Speaking in Strings
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Movie Reviews of Speaking in Strings
Movie Review: A Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Whether you are a parent, teacher, music fan you will not be disappointed in this story and artist. Excellent item, price, and quality.Movie Review: Five stars all the way
Summary: 5 Stars
How could anyone who loves the violin rate this at less than five stars? Nadja's passionate playing leaves me quite breathless.Movie Review: Availability
Summary: 5 Stars
Although I haven't watched this DVD yet, I am pleased that it was available on Amazon.Movie Review: A revealing portrait of a passionate and brilliant artist
Summary: 4 Stars
Wow, what a documentary. There are scores of superb violinists in this world, each with their own characteristic ways of moving us. If you do not choke up immediately when you hear Perlman play the haunting theme music from "Schindler's List", then you are hopeless. If you don't get goose bumps and tingles up your spine when listening to Heifetz tear a scorching fast passage through Max Bruch's Violin Concerto #1, then again you are lost. If Nigel Kennedy's astoundingly fresh Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" doesn't sound new though you've heard at least 50 other renditions, then you are deaf. That is the way it is with the best of the best violinists. They simply transport the listener to some elevated plateau where the senses are cleansed, re-energized, some deeper meaning than was initially apparent in the music is transmitted to the heart and we remember the moments for a very long time.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (NSS)is one such mighty artist. What is clear in what we learn about her is that she had the musical muse, the need, desire and overwhelming lust to make music at all costs, no matter what, no matter who she left behind, she had to take refuge in the great drug of music. As a musician and life long lover of many musical forms, I can resonate with that passion. Some people take life as superficially as they can manage. That's fine, there is room to swim on the surface and there is a gigantic ocean of limitless depths to explore if the desire is there. She has that desire. Iconoclastic musicians often rankle as many people as they entrance and for NSS it is the case. I am reminded of my great hero, Glenn Gould, who drove purists up the wall with confusion, agony and disgust, especially over his overt and bizarre mannerisms when playing certain music. To those who grant GG much latitude, the patience is extended to him, we say, come Glenn, show us what is going on in the music, show us insight. With NSS it would seem, she is not deterred by questionable musical choices. If the current crowd is not up to Shostakovitch's Violin concerto, too bloody bad. What they end up getting is their minds blown with music to transform the way the appreciate that form of art. Years later people like NSS are praised for opening doors of musical appreciation, of perception. Musical leaders are very often far ahead on the curve, eventually making a very valid point of exposition by showing that a particular piece can be invigorated with new perspectives. Another such brilliant light is the very awesome pianist Martha Argerich, who regularly gives concerts that leave commentators gasping for adjectives and metaphors.
NSS came to her maturity as an artist with a great cost. After nearly chopping off the tip of her finger (I did that once many years ago and it healed as well), after having to protect herself from a stalker (the great fear of the rich and famous) and then finding the dark dog of depression come to dwell in her exhausted and lonely state....she nearly ended her life. With that failure behind her, with a sensational comeback performance rocking the audience, ever firmer on her feet, she has gone from strength to strength.
A wonderful story to watch. It is so inspiring to see a human being make such great use of such a wondrous gift. What remains are her words: the only thing that ever brought her true happiness was sharing her music with all.
Movie Review: "The only time I feel good is when I play."
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very interesting film as its subject, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, possesses a unique, and Van Goghian, combination of talent and emotional disturbance. So often unfortunately, people mistake depression and over-emotionality as being valuable and indicative of deep vision, when they are in fact just a tragic malady. We now know from experiments on the brain conducted over the course of the last decade just how much depression harms mental functioning. Sonnenberg does not strike the viewer as being a particularly perceptive person. This is painfully on display when she tries to explain what her artwork means-she doesn't appear to know, so she makes it up as she goes along.
Some critics described her work as "hormonal" and "distortive," and it's hard not to agree in the scenes of her frenetically shaking about on the stage. It seems that her personality overpowers the music, but such a personality makes for excellent character study which is why this is a useful documentary. Occasionally, her maudlin self wanders into offensiveness such as when she states, "classical music is a joke." Well, is it? Not to those of us who spent money to see the film. Her emotional fragility is something that she projects upon the rest of us. When she cuts off her finger tip, one has to wonder why somebody isn't on camera pointing out that the act may have been unconsciously motivated because it could have ended a career of which she is very ambivalent. She also tries to kill herself due to what her friends' term, "existential depression," but this is poppycock. She is biologically depressed, not situationally depressed. She self-medicates with poisonous cigarette after cigarette instead of just seeing a doctor and getting a script. Hopefully, she is taking something at present.
Most movies now contain some sort of mandatory anti-male sentiment and this one does not disappoint. One of Sonnenberg's friends comments that the music business is run by a "clique of men" to explain why the violinist, who is far more successful and rich than most of us could ever hope to be, has had so many difficulties. Speaking of men, we are the subject of a hilarious Freudian slip. Sonnenberg announces, at one point, "You want something really bad and then you can't have him." Ah, yes, well, at least there are cats. Anyway, in all seriousness, this is a fairly valuable character study and worthy of recommendation.