The Red Violin

Rating:
Summary: this violin sounds like [garbage]
Review: "The Red Violin" is a mediocre, highly superficial film that follows the creation and life of a Stradivari-esque fiddle over several centuries, through various owners in Europe, Asia, and finally, North America.

The problem with "The Red Violin" is the lack of impression that it leaves with the viewer. Director Francois Girard is an ambitious filmmaker- the bottomless passion of the fiddle's maker "Bussotti", the ravages of Western Europe, the eccentric virtuosity of the Paganini clone, and the anti-Western Art stance affected by the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The movie takes on plots that ultimately don't satisfy the viewer- we end up with a beautiful pedestal but no statue. There are consistent historical and musical inaccuracies in the film as well. One would expect from Girard a certain degree of faith to the tradition and history of the violin, especially considering that the red fiddle is the material, and supposedly, metaphorical subject of the narrative. Unfortunately, there is no metaphor because the movie doesn't really imply anything or make us care at all about the characters. Also, "The Red Violin" probably would have benefitted greatly by introducing real, factual events and people to add drama to the story and to enrich the viewer.

The greatest inconsistency in the film is definitely the "music video" interludes, featuring embarrassingly obvious non-violinists pretending to play violin while Joshua Bell performs modern, 'electrified' impressions of various periods in classical music. In the end, however, the movie doesn't exhibit any authentic music, nor teach us anything about how violin composition changed and advanced through Bach, Mozart, Paganini, and Heifetz. Girard had an opportunity to save the film and impart some redeeming substance to a weary audience, but instead the movie takes on an unpleasant continuity. Throughout the film, we basically hear the same song- we hear Bell playing a thoroughly modern piece, with an historic 'touch'. For example, the supposed Paganini, in the movie, plays nothing more than a scattershot of fireworks with small allusions to Paganini rather than something that was written by the composer, or a piece that is musically accurate to Paganini's compositions. So from an historical and musical standpoint, the movie doesn't really give you anything to sink your teeth into, instead focusing on uninteresting characters with a mediocre screenplay.

The tragedy of Niccolo Bussotti is somewhat interesting and starts the movie off on a decent note, but as the violin passes from hand to hand, the experience becomes exhausting. Because of the chronology of the film, most of the characters are transitory, so it's critical that each character's story, before they pass away from the film, adds depth and dimension to the violin and to the entire movie. But it seems as though Girard doesn't really have any goals or intentions; in fact, it seems as though he doesn't really know all that much about violins, violin-making, classical music, or history. And, in this case, he doesn't seem to know much about making good movies.

Samuel L. Jackson was all-around bad casting, bordering on the bizarre. He plays the jet-setting violin broker who deals in old Italian fiddles that typically cost no less than 50 grand and, often, many times that. Jackson handles this role as though he has just stepped off the set of "Pulp Fiction" and walked onto the set of "The Red Violin"- hot-headed, crude, impatient, and explosive, he embodies the exact opposite personality of one whose job involves dealing in fine antique instruments. How Jackson was cast for this role, I can't fathom and would prefer not to know. Perhaps Francois Girard should have thrown in a drug-crazed Dennis Hopper for good measure.

Maybe Girard was simply in over his head, trying to encompass too much material- the various elements of the violin, classical music, history, musicianship, and human nature- and create a fascinating and dramatic movie from which we will gain something. There's no real recurring theme or pattern of behavior in the various stories and characters in the film, so we're left with a bunch of boring and disconnected short-stories. Some of the ideas were well-conceived but poorly produced, for whatever reasons. You're better off with a movie like "Amadeus", which is a lively portrait of Mozart's life- it has focus and historical context. "The Art of Violin" is an adventure, an essential resource for anyone with even a passing interest in the violin, and is much more interesting than "The Red Violin".

