Musical
groups, coming together, working harmoniously, splitting up, reuniting, provide
one of the great metaphors for human activity. In the cinema we encounter them
in such different forms as the real-life bandleaders Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey
feuding and going their different ways in The Fabulous Dorseys; Bing Crosby's
inner-city priest reforming delinquents as a choir in Going My Way; Fellini's allegorical Orchestra Rehearsal presenting Italy
as a musical rabble that can only function when submitting to a firm conductor;
or Dustin Hoffman's recent Quartet, which sees
elderly singers burying old differences to recreate their celebrated quartet
from Rigoletto.
A Late Quartet, written and directed by
the American documentarian Yaron Silberman, is a major contribution to this
continuing cycle. A subtle, intelligent picture with a suitably resonant title,
it quietly observes the internal dynamics of the Fugue String Quartet, an
internationally acclaimed musical group founded and based in New York that has
been playing around the world for 25 years. We encounter them as an entity,
working together thoughtfully, a trifle self-regarding perhaps, and then we get
to know them as individuals.
Their
founder, the cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher
Walken in an uncharacteristically pensive role), is a quiet,
paternalistic figure, whose wife, a well-known concert singer, has recently
died. The second violin, the impetuous, overweight Robert Gelbart (Philip
Seymour Hoffman), is married to the quartet's graceful, composed
viola player, Juliette (Catherine Keener), whom he met as a student at
Julliard. Both are in their 40s and have a daughter, Alex (Imogen Poots),
herself a student of the violin. The fourth member is the first violinist,
Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir), an intense central European immigrant of great
technical brilliance, who makes bows, rebuilds violins and is a highly
demanding teacher, one of whose pupils is Alex.
We
sense the tensions between them but appreciate that they have been subsumed
into their quarter of century of playing together. They have found satisfaction
not in discarding their individuality but in unselfishly contributing to a
collaborative endeavour. Their unity is expressed in the music and also in the
joint filmed interview that illustrates, a little too demonstratively perhaps,
the face they present to the world. But all this is to be disrupted, the
quartet challenged both singly and as a group.
Early
on, the somewhat melancholy Peter introduces his student class to Beethoven's
Op 131, the String Quartet No 14 in C sharp minor, which is to figure centrally
in the film, and he precedes it by delivering the first 10 lines of Burnt Norton,
first of TS Eliot's Four
Quartets. But he speaks the lines in a conversational manner quite
unlike Eliot's sepulchral, Anglican-pulpit style. He's talking of time in music
and life, of continuity, circularity, eternity. And he goes on to point out that
this late quartet has seven movements instead of the customary five, and that
Beethoven demanded that it be played attacca,
that is without any pause between movements. Both Op 131 and attacca become
key elements in the film's dramatic structure.
Peter
has been having trouble fingering the strings of his cello, and a sympathetic
doctor (a gentle performance by Madhur Jaffrey) diagnoses early signs of
Parkinson's disease, and while he accepts this with resigned equanimity the
quartet is thrown into confusion. In facing an uncertain future, they begin to
consider their own careers as musicians and individuals, and Peter himself is
involved in seeking to find a cellist who'll replace him and assure continuity.
Fissures occur, fears are released. The first violin seeks equality. Robert and
Juliette's marriage is threatened. Their daughter turns against them and
embarks on an affair with Daniel, the first violinist. Although a punch is
thrown and bitter words exchanged, this is about a buried turbulence that registers
forcefully on the civilised seismographs of the characters' minds and hearts.
The
film is set during a bitter but deeply romantic New York winter. Central Park
is covered in snow. The warm, welcoming interiors contrast with the outside
world, reflecting the feelings of the leading figures and the futures they
face. There's a particularly expressive scene at night when Juliette, Daniel
and Robert leave a meeting with the isolated, stoical Peter, knowing that his
Parkinson's will soon take him from the quartet. They stand in the street, the
snow falling in the night, talking reservedly of what lies around the corner.
As the rotund Robert gets a little too frank about his intentions, his wife and
Daniel draw away from him in moral disgust and each walks off in a different
direction. He's left alone, bewildered, frozen out in the enveloping dark.
The
cinematographer Frederick Elmes, a frequent collaborator of both David Lynch
and Ang Lee, has made a wonderful job of locating the characters in their
domestic environments – the plain wood of Peter's spacious brownstone
apartment, the seedy hotel where Robert finds temporary refuge when his
marriage is threatened, the messy student bedsitter where the rebellious young
Alex has a confrontation with her judgmental mother. There are also lovingly
staged scenes in the concert hall at the Metropolitan Museum, at a Sotheby's
musical instrument auction, a visit to the Frick Collection, where Peter
communes with a late Rembrandt self-portrait, and a drive into the countryside
for Daniel to buy horse hair for the bows he crafts.
