Once upon a “Quartet”

Casa Verdi in Milan (Photo: International Giuseppe Verdi Foundation)

We associate Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi with many magnificent works from “Aida” to “Rigoletto” — but few know that Verdi considered the 1896 founding of a home for elderly singers in Milan one of his greatest achievements.

Movie that inspired the play “Quartet”

Casa di Riposo per Musicisti was established by Verdi to shelter “elderly singers who have not been favoured by fortune, or who, when they were young, did not have the virtue of saving their money.”

Since opening in 1902, it’s housed more than 1,000 retiring artists and musicians.

Swiss filmmaker Daniel Schmid made a documentary about what’s since become known as “Casa Verdi” — the 1984 film “Tosca’s Kiss,” which inspired Dustin Hoffman’s involvement in the 2012 film that marks his directorial debut.

“Quartet” leapt from stage to screen thanks to Ronald Harwood, playwright for a 1999 play titled “Quartet” plus screenwriter for the film.

You’ll find intriguing differences between play and screenplay

I read the play before seeing the film, and found Harwood’s original ending profoundly shocking. The film’s ending feels infinitely more vague and allows for a softer sort of landing.

“Quartet” stars Maggie Smith (Jean Horton), Tom Courtenay (Reginald Paget), Pauline Collins (Cecily Robson), Billy Connolly (Wilfred Bond) and Michael Gambon (Cedric Livingston) — which is a majestic marrying of true equals.

They’re residents of a place called Beecham House, set on sprawling pristine grounds and decorated with all the elegance you’d expect in the lap of opera-laden luxury.

One’s ever the diva, another the perpetual tease. Two were once wed, and one dances with the dementia friends meet with tenderness and humor.

Hoffman, a veteran actor recently awarded the Kennedy Center Honor, was attracted by the film’s broader themes and optimism about old age, describing “Quartet” as a film about folks in the “third act” of life who’ve still got plenty to give. Hence the childhood photos of cast members included with the film’s closing credits.

“Quartet” is a lovely take on aging and art

The “Talk Cinema” series at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts was practically packed during December’s “Quartet” screening, where I moderated a post-show discussion exploring not only issues of aging, but also the film’s homage to opera and take on the very nature of art.

Harlan Jacobson, the NYC film critic who heads the “Talk Cinema” enterprise, shared audience comments on “Quartet” while in Scottsdale to moderate January’s screening of “On the Road” — noting that most folks described “Quartet” as an “excellent” film they’d recommend to friends.

I remember being struck during “Quartet” by the strength of each performance, the subtle humor that elicited a near-steady stream of gentle laughter from the audience, and photography that juxtaposes nature with the people who sometimes forget their place in it.

My favorite shots pay homage to a lovely grand piano, show the diminutive status of two aging men standing under a towering tree that’ll continue to grow long after the men make their way back to the earth, and capture the shared joy of an aging opera singer with a group of young students rapt by rap.

The soundtrack makes for a nice sampling of opera fare

Folks who favor the soundtrack — which features works composed by Verdi, Schubert, Gilbert and Sullivan, Bach, Hayden, Rossini, Puccini and others — can find it on Decca Records (which is also home to soundtracks for “A Late Quartet” and “Anna Karenina,” plus music from Alfie Boe of “Les Mis” fame).

“Quartet” is rated PG-13 and runs 97 minutes. Click here for information on upcoming “Talk Cinema” screenings at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, and here for news of Arizona Opera’s upcoming performance of “Tosca.”

— Lynn

Note: “Quartet” is produced by Finola Dwyer and Stewart Mackinnon. Cinematography is by John de Borman and editing by Barney Pilling, Production design in by Andrew McAlpine, music by Dario Marianelli and costumes by Odile Dicks-Mireaux.

Coming up: Oscar nods & nixes, Once upon a “Tosca”

Declaration of War

I’m beginning to understand the logic behind heading to “Talk Cinema” films at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts without knowing what they are. “Talk Cinema” is a monthly film screening featuring works selected by New York film critic Harlan Jacobson, and many of its subsribers choose to attend each month not knowing his selection.

But I always peek first, just like I did when Christmas presents called my name from under the tree as a very young child. The venue posts a link with information on the film just days before it’s screened, for those of us who like to look. I expected to watch a war film after seeing that the January selection was titled “Declaration of War,” and I did.

But “Declaration of War” doesn’t recount a battle of countries or ideas. Instead, it’s the tale of two French parents tackling their young son’s brain tumor. I wasn’t feeling particularly perky Tuesday night before heading out to the screening, and expecting to be hit with a depressing flick made it harder to get up and go. But something in the movie’s poster signaled it might be more joyous than morose.

And I was curious, having seen one of our own children battle cancer, about how another family’s struggle might look different from our own. Many in the audience spoke after the film of feeling incredibly sad while viewing it, but I felt quite the opposite — because the boy expected to die before he could start school instead becomes a cancer survivor. And despite the family’s tragedy, their lives are filled with simple joys that others facing less trying times often have a hard time mustering.

