worthy matters. It spices and enlivens life, making it savory. But it is not life. His mind was filled with picture frames, but no pictures. He fell in love with music in the same way that parrots sometimes mistakenly bond with their human owners. They are not parrots, and music is not a woman. One wonders how Bach might greet Gould in heaven: "So, the bachelor thinks he understands the man with two wives and twenty children? Let's see what kind of music you'll play after we give you a well-rounded life."

I saw this on DVD and enjoyed it thoroughly. The means of portraying a person - through short and disconnected vignettes - was surprisingly natural. When you think about it, this is often how we learn about people: a collection of stories, incidents, things their friends say about them, memories from childhood. Not only that, but it nicely parallels some of the music, such as the short pieces in Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier. Each has a different mood, but together they paint a complete picture. This movie is a lot of fun for anyone who is fond of classical music and willing to experiment a little bit with film.

Girard succeeds where many have failed- he creates an intimate portrait of an artist without falling subject to the cumbersome confines of the narrative 'birth to death' storyline format. What better way to breathe life into a musician's 'story' than rhythmically assembling a collection of several recreated happenings, bits of documentary conversation, and performances of actual musical pieces (orchestrated works of Gould's) that each examine a particular instance from Glen Gould's life?

By avoiding a typical diluted overview of the artist's entire timeline of events, Girard instead picks out specific happenings in Gould's life that each tells a story of a complex, confused, and brilliant man. These shorts are shown in a somewhat chronological order, so as not to completely ignore the fact that the collection of shorts aims to sculpt a more complete picture of Gould. Their consecutive placement being rhythmically conscious, the viewer is never lost in the experimental efforts or the non-narrative spectrum of the shorts, as they are closely followed by the more tangible aspects of Gould's life. Aesthetic elements from Gould's creative life are often carried over from one short to the next, which helps reinforce the unity as a whole of the 32 separate films.

One of the most important aspects this structure brings to its audience is freeing them from the typical passive role. Instead of loosing yourself into a 2 hour story that tries its hardest to make it's viewer forget their lives, troubles, and identities by sweeping them into a fantasy world, the constant breathes between these short episodes remind the audience what they're seeing more resembles a diary from the artist rather than an alternate reality to 'forget oneself' in.

Aside from the highly effective (and I believe far more suitable) structural effort of the film, the camera's language combined with the film's language is very conventional (aside from the sound editing in several cases). At times, the extremely literal usage of visual imagery falls a little flat, but it also works within its context in particular cases. Other innovations in the film stem from the content chosen (or even more so, what the filmmaker chooses not to show in several of the shorts). An excellent film for those who are humbled at the overwhelming confusion even the brilliant can carry.