Review CXXXVII - Grand Piano

Review 137
Grand Piano (2013)

Hey everyone! I'm sorry for my absence - it's been kind of a wild ride around here. I also haven't really sat down to watch any films, and then I re-watched Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear. I really wanted to review it, but my heart wasn't there. Sometimes I'm down to do a huge-ass review of the thing and look into it and analyse it, but it just means way too much time out of my day. So instead I opted to review Eugenio Mira's Grand Piano starring Elijah Wood, John Cusack, and Kerry Bishé. My sister's boyfriend brought up this film probably a year or two ago - I almost thought it was 2015 for a second, shit - and kept asking if I had watched it. I studied piano for years and, while I am no where close to being a concert pianist, I'm still kind of knowledgeable on the subject a bit. Anyway, I finally sat down to watch it last night after needing a film to play in the background as I prepped a card for my boyfriend. So onward!

Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood) is a well-renowned concert pianist who, five years prior, had screwed up a performance, leaving him with terrible stage fright. Deciding to break from his spell with the encouragement of his famous wife, Emma (Kerry Bishé), he returns to play on the piano of his great teacher, Patrick Godureaux, as a homage to his life after his recent passing. However, his usual stage fright is taken to a whole new level when a mysterious man threatens to kill his wife if he plays one wrong note.

So, yeah, it was cool. I thought it was a fun film. I think it goes without saying that the hand postures were a bit... strained in my opinion at times, but honestly, I was paying half a mind to it, so I think I missed a lot of the times where I got shots of Tom playing the piano. Of course there's the single one I knew from the trailer, but whatever, man - the point of the film was not the technical details of the playing of the piano. Just like in films, gun action is never accurate, but you don't pay mind to it, unless the film was about guns. In which case, maybe you might be upset. But there was some shit that bothered me if only because it was flat-out no. Number ONE - concert pianists don't use sheet music. I mean, maybe it happens on occasion, but seriously, this is not common. You're told of the performance and you memorise that shit, man. Even I memorised my piece for the last piano concert I did, and half the audience was under five (this was last year, so I was not under five, sniff). I know this was literally for the sake of the plot, but it was so bullshit. When he walked to the piano and the guy stops him and he's like, "You almost forgot your partitions!" I was more baffled that Tom even needed them than he'd forget them. Apparently the director studied piano, so this is a big no-no. I would have tried to implement the threats in another manner than the sheet music because seriously. That was too bullshit. Fake the piano playing, cool, but not the sheet music! Here, check this video of Marc-André Hamelin, a well-known and super famous pianist, playing an all Liszt concert. Liszt has some pretty technically difficult pieces, and do I see any sheet music? No. Here's Yundi Li playing at a famous competition at eighteen years old (skipped to my favourite part). Any sheet music? No, and here he was making a name for himself. Just...

Now, again, you practice like crazy before the concert to memorise that piano piece, yet Tom does a three-sixty when the killa asks him to change the final piece. First, the orchestra's like, "Yeah, cool, man, no problem." And Tom just memorised the piece once he realises he doesn't have the sheet music. So you can't play the freakin' piece you're playing for the concert and you need the sheet music, but the most difficult piece in the world - which you haven't played in years and is, again, the most difficult piece - no worries, that one is down. I think I remember the killa saying the thing is fast and technical and les accords plaqués are huge or something, but anyway, you really take away from the difficulty of the piece if Tom just has it memorised. I know he played that concert five years ago, but five years is a long time! I'm not saying Tom wouldn't remember anything, and I'm sure there's a theoretical aspect to the piece where he might be like, "Yeah, man, it follows the cycle des quintes," but BULLSHIT. This guy is also not at all distracted by the fact people might die around him and performs extraordinarily well, but you know, whatever, it'll help him remember. You would still need to practice it. And the orchestra - Jesus, are you kidding me? If you were willing to believe that Tom somehow knew the whole thing, then how does the orchestra know their bit down one hundred percent? And honestly, that conductor - the most jokester one I've ever heard, but it's okay, I liked it. Still, seems off to me.

I know I'm butchering this shit, but honestly, I couldn't review this film without mentioning anything. I mean, I understand it was necessary for plot, but I need realism here! And I guess I have one other point to mention - the killa's like, "You play other people's music. You're so unimaginative!" I know this isn't supposed to be taken as a literal argument, but this isn't a Beatles cover band, man. If we didn't have concert pianists and musicians to record this stuff, we'd never get to hear the beautiful works of Ravel, of Vivaldi, of Messiaen (oh, Messiaen and Pierre-Laurent Aimard). We could never go out and enjoy concerts of lovely (and not so lovely) pianists interpreting wonderful music. And let me tell you that pianists - and musicians in general - never take a piece and spew out something exactly like everyone else. Compare Gould's performance of Sonata No. 3, Op. 58, fourth movement from Chopin and Blechacz's performance. Different, isn't it? I took polar opposites here since Gould is always Bach-ing things up, but even if that is too subtle for you, listen to Led Zeppelin's live performance of Stairway to Heaven and then Frank Zappa doing a cover. Damn, son, kind of different, eh? Now, the point of grand pianists is to stay true to the original musician, but if the piece was written five hundred years ago, there is room for some interpretation. So don't listen to this locksmith talking shit. I'm guessing no one else particularly cared about this, but whatever, I still wanted to make a point.

Now, in the end, if you look at face value, the film does make a great point that, in my experience as an amateur pianist, the audience doesn't hear when you make mistakes. You can't play a piece perfectly - if you get it down technically, you could be missing soul. If you add soul, you maybe miss out on a note or a proper pause. But in the end, the little errors mean nothing to the audience. Granted, if I was in the audience and I knew the piece and the last note was a mistake, that would probably be different, but otherwise, you're there to play the music and enjoy it, not worry about making mistakes. The audience is mostly made up of noobs who enjoy the music, not teachers hounding down on you for screwing up somewhere. So that message really was great for pianists and musicians alike, I'm sure. Slight spoilers but honestly, the whole time I was wondering, "Couldn't he just play the last four bars slow...?" What if it wasn't exactly exact given everyone has a different interpretation of playing a piece? But whatever, I think I thought about this film too much.

Grand Piano was pretty flawed in its technical aspects, but it was still an interesting thriller. And I was dying, i.e. laughing, when I found out who the killa was (I literally knew nothing going in). To be honest, the voice was pretty nice - the deepness was just right, especially with the noise of the microphone, and the threatening speech just enhanced the beauty. I don't think I'll ever look at the actor the same ever again... Sigh.