“Declaration of War” was written by Valerie Donzelli and Jeremie Elkaim, the parents at the heart of the film, and directed by Donzelli. Both were working actors in France prior to creating and starring in this film, which premiered during critics week at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was submitted by France for the foreign-language film Oscar. Donzelli was also writer, actor and director for a 2009 film called “The Queen of Hearts.”

Their characters in “Declaration of War” are young parents named Romeo and Juliette. As the film opens, we hear two oddly similar  but jarring sounds — the beat of club music and the drumming sound of an MRI machine in action. Their time with one quickly shifts to time with the other, hasted cinematically by quick, rough shots using a Canon 5D camera and pulsating music that drives them quickly from the diaper stage to diagnosis — from feeling inept within the walls of their home to being empowered inside hospital corridors.

In the film, infant son Adam (César Desseix) seems perfectly normal at birth. Once home, he cries nearly non-stop — something parents and professionals chalk up to being overfed or getting new teeth until other problems emerge. The 18-month old can’t balance to walk and begins vomiting for no apparent reason. Eventually a doctor spots something suspicious, and orders the test that launches the couple’s journey into childrearing and cancer.

Our first look at Adam comes quite early in the film, when he’s eight years old and played by the couple’s own son, Gabriel Elkaim. Jacobson says it frees the viewer to follow the film’s sometimes wild ride rather than fretting throughout about the boy’s possible death. Gabriel survives cancer but the couple’s romantic relationship, conveyed in the film by singing to and with one another, does not — though they continue to parent and work together.

Jacobson shared his film expertise during a talk-back session after the screening, noting that box office sales in France rose last year as box office sales in the U.S. sagged. Despite higher ticket sales, he says, our box office revenues fell by 12%. 

Apparently Americans don’t have much appetite for foreign films. “If you like  foreign films,” quiped Jacobson, “you’re part of the one percent.” About 1/3 of foreign film revenues in the U.S. are earned in New York City, he says. Hence my daughter’s delight in seeing movies in Manhattan weeks before they open in Arizona.

The current “Talk Cinema” series at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts includes four more screenings — on Feb. 7, March 20, April 17 and May 8. Tickets for students (with current student I.D.) are just $10. There’s no popcorn, and the crowd is remarkably quiet, making for a lovely low-cal evening enjoyed alone or with friends.

— Lynn

Note: Click here to learn about a Scottsdale-based organization called Students Supporting Brain Tumor Research, which presents their 2012 Phoenix/Scottsdale walk-a-thon on Sun, Feb. 12.

Coming up: Celebrating MLK the arts & culture way

Playing favorites?

Works by Nicholas Bernard previously exhibited at the Scottsdale Art Festival

My virtual in-box gets plenty of “vote for me” messages, which I rarely run with because I hate to play favorites. I didn’t push the potty at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts when it was nominated for a top bathroom prize a while back, and still feel wracked with guilt each time I think about those other people taking the prettiest potty prize.

Hence I’m passing along the latest plea from my friends over at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts — who hope we’ll all vote in the “2012 Top 10 Fairs and Festivals” contest now underday on the “AmericanStyle Magazine” website.

Votes are being accepted at americanstylemagazine.com, and those who vote are entered to win a cool cash prize. I’m told that Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts has placed in the top ten each year the magazine has held this competition, often making the top five — and securing the top slot in 2005. Last year it was rated #2.

Gerber Daisy Brooch by Michele Friedman

The center’s “Scottsdale Arts Festival” is one of three Arizona nominees, along with the “Celebration of Fine Art” in Scottsdale and the “Sedona Arts Festival.”

Happily, the magazine’s lovely ballot lets you choose up to three fairs and festivals, so the faint of heart needn’t pit one Arizona festival against another.

I was miffed about the lack of Shakespeare festivals in the pack before discovering that all the nominees are art fairs and festivals. So glad the lightbulb went on before I whipped out all my magnificent Shakespearean insults.

If you’ve never seen the beautiful bathrooms at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, this is a good week to take the plunge. There’s a “Harlan Jacobson’s Talk Cinema” event at 7pm tonight, and a “Pandora Showcase” this weekend featuring the works of Arizona women playwrights — including Debra Rich Gettleman, who writes the “Unmotherly Insights” blog published by Raising Arizona Kids Magazine.

If Gettleman hasn’t yet written on the topic of beautiful bathrooms, she certainly needs to. Even the ugliest parts of daily life are transformed through the prism of her pen.

— Lynn

Note: I’m looking for American flag art for an upcoming Veterans Day post. If you have something to share, please send it to me at rakstagemom@gmail.com before Friday at noon — thanks!

Coming up: Musings on Mannheim Steamroller, Valley art meets Veterans Day