Maurice Gendron: la métamorphose du violoncelle (1961) User Reviews

Tries to capture the soul of an instrument and one of its best interpreters

[guy-bellinger · 9/10 · 24 March 2019]

Dominique Delouche is a past master at the examination of three main fields, religious faith, dance and music. His object here is classical music and more precisely one instrument, the cello through one of its best interpreters, French cellist Maurice Gendron (1920-1990). And less precisely trying to find out what makes music by great composers (in this case Haydn, Boccherini, Chopin and Bach) played by a great instrumentalist so uplifting. Has the instrument a soul? Or the composer? Or the music itself? The film does not actually answer these questions in the end (how could it?) but the director does his best to identify the contours of the spirit of it all. To this end Dominique Delouche uses a variety of techniques to penetrate the mystery (intercut, animation, split screen, low angle shot, hands in negative, hands playing an invisible instrument, multiplication of the cello player,...) But whatever the device Dominique Delouche resorts to, Maurice Gendron goes on playing and, through this continuity the magic happens and lingers on. Has the cello a soul? Or the interpreter? Or the composer? Who knows (I was about to say God knows)? What is sure is that there is soul in music.