The Red Violin
Canada/Italy/USA/UK 1998
Reviewed by Nick Kimberley
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
When his wife becomes pregnant, the seventeenth-century violin-maker Bussotti vows to craft the perfect instrument for the child. The housekeeper Cesca foretells a long journey entailing happiness and disaster. When mother and child die, Bussotti uses his wife's blood to varnish his violin.
The instrument becomes the property of an Austrian monastery, where a century later the orphan prodigy Kaspar plays it. The impresario Poussin fosters Kaspar's talent but while auditioning for Prince Mansfeld the boy collapses and dies. He is buried with the violin, but gypsies steal it. Another century later, the English virtuoso Frederick Pope hears gypsies playing, buys their red violin and, fired by his passion for Victoria Byrd, writes his greatest music for it. When she finds Pope with another woman, she shoots his violin.
Laid low by love and opium, Pope commits suicide. His Chinese manservant takes the battered violin to Shanghai and pawns it. Decades later, it is bought for Xiang Pei. During Mao's Cultural Revolution owning such an instrument is dangerous, and she entrusts it to a music teacher with a huge collection of western instruments. Years later the teacher dies. The authorities, realising his instruments are valuable, put them up for auction in Montreal. Valuer Charles Morritz suspects the red violin must be the Bussotti instrument and compares it to Pope's nineteenth-century replica. Morritz reluctantly reveals his discoveries. The red violin takes pride of place at auction. Bidding is fierce but nobody realises Morritz may have substituted Pope's copy, planning to give the original to his child. Cesca's prophecies have come true, but only for the violin.
Review
If music is a universal language, why does it speak in so many mutually incomprehensible dialects? The narrative of the time- and globe-spanning film The Red Violin has more than a little of the fable about it. But it's not simply a fable about music's universalising, healing power, although that comes into it. What is more apparent is the misery the red violin carries in its wake, shattering lives and breaking hearts while it alone remains intact, identifiable despite the odd scar left by centuries of use and abuse. Of course the misery is not the instrument's doing. It begins because its maker, not content with merely human beauty, strives for something inhumanly perfect. Bussotti's hubris generates the misery, not the violin itself.
And as the movie ends, can we take it that the violin has at last come to rest? Of course not. Unless I misread them, the closing moments contain the merest hint of the possibility that Morritz does not make off with the immensely valuable red violin, but makes do with the legitimately acquired replica. Perhaps he has glimpsed the original's destructive power. Even if, as the more likely outcome, he has made the switch and stolen the instrument, the theft must be discovered, his cupidity exposed, and the woe that accompanies Bussotti's creation prolonged. It's built into the film's episodic structure that each story leads to another, so it's appropriate that the apparent ending should only open up further possibilities: uncertainty is so much more rewarding than closure.
This daisy-chain structure makes character subordinate to event. Although each character is clearly enough described, we care more about what happens to them than who they are. Indeed, so diligent is the movie's pursuit of authenticity even location matters more than personality, which isn't necessarily a criticism. As the story moves through countries, periods and languages, the characters become mere bit players, sidelined by the forward movement of the narrative they find themselves in.
Although music may not be the film's subject, it matters a lot to the director François Girard, whose best-known film is Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. Girard apparently planned to use music from each of the eras the movie occupies: something baroque, followed by some Mozart for the early scenes for example, perhaps some Paganini for the episode with the virtuoso Pope. (This is the movie's least convincing segment, resembling as it does a French and Saunders satire on BBC costume drama.) In the event, John Corigliano persuaded Girard to allow him to write a score that binds the strands together with its chameleon-like mimicry of different styles and recurring motifs.
In fact, the movie might be described as a cinematic symphony in variation form, complete with its own little musical jokes. In one nicely unemphatic jeu d'esprit, Joshua Bell, the virtuoso violinist whose playing the actors mime to, appears as a lowly member of the orchestra that accompanies Pope. And yet, despite its open-endedness and deft handling, it's hard to escape the feeling that the movie has itself fallen prey to the allure of the red violin. It seems to want to efface division and difference so as to enfold us in music's warm and, yes, healing embrace. That's no sin, but it does provide a sugary coating for what is otherwise a pleasingly sour little yarn.
Credits
- Producer
- Niv Fichman
- Screenplay
- Don McKellar
- François Girard
- Director of Photography
- Alain Dostie
- Editor
- Gaëtan Huot
- Production Designer
- François Séguin
- Music/Orchestrations
- John Corigliano
- ©Red Violin Productions Limited/Sidecar Films and TV Srl/Mikado Film Srl
- Production Companies
- New Line International Releasing/Channel Four Films/Téléfilm Canada present a Rhombus Media/Mikado production in association with New Line International Releasing/Channel Four Films/Canada Television and Cable Production Fund/Téléfilm Canada ? Equity Investment Program/Citytv/Bravo! New Style Arts Channel and Sony Classical
- With the assistance of the Canadian Film or Video Tax Credit Program
- Producers
- Oxford Unit:
- Debra Hauer
- Shanghai Unit:
- Charles Wang
- Additional Photography:
- André Viau
- Co-producers
- Daniel Iron
- Giannandrea Pecorelli
- Line Producer
- Barbara Shrier
- Associate Producer
- Danny Krausz
- Production Co-ordinator
- Johanne Pelletier
- Associate Producers
- Rhombus Media:
- Sheena MacDonald
- Barbara Willis Sweete
- Larry Weinstein
- Production Supervisors
- Oxford Unit:
- Sophie Gardiner
- Shanghai Unit:
- John Zhong
- Production Services
- Italy Unit:
- Sidecar Films and TV Srl
- Vienna Unit:
- Dor Film
- Oxford Unit:
- Euphoria Films
- Shanghai Unit:
- Shanghai Film Studio
- China Film Co-Production Corporation
- Salon Films (H.K.) Ltd
- Additional Photography:
- Cinélande et Associés
- Production Co-ordinators
- Oxford Unit:
- Helen Pratt
- Rebecca Cotterill
- Production Managers
- Italy Unit:
- Tommaso Calevi
- Vienna Unit:
- Robert Opratko
- Shanghai Unit:
- Shen Xiyuan
- Montréal Unit:
- Lucie Bouliane
- Additional Photography:
- Frédéric Desproges
- Unit Managers
- Cremona:
- Christina Romagnoli
- Campo Tures:
- Riccardo Folgore
- Oxford Unit:
- Simon Crawford Collins
- Shanghai Unit:
- Benny Zhu
- Montréal Unit:
- Marie-Hélène Coutu
- Location Managers
- Italy Unit:
- Leonardo Caracciolo
- Vienna Unit:
- Andreas Payer
- Oxford Unit:
- Phil Houman
- Shanghai Unit:
- Chen Yong
- Montréal Unit:
- Michèle St-Arnaud
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Peter Alves
- Rhombus Media:
- Jody Shapiro
- Assistant Directors
- Jennifer Jonas
- China/Shanghai Unit:
- David Webb
- Italy Unit:
- Olivier
- Carlo Paramidani
- Vienna Unit:
- Jeanette Rosenmaier
- Michael Kreuzer
- Ulrike Weiss
- Oxford Unit:
- Toby Sherbourne
- Daniel Shepherd
- Shanghai Unit:
- Cheng Jiaji
- Kim Fung-Yip
- Xie Mingxiao
- Montréal Unit:
- Buck Deachman
- Trent Hurry
- Continuity
- Marie La Haye
- Casting
- Director:
- Deirdre Bowen
- Additional:
- Mary Selway
- Sylvie Brocheré
- Rita Forzano
- Andrea Kenyon
- Lucie Robitaille
- Vienna Unit:
- Markus Schleinzer
- Daniela Stiebitz
- Dialogue Adaptation
- Italian:
- Sandro Veronesi
- German:
- Michael Sturminger
- French:
- Bernard Minoret
- Chinese:
- Wang Xiaoshuai
- Additional Photographer
- Sylvaine Dufaux
- 2nd Unit Operator
- Oxford Unit:
- Ernest A. Vincze
- Digital Effects
- Buzz Image Group
- Digital Effects Executive Producer:
- Jean Raymond Bourque
- Digital Effects Producer:
- Yves Laniel
- Digital Effects Director:
- Stéphane Landry
- Digital Effects Artistic Director:
- Pedro Pires
- Digital Effects CGI Animator:
- Dominic Daigle
- Digital Effects Particle Effects Design:
- François Lord
- Robin Tremblay
- Digital Effects Compositing Artists:
- André Montambeault
- Mathieu Dupuis
- Frank D'Iorio
- Digital Film Scanning/Recording:
- Serge Langlois
- Digital Effects System Manager:
- Davis Goodman
- Digital Effects Co-ordinator:
- Mylène Guérin
- Graphic Artist
- Montréal Unit:
- Denis Caspar
- Art Directors
- Italy Unit:
- Emita Frigato
- Vienna Unit:
- Susanne Quendler
- Oxford Unit:
- Martyn John
- Shanghai Unit:
- Sun Weido
- Shanghai Unit, Associate:
- Li Jiajun
- Decorator
- Vienna Unit:
- Maria Blümel
- Set Decorators
- Oxford Unit:
- Judy Farr
- Montréal Unit:
- Pierre Perrault
- Violin Construction
- Peter Beare
- Costume Designer
- Renée April
- Costume Co-ordinators
- Italy Unit:
- Maria Galante
- Vienna Unit:
- Thomas Olah
- Wardrobe
- Oxford Unit Co-ordinator:
- Ros Ward
- Shanghai Unit Mistress:
- Luo Taojuan
- Make-up Artists
- Italy Unit:
- Rosario Prestopino
- Vienna Unit:
- Adolf Uhrmacher
- Oxford Unit:
- Pat Hay
- Shanghai Unit:
- Gui Shaolin
- Montréal Unit:
- Micheline Trépanier
- Hair Stylists
- Italy Unit:
- Ferdinando Merolla
- Vienna Unit:
- Hannelore Uhrmacher
- Oxford Unit:
- Suzanne Stokes-Munton
- Shanghai Unit:
- Wu Kangmei
- Montréal Unit:
- Réjean Goderre
- Titles Design
- Bruce Mau Design
- Bruce Mau
- Chris Pommer
- Titles/Opticals
- Film Effects Inc
- Music Performed by
- Philharmonia Orchestra
- Orchestra Conductor
- Esa-Pekka Salonen
- Solo Violin
- Joshua Bell
- Vocals
- Rebecca Starr
- Music
- Producer:
- Matthias Gohl
- Executive Producer:
- François Girard
- Production Co-ordination:
- Alison Booth
- Peter Cho
- Editor:
- Todd Kasow
- Additional Editor:
- Guy Pelletier
- Recordist/Mixer:
- Joel Iwataki
- Additional Engineering:
- James Nichols
- Lawrence Manchester
- Charles Harbutt
- Consultant:
- Joshua Bell
- Soundtrack
- "O Richard! O mon Roi!" from "Richard Coeur de Lion" by André-Modeste Gréty
- Sound Design/Supervision
- Marcel Pothier
- Sound
- Claude La Haye
- Re-recording
- Hans Peter Strobl
- Bernard Gariepy Strobl
- Studio Co-ordinator
- Martin Cazes
- Dialogue Editor
- Carole Gagnon
- Sound Effects Editor
- Antoine Morin
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Jacques Plante
- Paris, Director:
- Jacques Lévy
- Co-ordinator:
- Katarina Walsh
- Recordist:
- Jo Caron
- Editor:
- Jacques Plante
- Foley
- Artist:
- Jérôme Décarie
- Recordist:
- Jo Caron
- Consultants
- Violin:
- Charles Beare
- Peter Beare
- Stringed Instruments, Italy Unit:
- Claudio Amighetti
- Auction:
- Christies (New York)
- Research
- Felix Williams
- Cast
- Cremona
- Carlo Cecchi
- Nicolo Bussotti
- Irene Grazioli
- Anna Bussotti
- Anita Laurenzi
- Cesca
- Tommaso Puntelli
- apprentice
- Aldo Brugnini
- assistant
- Samuele Amighetti
- boy
- Vienna
- Jean-Luc Bideau
- Georges Poussin
- Christoph Koncz
- Kaspar Weiss
- Clothilde Mollet
- Antoinette Poussin
- Rainer Egger
- Brother Christophe
- Wolfgang Böck
- Brother Michael
- Florentin Groll
- Anton von Spielmann
- Johannes Silberschneider
- Father Richter
- Arthur Denberg
- Prince Mansfeld
- Paul Koeker
- Brother Gustav
- Josef Mairginter
- Brother Franz
- Johann Gotsch
- funeral monk
- Geza Hosszu-Legocky
- David Alberman
- Andrzej Matuszewski
- gypsy violinists
- Oxford
- Jason Flemyng
- Frederick Pope
- Greta Scacchi
- Victoria Byrd
- Eva Marie Bryer
- Sara
- Dimitri Andreas
- gypsy father
- David Gant
- conductor
- Stuart Ong
- manservant
- Shanghai
- Sylvia Chang
- Xiang Pei
- Liu Zifeng
- Chou Yuan
- Tao Hong
- Comrade Chan Gong
- Cao Kunqi
- deputy
- Han Xiofei
- young Ming
- Tan Zengwei
- guard
- Zhou Zhiqing
- senior policeman
- Wang Xiaoshuai
- junior policeman
- Quao Zhi
- elderly woman
- Tang Ren
- young Xiang Pei
- Lidou
- pawnbroker
- Zhang Kai
- rally speaker
- Montréal
- Samuel L. Jackson
- Charles Morritz
- Colm Feore
- auctioneer
- Monique Mercure
- Madame Leroux
- Don McKellar
- Evan Williams
- Ireneusz Bogajewicz
- Mr Ruselsky
- Julian Richings
- Nicolas Olsberg
- Russell Yuen
- older Ming
- Sandra Oh
- Madame Ming
- Paula De Vasconcelos
- Suzanne
- Rémy Girard
- customs agent
- Marie-Josée Gauthier
- hotel concierge
- Dany Laferrière
- cabby
- Dorothée Berryman
- secretary
- David La Haye
- handler
- Grégory Hlady
- coat attendant
- Herman Meckler
- registrar
- Sheena MacDonald
- Ruselsky's companion
- Jody Shapiro
- autograph seeker
- James Bradford
- stagehand
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 11,718 feet
- 130 minutes 12 seconds
- Dolby system
- In Colour