Music of the Heart (Miramax Collector's Series)
from Miramax
Why, you might ask, would Wes Craven direct a conventional biopic about Roberta Guaspari, a divorced mother of two who created an acclaimed music program in East Harlem's troubled school system? After all, Craven built his career on Freddy Krueger and the Scream trilogy, and you won't find razor-tipped gloves or a single drop of blood in Music of the Heart. All Craven has to do is provide a safe working environment for Meryl Streep (who earned an obligatory Oscar nomination), sublimate his deft directorial style, and surrender to the banalities of Pamela Gray's screenplay, which would've played more effectively on cable TV.
To be fair, Music of the Heart (partially inspired by the 1996 documentary Small Wonders) serves its purpose quite nicely. Streep is flawless in a non-showy role, and the story of Guaspari's celebrated violin training program provides the requisite rush of inner-city inspiration. As a fact-based companion to Mr. Holland's Opus, the film is less effective but similarly engaging; you'd have to be cold-hearted to dismiss it altogether. It's best when focusing on Guaspari's school program and the 10-year struggle to keep it alive; the drama falters when dealing half-heartedly with her tentative relationships, notably with a journalist (Aidan Quinn) who shies from commitment. And Craven? He seems content to direct by the numbers here, leaving inspiration on the screen while forfeiting his own. --Jeff Shannon
Two-time Academy Award(R)-winner Meryl Streep (1983 Best Actress, SOPHIE'S CHOICE; 1980 Best Supporting Actress, KRAMER vs. KRAMER) stars with Angela Bassett (HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK) in a heartwarming, acclaimed true story of how one woman's musical gift affected those who least expected it. A single mother with little more than talent and the determination to make a difference, Roberta Guaspari (Streep) overcame the skepticism of everyone who didn't think she should be teaching violin to students in a tough inner-city neighborhood. But even after a decade of ever-growing popularity and countless success stories, Roberta and her kids must rise to meet an even greater challenge: budget cuts aimed at shutting down her valuable program for good! Also starring Aidan Quinn (PRACTICAL MAGIC) and Grammy-winner Gloria Estefan in a stellar cast, this extraordinary story will inspire anyone who's ever thought their dreams were too far out of reach!
The Art of Violin
by Bruno Monsaingeon
from Nvc Arts
A documentary film by Bruno Monsaingeon devoted to the 20th century's greatest violinists, The Art of Violin really cannot be faulted. The same, incidentally, can also be said of the similar volumes that cover the piano and singing, so there's never been a better time to collect a personal audio-visual archive of some wonderful historical performers. The added dimension provided by the painstakingly collected film material (here featuring no fewer than 20 outstanding soloists) is of exceptional value when observing violin technique, and the diversity of approaches presented here in loving detail is in itself a subject for endless comparison. The material mixes archive performance footage, much of which one might never have dreamed existed, with interviews and documentary commentary. However, rather than turn the project into a museum piece, Monsaingeon includes contributions from contemporary figures such as Itzhak Perlman and Hilary Hahn. An absolute must. --Roger Thomas, Amazon.co.uk
From Mao to Mozart - Isaac Stern in China
by Murray Lerner
from New Video Group
Murray Lerner's Oscar-winning film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China chronicles with affection and intelligence the great violinist's 1979 visit to China. Stern had accepted the government's invitation to attend a rehearsal and give one recital but instead wound up playing a formal concert, touring two cities, and teaching many master classes due to his overwhelming love for music and even more so for the musicians he met, some as young as 10. Communicating his instructions less through the translator than his energetically gleeful gestures and plosive vocalizations, Stern offers a wealth of technical tips, bowing techniques, and motivational nuggets that all boil down to one theme: don't play the music, live it.
