intellectual exercises
by Douglas Messerli
François
Girard and Don McKellar (writers), François Girard (director) Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould /
1993
Basing his structure upon that of Johann
Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations,
one of Glenn Gould's most renowned recordings, Canadian film director François
Girard has created a polymorphous work that challenges the notion of a single
coherent being, perhaps the only way one might logically present the life of
this conflicted artist. As Girard makes clear through his Arias, the numerous
titled "filmlets" and the final "End Credits," Gould (performed
by Colm Feore) was a complex being. The virtuoso pianist, as legend has it,
began playing in his mother's womb, responding to the music she listened to
daily, and already at the age of 12 had graduated with the high marks from The
Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Although many found his interpretations
of Bach and the numerous other Baroque, Pre-Baroque and contemporary artists to
be merely eccentric—Gould sat in a low chair, especially built for him by his
father, pulling the keys with his fingers as opposed to striking them from
above, and swaying with the rhythms of the music, groaning and humming as he
proceeded—the artist was beloved by many in and outside the music community,
and during the years in which he professionally performed quickly gained an
international reputation.
Gould, declaring the concert hall to be similar to a sports arena, ended
his performing career eighteen years before his death, announcing after a
concert at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles in 1964, that we never
perform again. The film that portrays this momentous decision shows a composed
and friendly Gould, asking a stage hand how many years he had worked and
willingly signing a program for his wife. Throughout much of his performing
career, Gould had not been so affable, and was known for cancelling concerts or
simply not showing up. Just before a concert with the New York Philharmonic,
Leonard Bernstein announced to his audience, "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould
is here and will appear in a moment."
That decision obviously created a flurry of reactions, which the Gould
character spoofs in the short piece, "Gould Meets Gould," where he
plays the role of a critical interviewer to whom he responds in like. In
another short piece violinist Yehudi Menuhin, agrees that performing is often
difficult, the sound of each hall varying, the temperatures radically
differing, etc., but notes that, unlike Gould, who treated his playing as an
"intellectual exercise," that Menuhin craves and enjoys the company
of his audiences.
In another jocular piece, we see Gould in a Hamburg hotel, speaking on
the phone while a German cleaning woman works around him. She is about to leave,
when he requests that she remain. Hanging up the phone, he puts on a record of
one of his recordings, motioning her to sit. Reluctantly she does so, but as he
lurches around the room one can detect her discomfort and fear for what he
might want with her. But gradually, as the music proceeds, a smile comes over
her face as she delights in the music. At work's end, she lifts the album cover
to see who has played the work, discovering that she has been invited to listen
and react to the performer himself.
Gould also wrote numerous articles about music and other subjects, and
performed on Canadian radio. A selection from his radio documentary, "The
Idea of North," is represented, as he gathers voices much in the way one
might tonal registers of music. Similarly, Girard shows us one of his trips to
Gould's favorite diner, Fran's Restaurant, where he simultaneously listens into
the conversations of several different customers as he eats his regular,
scrambled eggs and catsup.
Clearly Gould himself was aware of his numerous eccentricities, both
mocking them and celebrating them. In the short "Ad" he jokingly puts
himself forward as one might in a "lonely hearts" advertisement:
Wanted: friendly, companionably reclusive,
socially unacceptable,
alcoholically abstemious,
tirelessly talkative, zealously unzealous,
spiritually intense,
minimally turquoise, maximally ecstatic moon,
seeks moth or moths with similar qualities
for purposes of telephonic
seduction, Tristanesque
trip-taking, and permanent flame-fluttering,
no photos required, financial
status immaterial, all ages and
non-competitive vocations considered,
applicants should furnish
sets of sample conversation
with notarized certification of
marital disinclination,
references re: low decibel vocal consistency,
itinerary and sample receipts
from previous successfully completed
out-of-town moth flights, all
submissions treated confidentially...
Because of his seemingly "puritan-like" behavior and his own statements of his being "The Last Puritan," some had suspected that Gould was homosexual, but some years after this film, Cornelia Foss, wife of artist Lukas Foss, revealed that she had a four and a half year relationship with him, assuring others that "he was an extremely heterosexual man."
Los
Angeles, June 6, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment