Blog Directory CineVerse: Fiddling for answers

Fiddling for answers

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Turns out that Canada can export more than delicious maple syrup and stellar hockey players. The Great White North can also produce a quality flick, as evidenced by "The Red Violin," which was the subject of last evening's CineVerse discussion. Here's what we learned about the film:

WHAT IS MEMORABLE AND DISTINCTIVE ABOUT “THE RED VIOLIN,” ESPECIALLY NARRATIVELY (THE WAY THE STORY IS TOLD), VISUALLY, AND MUSICALLY?
·       The movie uses three framing devices to tell its story:
o   the tarot card reading, which yields cards that provide a foreshadowing for the different adventures to come;
o   the auction, which we are continually brought back to as: (a) the anchor that keeps us in the present and which brings together the descendants of past players affected by the violin; and (b) another means to foreshadow what we are to see next or eventually; and
o   the violin itself, which passes from one character, time and place to another and is the unifying thread of the film.
·       The film jumps around in time and space, lacking a conventional linear narrative. It employs flashbacks, flash forwards (in the form of the foreshadowing tarot cards), and repetition by replaying scenes from the auction but told from the viewpoints of various characters.
·       While the auction and the character of Morritz serve as important centrifugal hubs from which all these other stories are spun off, the story works as more of a series of interconnected vignettes and brief episodes; we don’t follow one central character throughout the whole film. Film scholar Andre Loiselle calls this structure a “mosaic narrative.”
·       The film is replete with diversity—consider the variety of settings, languages (five are spoken: French, English, Mandarin, German and Italian), characters, time periods, and tone. In fact, the tone commonly shifts, from tragic to comedic to romantic to suspenseful to anticlimactic.
·       Additionally, The Red Violin relies on the viewer’s intelligence to fill in the unexplained: the filmmakers don’t use titles to inform us, for example, of where and when a particular scene is occurring—we have to deduce this from context (e.g., dialogue, costumes, etc.). Likewise, we aren’t told much about the auction winner or how the instrument ends up in Kaspar Weiss’ possession or a monastery.
·       Defying the expectations of many, the soundtrack does not feature popular classical works played on violin. The score is actually an original one created uniquely for this picture.
WHAT THEMES AWAIT DISCOVERY IN “THE RED VIOLIN”?
·       The ability of art to transcend time and space and achieve immortality.
·       Man’s inability to achieve perfection and immortality, except perhaps through the things we create. In an interview, director Girard said: “The sculptor’s only freedom is to choose a piece of stone or of wood and eventually the nature of that thing will express itself through his talent, maybe, but the notion of the artist as the creator of things, the free will of the artist, I think are totally foolish…we submit ourselves.”
·       Man’s pursuit of this perfection, however, can lead to disaster, disillusionment, pain and suffering, as underscored by the misfortunes experienced by many who encounter the red violin.
·       Music, as personified in the form of the red violin, becomes a kind of living character unto itself in the film. Consider:
o   how the instrument seems to have the power to transform the destinies of those who encounter it;
o   how it “gives rise” to the passions of, for example, the man who uses it in his lovemaking; and
o   the curious and inventive inside-looking-out camera angle from within the violin onto Morritz’s face.
CAN YOU CITE ANY OTHER FILMS THAT ARE KINDRED SPIRITS TO “THE RED VIOLIN”?
·       Winchester 73
·       The Dress
·       Tales of Manhattan
·       The Phantom of Liberty
·       War Horse
·       La Ronde
·       The Lord of the Rings trilogy
·       The Yellow Rolls Royce
·       All the aforementioned movies share a common thread, in which we follow one object (e.g., a car in the latter, a rifle in “Winchester 73,” a horse in “War Horse”) from person to person, place to place, and adventure to adventure

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