Rating:
Summary: The Thread of a Unique Violin
Review: This movie is good, very good, but just short of great. It's unique in that the central character is a one-of-a-kind violin that bewitches its owners and causes them to rise above their talent, rise above their humanity and that can prove to be as much a curse as a blessing.

Samuel Jackson plays a stretch role for him and comes off as a very believable Violin restoration historian specialist guy (I'm sure there is a technical professional term for this sort of thing). Jackson proves he has a great deal of artistic depth and can tackle roles outside of those we usually see him playing in.

This movie tackles a whole lot of history starting with the creation of the violin in the 17th century in Italy. Its unique genesis is at the heart of the story and we follow the violin from owner to owner leading us from Italy, to Austria, to England, to China, and finally to the modern day US (whoops did I say that..United States my arse, as the good Joli Rogers pointed out to moi it was really finally to Montreal...that's in Canada you know the French part...for you Americans Canada is that country North of us where Bob and Doug McKenzie are from) as a tense auction pulls all sorts of interesting ties to the violin now up for sale.

What is lacking is more of a unity of story. I respect the uniqueness of pulling in stories within the story. The script writer and director were indeed brave and ambitious. But it plays like a series of short stories each one interesting but I wanted some connection more than what the violin could offer. This movie want appeal to those that like a faster pace but the music is more than listenable and the story will reach beyond the strictly art-set. A great music movie, but not quite Immortal Beloved or better yet Amadeus.

Rating:
Summary: THE POWER OF MUSIC...
Review: This is a superb film in which the star of the film is a violin known as "The Red Violin'. It is a story that begins in Italy in the late seventeenth century and ends in the twentieth century. The violin is crafted by an Italian violin maker for his unborn child and is a work of sheer love. The viewer sees this distinctive red violin travel in time, as it becomes an integral part of the life of a variety of owners, transcending culture, race, class, and talent. It ultimately ends up as an offering at an auction house.

The story is told in a series of intricately woven vignettes that are justaposed to the past and present in a series of well placed flash backs and flash forwards. The past is set in seventeenth century Italy, where the viewer sees what happens to a master vioin maker's beautiful pregnant wife and unborn child. The present is set in the twentieth century at a posh auction house in Montreal, Canada, where a host of characters, who have a connection to the red violin's extraordinary and mysterious past, have gathered to bid upon it.

The film is a lushly beautiful one due to its notable cinematography. The music is exquisite, its impressive soundtrack made so by the superlative playing of violinist, Joshua Bell. The acting is uniformly stellar. The vignette of nineteenth century Victorian England virtuoso, Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng), is wildly sensuous and erotic. There is even an quality of mysticism about the film, as the story in Italy begins with a fortune teller's predictions, which the violin maker's pregnant wife mistakenly thinks is about her, when in reality the fortuneteller is foretelling the future that lies in store for the red violin.

In the twentieth century, Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson) is an expert violin appraiser who has an appreciation of the now legendary red violin and covets it. While authenticating it for the auction house, he learns the secret of the distinctive red varnish that earns this instrument its sobriquet, though the viewer will, no doubt, guess its origin, long before he does. Morritz also does something that ensures that the red violin will stay with one who appreciates its value, so that the violin will have almost come full circle. In the end, all the elements come together beautifully, as the director, Francois Girard, deftly and seamlessly, weaves the violin's past with its present. There is not one discordant note in this richly complex and brilliant film. It is simply a masterpeice. Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Poetic and hypnotic
Review: This is a gem of a movie, one that often misses the radar. It was recommended to me by a friend by the statement 'Just rent it'. So I did. It's one of those movies that is difficult to explain and recommending someone to just see it is accurate and fair. To explain too much is to rob the viewer of the power of the film.

Following said 'red violin' through its history, it weaves together many tales in its path through the seeings of a tarot card reader back in the day of the violin's creator. This adds a level of mysticism to the movie that in other movies often turns it into a cliché. In this particular movie it definitely works.

