SUNDAY SCHMOOZE Brunch, Film, and Discussion hosted by Fred Craden
THE RED VIOLIN
Sunday, April 23, Bagels at 10 am | Film at 11 am
Members $11 | Public $16 | Includes Bagel Brunch
A perfect red-colored violin inspires passion, making its way through three centuries over several owners and continents, eventually ending up at an auction where it may find a new owner.
This film centres on a red violin created in 1681 by Cremonese master violinmaker, Nicolo Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi). The film follows the subsequent fate of the violin in episodes, linked together by a fortune-teller, for Nicolo´s pregnant wife, Anna. Instead of predicting the future of Anna, the tarot cards reveal the future of the violin. The violin was to become Nicolo´s final masterpiece, an impossible instrument with perfect resonance. Following the death of his wife Anna in childbirth, Nicolo varnishes the violin with ingredients from which it derives its red coloring. The film then proceeds to follow the violin's history as it passes from person to person, beginning at an Austrian monastery, to gypsies, to a Lord, even lasting through communist China and several descendents before ultimately arriving at an auction house. In attendance is Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson), a violin expert who was to authenticate and value the Stradivarius for Canadian customs assessment. Serendipitously Morritz is one of the few people who suspects the truth about the anonymous red instrument. He tries to keep it secret, but as the film proceeds we see one, after another, determined buyers of the Red Violin arrive to reclaim it. (Canada /Italy/USA/UK/Austria, 1999, 130 min., French/English/Mandarin/Italian/German with English subtitles, R, DCP | Dir. François Girard)