The film, which has already made friends for itself — and for Bernstein – at Toronto and Telluride, is an other-than-average musical biography. On one hand, it’s unique in taking as its subject a relatively obscure figure, who is now in his mid 80s and stopped performing publicly at age 50. It also manages to capture Bernstein’s special magic as a teacher, musical educator and musical thinker. And it’s about ideas, among them the proposition that fulfillment as a musician means fulfillment as a person.
According to both subject and director – Hawke showed up late, and joined what was already a charming conversation between Bernstein and Jones — the movie was really an extension of the two men’s dinner conversation, which had focused on their shared battles with stage fright, its causes and some legendary cases: One violinist, Bernstein recalled, who was so afraid of dropping his bow that one night he dropped it on purpose and cured his phobia. Or Hawke, who said his particular fear was that he’d stop talking: One night on stage he simply did stop talking, and screamed. The audience thought it was part of the act.
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