Part musical feast, part mystery movie, part love story, part mystical adventure, the stories are marvelous and weave areas of our history together in a fashion rarely seen. It is a grand sweeping epic. The costumes and the settings are lush and the cast of characters are diverse and entertainingly unique.

I can not recommend this one highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and Remarkable
Review: The tale of a violin over a period of 400 years, the red violin is easily the best film I have seen in my life. From the hands of the violin maker in Italy centuries ago, to shop at an auction in the present time, the violin has affected the lives of many and touched those who played it. This movie connects human lives like none other. I highly suggest this film to anyone looking for a good viewing... it was incredible.

Rating:
Summary: WOW what a movie!!!
Review: I thought that this was an amazing movie. It makes you want to get up and live life to the fullest. I cant imagine how hard it was to film this movie, considering how many actors and sets they used. Its an amazing movie that really you cant fully describe, you would definetly have to see it. It kinda leaves you dumbfounded. I would love to know who wrote this story, because he/she is one splendid writer.

Rating:
Summary: What a find!
Review: I'd never heard of this movie but after reading the reviews (both good and bad) I was intrigued enough to see for myself. From the first few minutes, I was hooked. What an extraordinary movie! The music is beautiful and I loved seeing the story of all the previous owners of the violin. The surprise ending wasn't one because I'd already read about it here, but this movie is well worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: Great fiddling movie
Review: ...>i choose to think this is a great movie...in a nutshell, the movie is about a fiddle that went on extended travel in its 300 odd years of existence. the fiddle is picked up finally in China and auctioned off, the characters related to the history of the instrument are brought together in the same room, as they pitch money at it to express their want to recapture snatches of their own past... a past we keep toggling back and forth with as the tale unfolds.

it appears eveyone got violin lessons to play in this movie! watch the Pope solo scene... was that J. Bell in the orchestra? there was a lady next to the grey lady who must have leaped out of her seat and then jumped back in again... while Maestro Pope was playing. he ended his solo composition at least a sixth too low, but i give him A+ for pulling a full bow in the love scene. complete with... well, very obvious obstacle.

the attention to the fiddle itself was wonderful. so how come the real master fiddle makers never got a review? Charles and Peter Beare deserves lots of credit. i like how the fiddle kept up with the times as it changed and got modified, like all real old fiddles. every instrument has a tale to tell. i sincerely doubt if curly human hair would varnish anything properly. and dead people don't sprout and bleed like that. not to mention she would have been really stiff by then... a rather morbid tribute to one's wife, i would think. i can't agree with revolutionary commie kids carrying rifles. but it did happen.

if the late Jean Pierre Rampal could find the only gold Louis Lot flute ever made...in Shanghai, this long beautiful tale seem all so much more plausable... i think all fake art should be clearly labeled as such, by those who know. even some the finest artists in history have been fooled. but of course even forgery is a fine art in itself...

Rating:
Summary: Red Flag
Review: I rented this movie because I read the reviews on this website. PLEASE do not make the same mistake. This movie is so stupid and boring and pointless that I can't imagine who these reviewers are. It dragged on and on and on, as the stupid violin got passed on to more and more uninteresting characters I couldn't have cared less about. I couldn't wait for it to end. Unless you like wasting your life, do not see this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Magnolia, Wood and Strings
Review: When the credits rolled, there was a broad smile on my face. I knew that I had just experience a crafty, slick epic in the spirit of Magnolia and Winchester 73. One instrument plays into the roll's of generations, and is desired as absolute perfection.

Samuel L. Jackson, among others, give great performances. Everyone does well marveling and dreaming over the violin. The setup, a brilliant one, has a large bunch of bidders at an auction. One by one, the movie takes us through these characters to show history they have with the violin. As it went along, it was hard to decide which person I wanted to root for. But in the end, with that goofy grin on my face, the credits drumming away, I knew that no other ending would have done The Violin justice. To see a movie that has such passion about its own content is a breath of fresh air. ~s.a.o.s.~