Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Produced byPeter Raymont
Michèle Hozer
CinematographyWalter Corbett
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
Directed byPeter Raymont
Michèle Hozer
Produced byPeter Raymont
Michèle Hozer
StarringCornelia Foss
Glenn Gould
CinematographyWalter Corbett
Edited byMichèle Hozer
Production
company
White Pine Pictures
Distributed byLorber Films
Release date
  • September 13, 2009 (2009-09-13) (TIFF)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Peter Raymont and Michèle Hozer and released in 2009.[1] The film is a portrait of Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould, centred in part on his romantic relationship with artist Cornelia Foss.[2]

The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival,[3] and was screened at the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival,[4] before going into commercial release in December 2009.[1]

In 2010 the film was broadcast on Bravo in Canada as a standalone documentary special,[5] and on PBS in the United States as an episode of American Masters.[6]

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85 per cent based on 39 reviews.[7] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[8]

Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail wrote that "though the film serves as a competent introduction to Gould, it is unlikely to reveal much to anyone familiar with his reputation. There's little insight into what exactly distinguished him from other pianists: his technical clarity, his habit of altering tempo, his concept of "ecstasy." In short, everything that made him exceptional is barely touched on. At best, the film offers Gould as a charismatic figure - attractive, humorous, well-spoken and iconoclastic - and the highlights are archival footage of him as a young trailblazer, arriving at Columbia Records in New York, where he soon became a sensation."[1]

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote that "Gould remains something of a riddle wrapped in an enigma. But it's the questions that hang in the air, and not the biographical details that the film lays out, that make it so hard to take your eyes -- and your ears -- off him".[9]

A.O. Scott of The New York Times said that "A tour de force of archival research and dogged interviewing, and the portrait it presents is remarkably complete".[10]

Awards

References

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI