Aug. 07, 2002 - 12:20 am
this must be another one of my "8" weeks. so many 8's. this is one of the Best Picture nominees from 1996. this film was nominated for 7 Oscars total, regardless of what the back of the box says. "Nominated for over 7 Academy Awards..." what the hell do they mean "over" 7? anyway, this finishes up one more year of 1990s nominees for me.
this film is directed by Scott Hicks who directed a couple of other films in recent years. Hearts in Atlantis (2001) which was a somewhat interesting film, and then Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) which i still haven't been able to see.
it stars Geoffrey Rush as David Helfgott in this true story/biographical film. (are we beginning to see how biographical films easily make it into the Oscars?) he's an Australian prodigy pianist who is burdened by a domineering father as a child who controls his life as well as his piano training. he eventually leaves the family, goes to England and suffers a breakdown while trying to play the most difficult piano piece ever written. the end of the film tells about his life in a sanitarium, and then eventual return to the piano and the concert hall.
i was a little freaked out that for the first hour of this film we never hear the piano prodigy, David, play the piano. what's up with that? then the entire portion where he's learning Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 is beautifully done. a good piece of trivia is that all of the shots of David's hands playing the piano in this film are actual shots of the real David Helfgott's hands playing the piano. he stood in for Geoffrey Rush for those. another weird thing is that Geoffrey Rush was nominated for Best Actor and won. he was only in about half of the movie. most of the beginning was all a flashback. weird. i thought you had to be in almost every scene to get a Best Actor nomination. i guess not. excellent film though.