The Stories about Music Films: 35. The Piano (1993)

 

Basic Info

Title: The Piano

Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Country: New Zealand, Australia, France

Language: English

Running time: 117 minutes

Release date: 15 May 1993 (Cannes), 19 May 1993 (France), 5 August 1993 (Australia)

Staff

Director: Jane Campion

Producer: Jan Chapman

Written by: Jane Campion

Music: Michael Nyman

Cinematography: Stuart Dryburgh

Edited by: Veronika Jenet

Cast

Holly Hunter as Ada McGrath

Harvey Keitel as George Baines

Sam Neill as Alisdair Stewart

Anna Paquin as Flora McGrath

Kerry Walker as Aunt Morag

Genevieve Lemon as Nessie

Summary

"The Piano" is a 1993 drama film written and directed by Jane Campion, starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin. 

This film is based on the novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, by Jane Mander. Set in the mid-19th century, the film focuses on a psychologically mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote area of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a frontiersman.

The film was highly acclaimed and a commercial success, and Hunter and Paquin received high praise for their performances. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and director Jane Campion became the first and only female director to ever receive the award. In addition, at the 1994 Academy Awards, it won three awards among eight total nominations. 

At the time, Paquin was 11 years old and remains the second youngest actor to win an Oscar in competitive category.

Movie Review

“Amazing Film Making”

“A sensual and surprising film”

“The music of the heart”

“An original and extraordinary film”

Interesting stories about the film

1. Holly Hunter learned to play the piano when she was nine years old and played most of the piano sequences herself in this film.

2. Holly Hunter won fourteen awards among the fifteen nominations for her role in this film.

3. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain saw this movie with a few friends one day before he committed suicide, so it is very likely it’s the last movie he has seen during his life.

4. This film was included in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

5. The theme tune for the film is called "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" on the soundtrack album.

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The Works by Amedeo Modigliani: 74. Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz (1916)

 

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Modigliani Institute Korea (MIK) is currently introducing artworks of Amedeo Modigliani one by one every week.

The 74th work to introduce for this week is “Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz” in 1916.

This work is an expressionist style portrait and an oil painting on a canvas with the size of 81.3 x 54.3 cm, and possessed by the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.

Art Institute of Chicago

This is a double portrait depicting Modigliani's friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz and his wife Berthe Kitrosser, a Russian poet, and one of only two double portraits by Modigliani. This work depicts a nicely dressed Lipchitz standing, with one hand on the shoulder of his wife, Berthe, in their Paris apartment, formerly the home of the sculptor Constantin Brâncuși. 

The Kiss, Constantin Brâncuși (1907-08)

An example of works showing the genius Modigliani's talent, expressing the character and personality of the model through paintings, both models in the work have mask-like faces, but the difference in personality of each model is excellently and delicately displayed in the painting. 

First of all, Berthe, who has eyes tilting downward, has an open, kind and gentle face. On the other hand, Jacques, who has small and compressed eyes featuring sloping inward, appears calculating and suspicious, and his eyes also clearly reflect the influence of Cubism.

Modigliani and Lipchitz were artists of Jewish descent, and in Paris they met in the same artistic circles and became close friends. However, despite their commonalities, the two had distinct differences. Lipchitz was an example of industrious artists, while Modigliani was an example of bohemian artists.

In 1916, Lipchitz, who married Berthe at the time and signed a contract with the art dealer Leonce Rosenberg and had some money, asked Modigliani to paint a portrait of him and his wife.

Jacques Lipchitz

In response to Lipchitz's request for painting, Modigliani replied, "My price is ten francs a sitting and a little alcohol."

Modigliani came to his home the next day and made a lot of preliminary drawings with tremendous speed and precision, after which the pose inspired by their wedding photo was decided. The next day Modigliani came with an old canvas and his painting material box and began painting. He sat in front of the canvas on a chair, drew quietly, stopped painting occasionally, took a gulp of alcohol nearby, and continued painting again. At the end of the day, he said, "Well, I guess it's finished."

Then Lipchitz, who wanted to pay as much as possible to his friend Modigliani, was uncomfortable to give Modigliani merely 10 francs for this painting, and made excuses for him to continue working on the portrait, which finally took almost two weeks to complete this portrait.

Currently, among the many preliminary drawings by Modigliani that were drawn for this work, there are five surviving: two of Lipchitz, two of Berthe, and one of them together.

Study for "Berthe Lipchitz" for
"Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz"

Study for "Jacques Lipchitz" for
"Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz"

Along with this work, there is other double portrait that Modigliani painted, “Bride and Groom (1915)”. 

Bride and Groom, Amedeo Modigliani
(1915)

Comparing the two works, Modigliani expressed the model like character puppets in the "Bride and Groom", while in the portrait of Jacques Lipchitz and his wife, he transformed character puppets-like model into human beings. In other words, this difference in the two works means that Modigliani's view for the model has evolved from a purely formal depiction to an individual characterization.

Lipchitz was also the person who created his death mask, after Modigliani's death in 1920.

Death mask of Modigliani, Jacques Lipchitz
(1920)

 

The work was purchased by Frederick C. and Helen Birch Bartlett in Chicago in 1922 and then donated to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1926 as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection.

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK: 56. El Greco, ACJ Art Academy

 

Born: 1 October 1541; Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Died: 7 April 1614; Toledo, Spain

Nationality: Spanish, Greek

Art Movement: Mannerism (Late Renaissance)

Field: painting, sculpture, architecture

Influenced by: Tintoretto, Titian

Influenced on: Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Franz Marc

Teachers: Titian

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, best known as El Greco, was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, who was born on October 1, 1541 and died on April 7, 1614. 

Byzantine chapel at Fodele, Crete, Greece, where El Greco
was born

His nickname "El Greco" denotes his Greek origin, and he normally signed his paintings with his birth name in Greek letters, “Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος”, and often added “Κρής Krēs”, meaning Cretan, to his signature.

El Greco was born in the Kingdom of Candia (now Crete), which was then part of the Republic of Venice and the center of Post-Byzantine art. 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Byzantine icon
of 13th or 14th century

He moved to Rome in 1570, where he opened a workshop and created a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance, influenced by a number of great artists of the time, especially Tintoretto. 

Tintoretto

In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life and he commissioned and completed several important works that became his most famous paintings.

El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style of paintings was embarrassing to his contemporaries, but in the 20th century they were appreciated. 

While he is regarded as a pioneer of Expressionism and Cubism, his personality and works have been a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. 

Rainer Maria Rilke

Nikos Kazantzakis

He is most famous for his unusually elongated figures and fantastic pigmentation based on Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting.

Famous Works (El Greco)

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