Last night we watched the Boychoir starring Dustin Hoffman. As musicians it was so terribly clear that most everything was wrong! As often in Hollywood films they don't seem to make as much an effort to understand music as they do to have the correct decors, regional accents etc. Dustin Hoffman doesn't seem to even be able to keep time in the Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah! Scenes that make the choir director (Dustin Hoffman) seem more like a football coach than a musician! Who would talk incessantly while rehearsing? Also with complicated polyphonic music such as the Tallis it would be very very RARE that the choir director conducts with NO SCORE! On top of this how corny to think the absolute summit of choral victory is the Messiah by Handel? This is the best in choir music? So sad that the US is so far behind in classical music compared to Europe. The final concert shows once again Hollywood's totally illiterate in classical music. Two arias end on the dominant, this is in terms of cinema cutting the film of brutally just before the solution to the plot! In our modern world of 2015 we have made such perfections in images, sound etc but we are at a kindergarten level in music. Too bad that Plato's ideal of society where music has an equal level with the rest of education has been so terribly missed by most Hollywood producers. Shame on you! Next time you make a movie about a boy's choir maybe you should study one or two before writing your script.
Review of Boychoir
