"32 Short Films About Glenn Gould" gets my vote for the year's Best Movie, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and as my friend David said, "Best thing since sliced bread." Glenn Gould was a Canadian concert pianist. When he was thirty-two he announced he would no longer perform live concerts. Instead he would record and broadcast only, as he saw the performance hall as an elitist and obsolete means of presenting music. He was the first noted classical performer to abandon formal performance attire, something radical at the time, opting for a business suit rather the traditional black tie and tails. But his ideas extended beyond performance sites and attire to the very nature of art, challenging the hierarchical distinction between "artist" and "audience." He wanted creative listening as well as creative performing. And like many geniuses he was full of peculiarities and paradoxes.
He would usually grant interviews only over the phone, and as Yehudi Menuhin said, created his own life and led it to the exclusion of the rest of the world, doing nothing but applying himself to his physical and intellectual work. He was a perfectionist in his recording and his music, yet would hum as he played and record with little regard for things like a squeaky chair or pianos with noisy works. He was a man who cherished solitude, but would talk for hours on the phone and is remembered as a kind and compassionate man. He disdained violence and competition. As a child he serenaded cows in a pasture; upon his death he left half his estate to the SPCA, the other half to the Salvation Army.
One of the many things this movie does well is to integrate actors portraying people, incidents and possibilities with real people speaking their own thoughts. A piano tuner, a chambermaid, an agent, cousin Jessie Norman and others talk about Glenn Gould. In one segment we see the depiction of the final moments before his last concert. Immediately following, Yehudi Menuhin speaks insightfully about Gould's reasoning behind discontinuing public concerts and elaborates on Gould's mindset. Menuhin's appearance makes the previous dramatization seem as real as cinema verité.
A Sociologist recalled being interviewed on the Canadian radio system by Glenn Gould. "It was a very penetrating interview, the most intelligent questions I think I've heard about the North, from experts, laymen, or anything else ... questions that required rather long answers and as I would start to speak or make a point, he would register his feelings not by voice, but by a smile ... All the time he was using his hands and conducting. And this was perhaps slightly off-putting when you're trying to think deep thoughts, because I had no idea what this was all about. He was continuously waving his hands, sort of as if to bring up this idea or so on ... I was his orchestra for that hour." And throughout the "32 Films", we see that conducting the sound in his world is no affectation, but an indication of how deeply attentive Gould's perceptions and musical sensibilities run.
In "Truck Stop" we witness Glenn Gould listening in on ambient conversations at the diner, subtly and almost surreptitiously moving a forefinger in concert with a conversation as it swells, subsides and blends with the other conversations and sounds throughout the highway restaurant. Such is just one example of the film's subtle yet magnificently effective structure, linking several of the "short films," in this case by displaying Glenn Gould's compulsion to conduct sound, whether while listening to an interviewee, a Beethoven sonata, or to the conversations at a truck stop.
Glenn Gould seemed to focus on sound as intently as a Zen monk would attend to his breath during meditating. As a child he listened voraciously to the radio. As an adult he played the radio even while he slept; in fact he could not sleep without the radio turned on. He was always listening. We know that sound conveyed extra meaning to Glenn Gould. After watching this movie it seems to me that he heard so much, he was compelled to organize it into music at least in part because he could not ignore it. He seemed to hear no sound in isolation. I have to believe he could hear no silence.
One of Gould's driving passions was solitude. He considered it to be a necessary element in the human equation and an important condition for nurturing the creative process. He linked the idea of solitude with the far North and explored it in an innovative radio format, a sound documentary, called, "The Idea of North." In the movie, the short film "The Idea of North" immediately follows "Truck Stop," showing us some of the inspirational link to the radio production. As in "Truck Stop," we first hear a single voice talking, which is then joined by other voices that mingle and intertwine as musically as a string quintet of voices.
This movie may not change your life, but it made me more elated and optimistic about the world than any movie I can remember. It woke up some of my curiosities and gave me a renewed shot of vitality. It made me think about how a person can use his capabilities and ingenuity to a creative purpose and how much better we all are for it. It reminded me that solitude need not be dark and lonely but can be fodder for the joy of creative imagination; that we need not have the artistic genius of a Glenn Gould to justify our efforts, nor a Bach cantata every Sunday morning to hear music. We have our own eyes and ears to use and our own curiosity to explore. Many drops make an ocean, and as Shakespeare said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity."
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