1
hr & 38 min, color, 2012
While watching a motion
picture, either in a theater or at home, have you ever wished you could climb
into it and be with everyone and everything you see and hear on the
screen? Not just watch it and be excited
and entertained, but be there in it! Have
you ever wanted to touch the people portrayed, to join them there in that
projected setting, to rub shoulders with them, to converse with them, perhaps
even to embrace them? Have you ever
wanted to take them home with you and get to know them even further and perhaps
share your own world with them? Have you
ever wanted to follow them from where you last see them at the film’s
conclusion?
Never do I recall being more
affected that way than I have been by “Quartet,” a current work under the
producing and directing leadership of Dustin Hoffman and the aegis of BBC
Films, based upon a play by Ronald Harwood, with Harwood himself doing the
screenplay. The setting is Beecham House
in a rural region of England, a retirement home for musicians, and just about
every character in its sizeable cast is a musician – singer, instrumentalist,
conductor, director, etc. And just about
every character in it is someone whose continuing company and acquaintance I
wish I could enjoy. If I could, I would
like to visit Beecham House (except that it is fictitious). I feel as if I would get great pleasure as an
up-close observer of all the transactions that take place between these
endearing people.
Of course my affections for
them and the lively and caring environment in which they carry on their lives
to some extent derives from my personal passion for classical music and those
who not only perform it but devote their lives to it. For me they are messengers of heaven itself,
whatever their earthly failings or their private pains and heartaches. Leonard Bernstein once said: “In the beginning was the Note, and the Note was
with God; and whosoever can reach high for that Note, reach high, and bring it
back to us on earth, to our earthly ears – [that one] is a composer” who
“partakes of the divine.” I do not think
Bernstein would mind me adding that the same can be said about performers,
those who receive the Note from the discoverers and run with it. They are all divine to me. So I confess to a little bias in my approach
to this movie’s subject matter. Please
forgive me! But Hoffman’s and Harwood’s
work does not require anyone to be a music buff or aficionado to enjoy it. All it requires is a seasoned appreciation of
theater and the arts, a good humored respect for, and delight in, the elderly
and a capacity for empathy that greatly exceeds curiosity.
As the title might suggest,
there are four of these gifted and inspired people around whom the plot
revolves. One is an opera diva named
Jean Horton (Maggie Smith) who has become a crippled retiree, financially and
otherwise, long out of practice and forced to move into Beecham House, where
one of the residents happens to be her first of three husbands from long ago
(Tom Courtenay), an accomplished basso and music instructor. Another is Cissy (Pauline Collins), an alto
from the same opera stage verging on dementia but retaining her kind and
friendly personality that goes far in binding the inhabitants of the place
together as a family. And finally there
is Wilf (Billy Connolly), a wisecracking and quite flirtatious tenor whose
cheeriness thinly conceals a sour disposition toward old age. As I understand it from the dialogue Beecham
House depends to a great extent for its existence upon the proceeds from the
annual gala celebrating Verdi’s birthday, in which every able-bodied resident
of the place is required to participate.
Late in the season the Home’s musical director (Michael Gambon) feeling
that the roster of performers who have been rehearsing do not look promising
enough for big box office prevails upon these four, all internationally famous,
to climax the event by presenting the famous quartet from “Rigoletto,” certain
they will be the drawing card that will put the gala over the top. All except Horton, a confirmed recluse, are
willing, and things get rather nasty before the question and the conflict with
her are resolved.
As infectious as the film is
for me, and I know for millions of others, Hoffman has not made a
groundbreaking work. No new precedent
has been set, no new cinematic doors of exploration have been opened. There is nothing in the narrative that you
could call profound. The characters are
delightful, but of course the story’s outcome is easily foreseeable. Frankly, in view of Hoffman’s past work
“Quartet” is much more of a feel good movie than I would ever have expected him
to have made. It is clear that he too
loves the people in it and their communal involvement with each other, not to
mention the venerable music that is lavished upon the ears from beginning to
final fade-out. And, if you see it on
DVD, check into the Bonus material listed in the menu, and you will get a
feeling for how much of a good time the cast and crew had in making it.
Be clear regarding the film’s
appeal! “Quartet” is not about music or
how it functions. Even if you do not
know a note of music, you can connect with these very human vessels. They do more than sing and play instruments;
they, like all human beings who reach the sunset years, whatever their walk in
life, must resist the temptation to become self-piteously morbid. They must fight against depression,
loneliness, weak legs, weak voices, dim eyes, senility and a feeling of
obsolescence to mount their brief moments of resplendence. I for one, having just turned eighty, feel
greatly inspired by their examples.
Anyone over sixty owes it to herself or himself to take this little
celebrative work to heart.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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