Tchaikovsky

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.

I always regarded this opus as a rare piece of trash. There is close to nothing from real Tchaikovsky in this movie, just a glossed Stalinist version of the composer, the kind they indoctrinated in every music classroom to every youngster - that he was a progressive genius whose works fit socialist realism and Lenin's ideas about socialist culture very well. By the way, a vast majority of ignorant Russians are still offended by the notion of him being a homosexual. The composer's letters and reputable biographies are published in minuscule circulation, this film is seen by millions. Here's the power of indoctrination even in post-communist era. On top of that, the society is generally extremely homophobic. They used to send people to prison for homosexuality up to 1994, and every year there is a discussion in their parliament on resurrecting this law as part of criminal code. So here is your cultural backdrop...

Now, the movie has its own little merits, but the underlying total lie and poor director's thinking and probably general grasp of the subject make the better parts totally worthless.

Soviet cinema had its glorious moments, especially in the great escape of great patriotic war movies, where things were black and white, at least where the real evil was. The biographies - there were few interesting ones (Tsiolkovsky's, Pavlov come to mind), but always castrated by the intricacies of either Stalinist or post-Stalinist era.

I'd love to ramble on, but I think I got the main message clear - the film is a great lie, and on film merits alone is not a good work either. So to those first few folks who put there rave 10 star reviews - what planet are you from? Start from reading books, including composer's own letters. Then compare what you learned with what you see. Otherwise, Lenin still wins his micro battle in your consciousness, and the bastard doesn't deserve this, and you neither.

It would be great to make a true biographical movie or better yet mini-series about composer's life. His life was full of tremendous drama, add real music scores that make sense - and it could be something worth watching. Hollywood can't do it, its mostly prostituting pure trash, the French or Germans might. Russians could have, when the country and its cinematography was free for a fairly brief time, not these days of self-censorship, return of government control and new rules. And to say the composer was gay is a faux pas. How would one film a biography without this basic fact.

PS Regarding subtitles - never expect a decent work from Russian video publishers, it's in best case scenario a sloppy translation (heck, the translation of Tarkovsky's Andrey Rublev is simply horrible at times, and that's criterion edition). Few exceptions are fairy tales.

I will remember this movie all my life.I watched it twice on the 80s in a movie club.One with my friends and the other with my dad,a real fan of Tchaikowski as myself.Two days in a row because it was so moving,so wonderfully made,I had to watch it again.I wonder why I didn't find it on cable in all these years!

All the biographical musical movies are better made out of Hollywood ,I must say.Hollywood is too much show and fantasy,but this version of Tchaikowski's life is so close to his actual history you can't help to believe you are actually watching Piotr Yllich living his life than an actor playing a part.

I will always keep in my mind the scene beside the water where he was writing the 4th Symphony in the times of Nadezhda Von Meck,his benefactor.So poetical,so deep and without words.Only music and a beautiful sight.Great photography!If you didn't watch this movie,do.If you like Tchaikowski,you won't regret it.

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.