Red violin (film, 1998)

Nowadays. Auction Duval. Violins are on sale. Lot number 72 is the last violin made by the great Niccolo Bussotti, a masterpiece of the 17th century, unlike other violins of the same master, varnished in an unusual red color.

Past. Cremona . The pregnant wife Niccolo Bussotti Anna, the old fortuneteller Ceska, talks about the future, setting out to us rather than her companion, the outline of the violin story, which the great master completes. And the birth will be difficult. And the death of the mother and child will make the master put an end to. His last violin is in the monastery, and for 100 years the best children-musicians raised in the monastery have been playing it. Until one of these children, Caspar Weiss, draws the attention of the Viennese maestro Frenchman Georges Poussin, a not-so-successful musician, music teacher and inventor of the metronome . He takes the boy with the violin to Vienna and teaches him, spending his last money and trying to introduce the prodigy of Prince Mansfeld to the court. The boy, on the other hand, is preoccupied with the violin to the point that he takes it with him to bed and is ill at the mere thought that she could be taken from him. The stage of presentation to the highest persons, during which they talk about a possible purchase of a violin, becomes the last for Caspar. His heart cannot stand it. Monks of the monastery bury the violin with a boy. The Vienna maestro will sink into obscurity, failing to become a teacher of a brilliant musician.

Road. The grave has been excavated. The coffin has not rotted yet. The violin gets to the gypsies. At weddings and in huts, at night by the fire and on the deck of the ship. Infinitely different faces, melodies. Not a word. Only music.

“Devil,” Ceska says. A violin sounds in the forest. She is played by a gypsy girl of a completely non-gypsy appearance. And the Englishman comes, stiff and domineering. Violinist Lord Frederick Pope performs in Oxford, “warming up” before performing sex with writer Victoria Byrd. The finale of their relationship is a shot that Victoria first tries to fire at Pope, then into his new mistress ... And he gets into the violin, a much more stubborn opponent.

A Chinese servant leaves for Shanghai by stealing a damaged violin. He sells it to a junkman. Then it is slightly repaired and hung on the window. And mom buys the violin to her daughter, Shan Pei.

"Court". And “Fear the heat of fire,” Ceska says. Shanghai. The years of the cultural revolution. Portraits of Mao, Marx, Lenin. Publicly condemn a middle-aged music teacher and force them to throw a "bourgeois" violin into the fire ... From under the floorboards in his apartment, Xiang Pei, a member of the party, the wife of an active member of the party, takes out the heroine of our story and secretly transfers it to the teacher for storage. Before that, the only time he played it in front of his very near-sighted young son, Min.

“Death,” Cheska says. And she’s cunning ... “But the card is turned upside down,” she says to the woman. Of course. For one of the two interlocutors, the card will certainly be turned over. Cheska makes sense. And death becomes a rebirth.

The death of a music teacher reveals his secret collection to the authorities of the People's Republic of China, and government officials decide to sell violins at a prestigious auction. Why are experts invited - Clara Leroux and Charles Moritz (Samuel Jackson). Of course, in this collection most of the violins are trash ... But the legendary violin already owns Charles’s heart in absentia. And here is their meeting.

He is not sure yet. He just peers ... And his plan is already ripening to possess this violin. To do this, he, with the help of restoration expert Evan Williams, secretly buys the only copy of the Red Violin, commissioned by Frederick Pope.

And here is Mr. Ruselsky, a dude and a snob with a distinct Russian accent. He tries to play the violin, not yet knowing how rare this violin is. Seeing only her unusualness. The scene is the thinnest. A game of emotions - and the "elephant in the china shop" Ruselsky believes the words of an expert who at this moment says about the violin "but nothing special." No, this Ruselsky is so famous and so popular that he is also asked for an autograph in the auction room. But ... "Son of a bitch!" Will still sound from his lips.

And the tech expert is shocked by the incredible, impossible sound of the Red Violin. The copy is "a good violin, but nothing compared to the original." A significant conversation is about why this violin is needed.

Charles Morritz receives the result of the analysis of a sample of varnish. And he learns that there is an admixture of blood in the varnish. The same red tint. He finds the author’s autograph in the violin. He finally makes sure that yes - this is her. His dream. The same masterpiece.

Imagination draws Charles as he mixes the blood of his dead wife Niccolo Bussotti with varnish. How does a brush out of a strand of her hair.

Charles Morritz is sitting in a hotel.

Again, the auction room. The same scene we memorized in the auction room. People sitting in the hall and somewhere far away on the phone. Representative of the Pope Foundation, myopic Chinese Ming, monks of the same monastery, expert Evan. Beginning of the auction. lot number one ...

And Charles makes up his mind ...

The pace is growing. Editing frames begin to flicker, as in a clip. The weight on the metronome of Monsieur Poussin drops lower and lower. Evan is distracting. Charles replaces the violins, drops the “72” tag on the floor and leaves. There are fewer pauses. The stakes are growing in the hall, and one by one, overwhelmed by feelings, people are losing the race. The representative of the Pope Foundation has been holding the longest. Morritz almost runs to a taxi, almost gets under the car ... And the owner of Lot 72 is Mr. Ruselsky. He still won’t hear the difference. Two million four hundred thousand dollars.

Charles Morritz goes home to his daughter. It is she who carries the gift. Something special.

Cremona

• it: Carlo Cecchi - Niccolo Bussotti
• fr: Irene Grazioli - Anna Bussotti
• Anita Lorenzi - Ceska
• Tommaso Puntelli - Master Apprentice
• Samuele Amighetti - Messenger Boy
• Aldo Brugnini - assistant master

Vienna

• Jean-Luc Bideau - Georges Poussin
• Christoph Koncz - Caspar Weiss
• Clotilde Mollet - Antoinette Poussin
• Florentín Groll - Anton von Spielmann
• Arthur Denberg - Prince Mansfeld
• de: Johannes Silberschneider - Father Richter
• Rainer Egger - Brother Christoph
• Paul Koeker - Brother Gustav
• de: Wolfgang Böck - Brother Michael
• Josef Mairginter - Brother Franz
• Johan Gotsch - Funeral Monk

Road

• Geza Hosszu-Legocky - gypsy violinist
• David Alberman - gypsy violinist
• Andrzej Matuszewiski - gypsy violinist

Oxford

• Jason Fleming - Frederick Pope
• Greta Skacca - Victoria Bird
• Eva Marie Bryer - Sarah
• Dimitri Andreas - Old Gypsy
• David Gant - Conductor
• Sai-Kit Yung - Servant (as Ong Servant)
• Joshua Bell is a cameo , one of the seated violinists in the orchestra.

Shanghai

• Sylvia Zhang Aijia - Shan Pei
• Liu Zifeng - Chow Yuan
• Hong Tao - Comrade Chang Gong
• Xio Fei Han - Min as a Child
• Tan Zengwei - guard
• Zhou Zhiqing - Senior Police Officer
• Wang Xiaoshuai - Junior Police Officer
• Qiao Zhi is an old woman
• Cao Kunqi - Deputy
• Rei Yang - Shan Pei in childhood
• Lidou - loan shark
• Zhang Kai - Speaker at the Congress

Montreal

• Samuel L. Jackson - Charles Moritz
• Colm Fiori - Lead Auction
• en: Monique Mercure - Clara Leroux
• en: Don McKellar - Evan Williams
• Ireneus Bogaevich - Ruselsky
• en: Julian Richings - Nicholas Olsberg
• Russell Yuen - Ming Adult
• Sandra O - Madame Ming
• Paula de Vasconcelos - Suzanne (on the phone)
• fr: Rémy Girard - Customs Agent
• fr: Marie-Josée Gauthier - hotel concierge
• fr: Dany Laferrière - taxi driver
• fr: Dorothée Berryman - Secretary
• en: David La Haye - Handler
• Grigory Gladiy - cloakroom worker
• Herman Meckler - Auction Registrar
• Sheena Macdonald - partner of Ruselsky

Others

• Jody Shapiro - Autograph Collector
• James Bradford - Stage Worker
• Sylvia Stewart - Guard (not tagged)

• An interesting editing technique was effectively applied in the film, which allows bringing the intensity of the emotions of the viewer, empathizing with the characters on the screen, to the highest point. Throughout the film, the viewer appears from different points of view and angles from the same auction scene. At the same time, interspersing these displays with a retrospective history of the violin, the viewer is introduced to the characters present in the hall. As a result, by the end of the film, the viewer knows by heart every detail of this scene and empathizes with almost everyone sitting in the hall. And to each - in his own way. In combination with the detective line and the mystical component, the final minutes are very saturated with action and emotions.
• The film is intended for viewing with subtitles in the language of the viewer. The editing of the film, the layout of the frame are deliberately designed for this. Throughout the film, Italian, German, French, English and Chinese are heard, the accent of the characters is actively used and the difficulties of translation are played out. The melodic drawing of the film is built in accordance with the linguistic atmosphere of eras and societies.

Rewards

• 2000 - Academy Award for Best Music ( John Corigliano )
• 1999 - 8 “Gini” awards : for the best film ( Niv Fichman ), best directing ( Francois Girard ), best script ( Francois Girard , Don McCellar ), best music ( John Corigliano ), best cinematography ( Alain Dosti ), best work production designer ( Francois Seguin ), best costumes ( Rene April ), best sound
• 2000 CFCA Award Best Original Screenplay

Nominations

• 1999 - 2 nominations for the Gini Award : for editing ( Gaetan Yuo ) and for editing sound
• 2000 - nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• 2000 - Grammy Award nomination for Best Instrumental Composition Written for Film or Television ( John Corigliano )

• Joshua Bell performs the music for this film, composed by composer John Corigliano . Corigliano later composed a violin concerto specifically for Bell on the material of this music.
• The music performed by gypsies on the screen is written on the basis of truly old gypsy melodies that can still be heard today.
• Almost all combinations of names and surnames that sound in the film are fictitious, but built from the names and surnames of famous people of the corresponding era. You can draw a lot of interesting facts, trying to find what details of which character the authors copied from real people, and why a particular surname sounds in this place at this time.

• The Red Violin on the Internet Movie Database
• Red violin on the allmovie website  

Movie Reviews

• Canadian action movie about the dangers of art Roman Volobuev 10/13/1999, Vedomosti number 27 (27)
• ... He has many faces, like a Venetian carnival. It is emphatically refined. He is the result of languid cohabitation ... by John Silver