By Geoffrey Maingart

Los Angeles,CA(Hollywood Today)11/1/12/–When the beloved cellist of a world-renowned string quartet receives a life- changing diagnosis, the group’s future suddenly hangs in the balance.  This begins the journey into the lives of the members of the Fugue String Quartet with an ensemble cast of brilliant actors at their best.  Cellist, Peter Mitchell (Mr. Walken), first violinist Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir), second violinist Robert Gelbart (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Robert’s wife, Juliette (Catherine Keener), on viola play the members of the quartet.

The upper West Side of NYC is the setting for the drama and emotional turmoil of a renowned ensemble that is brilliantly portrayed.  I have been a concert violinist all of my life and spent a part of it on the West Side with many of the real musicians who served as the models for the characters portrayed.  Having lived this life, I can say that Mr. Zilberman, writer and director and Seth Grossman, co writer and this brilliant cast brought to life the real story of what an ensemble deals with after a lifetime of dedication and working together.  The Guarneri Quartet and the Emerson Quartet members are all friends of mine and it is a challenge to keep that friendship and work together over a lifetime.  The Budapest Quartet members barely spoke to each other by the end of their career together.

Our fictional quartet begins the drama when the older  patriarch of the quartet, cellist Peter played brilliantly by Walken is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and has to make the decision whether to leave the ensemble that is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary.  With a daunting performance coming up of the great late quartet Op. 131 in C# Minor by Beethoven the ensemble begins to fall apart as a possible replacement cellist is suggested.  First violinist, Daniel, perfectly played by Mark Ivanir is the typical rigid Russian perfectionist and Robert is the usually frustrated 2^nd violinist who in this case is married to the emotionally troubled violist, Juliette played wonderfully by Keener.  She does not support her husband when he decides to insist on sharing the 1^st violin position with Daniel, a typical problem in many real professional quartets.  The Emerson Quartet solved this headache by rotating the 1^st and 2^nd violins since their inception.

This leads to an affair with a dancer, Liraz Charhi, and Hoffman is brilliant playing the troubled violinist.  To complicate this even more, his talented violinist daughter, Alexandra, played magnificently by Imogen Poots, begins an affair with first violinist Daniel who is more than twice her age.  The bookend opening of the film begins in the concert hall at the Metropolitan Museum in NY and ends with the performance there in the film’s finale.  Ironically this was the location for the final performance together of the Guarneri String Quartet.  The musician characters in the film were similar to this ensemble.  John Daley of the Guarneri also made violin bows as does Daniel in the film.  One interesting anecdote about the Guarneri Quartet was that when they decided to create the ensemble 45 years ago the violinist who would switch to viola, Michael Tree, was decided by a flip of a coin.

The film also takes us into the world of the auction house as Robert and Juliette hope to buy a rare Gagliano violin at Sotheby’s for their daughter, unsuccessfully, just as their relationship is coming to a boiling point.  As a concert violinist I can only admire any actor’s attempt to try to play a stringed instrument convincingly in a portrayal.  Most films have always had close-ups done by professional musicians.  In this case the cast did learn how to play well enough to really pull off the task and portray the differences in their roles as members of a string quartet.  A quartet performance leaves a performer no place to hide and the technical and musical demands can destroy lives as shown in the film.  The C# minor of Beethoven played throughout the film set an amazing tone for the performance.  It is a seven- movement work written by Beethoven without a pause while he was completely deaf about a year before his death.  The troubled music reverberates in the conflicted lives of our fictional Fugue Quartet.

Christopher Walken played the cellist Peter in one of his best performances and is the ground of the film.  There is a moving vocal performance by the extraordinary soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter who plays Peter’s deceased wife in an imaginary moment in the film.  When the drama going on between the other characters comes to a head, Walken is really the father figure stating that everyone basically grow up and act like the artists that they are.  Art comes first and personal life second no matter the consequences.

I had the privilege to speak by telephone with writer/director Yaron Zilberman, who began as a physicist and math expert and then film maker, about the film and some of the choices he made.  The film was shot in 27 days.  He explained the use of 5 cameras to catch the essence of the performers with the instruments and the coaching that the actors had, to bring the playing to life.  When Peter stops the performance and leaves the concert stage at the end of the film and introduces his replacement, real cellist Nina Lee of the Brentano String Quartet that did the actual performance of the Beethoven, they decided to leave Peter’s cello on the stage as she continues the Beethoven on her own instrument.  The audience is left wondering about Peter’s future in a moving ending to the film.

The film opens tomorrow, October 2^nd and this is an opportunity to see a small group of some of the best actors of our time at their very best.