MovieChat Forums > Grand Piano (2013) Discussion > Beg to differ

Beg to differ

posted 9 years ago by befuddledlogic
1 reply | jump to latest

I really beg to differ with the other poster saying how unauthentic the movie was because:
1. The piano was placed in the back pocket of the stage.
2. The conductor spoke during the 1st and 2nd movement
3. The pianist temporarily leaves during the movement.
4. That the pianist can play and txt at the same time.

1. Yes unusual but it's been done before. It allows the main character to have a dialogue with the antagonist without the audience being aware. In fact the audience notices his talking and assume he's keeping time. Visually with the beautiful backdrop it creates a stunning viewpoint.
2. The conductor indeed as he was about to speak said what he did is highly unusual. And it's been done before.
3. The audience gasped when the pianist rushed backstage, so it was unusual and shocking and added to the drama.
4. Just like texting and driving, it's a no no, but him being one of the most brilliant pianist pulls it off. But notice the showed a lot of typos, so the director recognized it's difficulty. Also notice Selznick starts playing without looking at the score, so that is realistic as well. He really didn't need the score just like any master pianist at their performance.

These point should not have lost credibility of the story. After all it's a bit Hitchcocky and campy. And we are watching a movie not a documentary.

But I really want to point out a few things that if you were any sort of music appreciator or fellow musician should have noticed:

At least close your eyes at times and listen to the piano playing. It is outstanding.

1. He plays movement 1 and 2 of Stephanos Yeranosian's piano concerto No4 called "Slave Morality". It's brilliant, technical and with hints of hungarian, russian, and Tchaikovsky. Ever heard of Stephanos Yeranosian? Yep, it's fictitious. That entire "piano concerto" was composed and played by a Spanish pianist composer Victor Reyes. I thought it was some piano concerto I wasn't familiar with but it turned out to be all made up... that's talent!

2. He composed the piece to fit the plot and drama. So when Frodo texted, the music part only required the 1 hand. When Frodo took a fast break during the movement, the composition allowed for a full minute or so without the piano. When Tom Selznick thought his wife was shot and froze, the movement composed the stop. How could one poster claiming to be a concert expert not have noticed such agile and entertaining musical composing? All this under the guise it was a famous and technical piano concerto.

3. And the final La Cinquette by Patrick Godureaux. Also, no such person or famous piece but a composition by the director himself Eugenio Mira.

4. When Elijah Wood plays, it looks pretty close to actual playing right? That's because Victor Reyes would redo his composition and change his playing to match Wood's hands during post recording and editing.

So yeah I think for classical music aficionado's, this should be an enjoyable movie to watch. In fact you almost don't want to hear John Cusack's voice because there is some brilliant piano playing going. But alas, the entire "piano concerto" is played in the end when the credits roll up so we can hear it in it's entirety. No but wait, people are complaining that the credits roll up took up an entire 12 minutes. Hey , sometimes you just can't win.

[–] charlzonder-es-maas 8 years ago

Nice of you to point all these facets out so accordingly! =)
I agree with all you've said, especially the general points of critic that you counter!

I must say though that there are still some things about the movie that disappointed me. Like the role that money got along the movie and that apparantly this key was to open some sort of safe which couldn't be breached in another way? It was somewhat vague to me exactly because this was explained in the scenes when the sniper and his accomplice had their quarrel and during that time I also wanted to follow the music and the protagonist's development. But if it was indeed so, like I read from someone somewhere else on this board, that this key was to open a safe it would be rather stupid because a key is one of the worst ways to secure a safe. I don't know much about it but with lockpicking and falsifying and all this seems pretty obvious to me.
Also this sniper had to have a great understanding of music to be able to follow if Tom would make a little mistake. So, especially when baring your essay in mind, it would have been so much more logic and worthwhile if all the objections in this movie had remained focussed on the love for music. It seems to build up like this in the beginning to but then deviates from this so this makes me think that they kind of lost track and made some bad creative choices during the development of this film.
If this sniper actually wants him to play the piece to perfection and the additional "unplayable" piece because he knew he had it in him and wanted to push him no matter what it takes out of love for the music it would have been so much more a better fitting story. I would have written it like this sniper would have also been some old but unsuccesfull student of this great dead master and later, after failing to pursue his musical ambitions but becoming a worthy locksmith, his old teacher would have come to him to store this great piece he had written or secret about music or something in his beloved piano so that only a great pianist who could play that piece and thus was worthy enough would have access to his secret legacy after his death. Then the sniper would have had a much better fitting motivation to instead of just "money" that would have round of the movie much more beautifull and fittingly. Namely that first of all he wanted to hear this beautifull piece played to perfection and wanted to push Tom because he knew he could do it and also because he wanted the beautifull piece or secret hidden in the piano to be revealed!