I'm a professional violinist and I was horrified at this film which portrayed musicians who had supposedly been playing together 25 years, acting like adolescents with no self control, and having spats about power struggles that literally could have not have any basis in reality. Of course classical musicians are human and have flaws and failings but to portray a world class quartet member as having so little self control and anger management and consequently risking damaging instruments, or leaving his instrument behind and having no memory of that 12 hours later was a chilling misrepresentation of the sensibilities of our fine profession. We often have to take out a 2nd mortgage to buy a decent instrument and they are almost attached to our hips! The annotated score looked like an 8 year old's markings, the scene at Sotheby's where a mere $25,000 paid for a violin made me wonder what planet they are living on,and one of the final comments about the violist wondering about which string to cross, made me realize that no musician can have read the script. By the way, musicians rarely tune in between movements and a professional would never start a concert knowing that there was a possibility that they weren't able to finish it, and the final scene where a substitute musician is waiting in the wings is absurd.
Review of A Late Quartet