Not every moment is joyous; filmed shortly after the final dismantling of the Cultural Revolution, From Mao to Mozart offers a brief but harrowing portrait of Tan Shuzhen, a violinmaker imprisoned for over a year for the crime of crafting Western instruments. But after this remembrance of the past, the movie ends as it should, eyes and ears on the future, as adolescent cellist Wang Jian serenades the appreciative audience. A fascinating postscript, Musical Encounters, follows Stern's return to Beijing two decades later and catches up with Wang, now a successful recording artist, as well as others from the original film. Especially heartening is conductor Li Delun, wheeled onto the stage but still magisterial as he reteams with Stern to once again perform Mozart's Concerto in G; and through the music, two men raised a world apart who have met only twice in their lives are again made the best of friends. --Bruce Reid
In 1979, as China re-opened its doors to the West, virtuoso Isaac Stern received an unprecedented invitation from its governernment to tour the country. This extraordinary experience became the landmark, Oscar-winning documentary FROM MAO TO MOZART--a be
The Huberman Festival / Pinchas Zuckerman, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Israel Philharmonic
from Kultur Video
Conceived as a music lover's dream, the Huberman Festival brought together the world's most illustrious violinists to play together for the first and only time with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Zubin Mehta.
BACH: Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat Major, S.1051
Pinchas Zukerman, Daniel Benyamini
VIVALDI: Concerto for Four Violins and Orchestra in B Minor, Op.3, No. 10
Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, Ida Haendel, Daniel Benyamini, Ivry Gitlis.
MENDELSSOHN: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 64
Shlomo Mintz
BACH: Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra in D Minor, S.1043
Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz
VIVALDI: The Four Seasons
Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Shlomo Mintz
TCHAIKOVSKY: Concerto for Violins in D Major, Op. 35
Henryk Szeryng
VIVALDI: Concerto for Two Violins and String Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 3, No.8
Henryk Szeryng, Chaim Taub
MOZART: Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orch. in E Flat Maj. K.364
Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman
HANDEL: Passacaglia
Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman
Contains 5 Full-Length Programs on 2 DVDS
Classic Archive: Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios
from EMI Classics
Leonard Bernstein - Reaching for the Note
by Susan Lacy
from Winstar
Originally aired on PBS's American Masters series, this evocative biography of the American composer, conductor, and de facto musical evangelist Leonard Bernstein offers a compelling balance of musical scholarship and personal insight. It's a fitting approach to the brilliant--and emotional--life and art of Bernstein, who elevated Broadway musical theater, demystified and democratized classical music for two generations of American children, and brought a true New Yorker's vigor and directness to his conducting.
Writer-director Susan Lacy establishes the film's sympathetic tone in its opening shots of Bernstein's funeral cortege as it passed along Manhattan streets in 1990. Underscoring the footage is the elegiac second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, the final piece conducted by Bernstein at his final performance months earlier at Tanglewood. Scenes from that last concert (and a return to that slow, funereal march) are the inevitable conclusion of Lacy's film, which finds ample drama over the course of approximately two hours.
Lacy traces the arc of Bernstein's career from his earliest triumphs as a young conductor through his Broadway successes (culminating in West Side Story), his historic network television outreach, the frustrations encountered over his "serious" compositions (often derided, ultimately vindicated), and his autumnal work abroad conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Bernstein's private demons--anguish over the tradeoff between a conductor's glory and a composer's productivity, the ridicule invited by his impassioned political activism, the conflict between his devotion to his family and his bisexuality, bouts of depression suffered in his later years--are addressed as well.
Excellent archival footage and a literate script are enhanced by interviews with his brother and children; collaborators including Jerome Robbins, Isaac Stern, and Stephen Sondheim; and conductors including John Mauceri, Seiji Ozawa, and Michael Tilson Thomas. --Sam Sutherland
Isaac Stern: Life's Virtuoso
by Karen Thomas
from Winstar
This American Masters production celebrating Isaac Stern is more a profile of the man than the musician. Fans hoping to hear Stern performing will have to settle for the briefest snippets of fiddling: a bar or two from Mendelssohn, a fragment of Rimsky-Korsakov, a taste of Beethoven. Though each of these begins enticingly, they all quickly fade into the background, little more than aural wallpaper behind the comments and testimonials from such notables as Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, and Itzhak Perlman--as well as some less-expected commentators such as Gregory Peck and Jimmy Connors. But the portrait that all give of this marvelous octogenarian is almost as dazzling and multifaceted as hearing him play. After all, master violinist is only one of the hats Stern can wear with aplomb. There's also the flashy celebrity who provided the music for Hollywood films like Fiddler on the Roof and Humoresque and who could share the stage as easily with Jack Benny as Eugene Ormandy; the musical emissary who sought to bridge cold war divides with music, touring the Soviet Union and communist China as soon as he was allowed (as recorded in the 1980 documentary From Mao to Mozart); the beloved teacher, demanding but genuinely respectful toward young performers; even the hard-driving fundraiser who kept Carnegie Hall from being torn down.
Through it all, Stern has carried himself with a no-nonsense humility, born of his profound love of humanity and devotion to his craft that is never less than inspiring. Footage (again, far from enough!) of Stern performing in Israel during the Gulf War, ignoring the whine of the air-raid sirens and the anxious surreality of an audience decked out in their gas masks, rapturous as he unfolds the serene music of Bach, raises the inspirational to the magnificent. --Bruce Reid
Carnegie Hall at 100: A Place of Dreams
by Peter Rosen
from Kultur Video
JFK: The Day the Nation Cried
by Bruce Halford
from View Video
This 1988 documentary narrated by actor James Earl Jones provides a generally admiring overview of the Kennedy years coupled with a touching look at how a shocked nation reacted to the death of JFK. Notables including former President Gerald Ford, former Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, violinist Isaac Stern, and historian and Kennedy confidante Arthur Schlesinger Jr. reminisce about Kennedy, remembering how he inspired them and how his death touched them deeply. Home movies of the Kennedy family provide some biographical color. Rarely seen breaking news coverage aired only on a local Dallas station and interviews with witnesses to the assassination, including home movie buff Abraham Zapruder (who had just taken his famed film of Kennedy's motorcade), show the immediate reaction to the tragedy. This documentary is competently assembled, and while it doesn't provide any particularly surprising insights, it does offer a reasonably balanced look at Kennedy's achievements and lasting legacy. --Robert J. McNamara
WINNER OF... American Video Conference/Billboard Magazine
National Education Film & Video Festival
International Film & TV Festival of NY
VSDA "Homer" Award Finalist
"...this is by far the most comprehensive and the most effective... program made that profiles the late President." BILLBOARD
Hosted by James Earl Jones, this moving documentary looks back on the remarkable life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and combines the tragedy of his untimely death with the remembrances of those who knew him best, and those who didn't know him at all.
This critically acclaimed DVD presentation reviews the brief life of JFK. His triumphs. His failures. His inspiration and contribution to our history. The story is told through previously unseen and rare video and home movies, and by many people who were there, ordinary people.
The story is built around the exclusive historic videotape from WFAA, the Dallas station whose studios are located so near the infamous "grassy knoll" where the President was shot. We see the events as they happened, from JFK's arrival in Dallas to his funeral in Washington four days later.
Woven throughout historic footage are the recollections of Gerald Ford, Tip O'Neil, Peter, Paul and Mary, Isaac Stern, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ted Kennedy and others. All remembering a man who had touched them. This DVD preserves the memory of his youth, his career and that infamous day in history.
DVD BONUS FEATURES:
Bonus Archival Footage from 21 Speeches and Press Conferences
Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Digitally Mastered Audio & Video
Multi-Directional Interactive Menus
Instant Access to All Chapters
Over 50 Scene Selections
Narration by James Earl Jones
JFK Biography
JFK & Lincoln Historical Coincidences
Bonus Music Selections
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