Old Gold and Black Reviewer
How did each of us get to be the people we are? Is our fate decided before we're born or are we all products of our experiences and upbringings?
Anyone who has ever taken a psychology course should recognize the question. It is part of the classic nature/nurture controversy which has kept so many psychologists so busy for so long, and it is a topic that came to my mind often while watching the much-heralded Australian-made film Shine. The film, which was honored last week with seven Academy Award nominations, is based (somewhat loosely) on the life of Australian piano virtuoso David Helfgott.
The film opens with the disheveled, bespectacled, chain-smoking and always chattering Helfgott (played in adulthood by Geoffrey Rush, currently the favorite to capture the Best Actor Oscar) wandering lost in the rain until arriving at a bar. The bar's owner takes pity on this strange, confused man and helps him find his home, which seems to be a halfway house. There, she finds his room cluttered with sheet music and press clippings of piano competition victories. David tells his newfound friend that he can play the piano "a little" and as he proceeds to demonstrate his understated musical genius, the film leaves this scene to move back into Helfgott's childhood.
Here we meet young David (Alex Rafalowicz) as a soft-spoken lad living under the thumb of his intimidating Polish immigrant father Peter (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, an Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor). Peter's father had never allowed him to pursue his musical interests, and as a result he has transferred all of his aspirations onto his children, particularly David, his only son.
David is a very gifted pianist, and his father pushes him toward perfection, shattering any chance of his having a normal childhood in the process. When David begins working with a new instructor, Peter insists that his son be taught to play the torturously challenging concertos of Sergei Rachmaninoff. The teacher refuses, claiming that the pieces are far too difficult, and even dangerous, for one so young (at which point the audience's "Foreshadowing!" alarms should go off).
Years pass, and David gains much national attention and wins several competitions (and is played by yet another actor, Noah Taylor). He is then presented with an amazing opportunity: he is offered the chance to come to America to study at a well-respected music conservatory. Plans are made, funds are raised, and excitement builds as David prepares for his departure.
David's journey ends before beginning, however, when Peter cruelly forbids him to leave Australia. His reasons are rather complex. He tells David that leaving would destroy the family, but there are other factors. Peter resents his son's success, especially as he considers himself largely responsible for it. He wanted his son to have all the things he himself was denied, but then he takes them away, claiming that David has not earned them. David grudgingly remains with his family until another opportunity to leave presents itself, this time from the Royal College of Music in London. Peter again tries to "guilt" David into staying, and even uses physical violence. Still, David goes, and Peter disowns him.
David changes dramatically while in London. He becomes increasingly eccentric, scatterbrained and unkempt. He becomes the pupil of another eccentric, Cecil Parkes (Sir John Gielgud in a pure Obi-Wan Kenobi performance where he gets to give cool instructions like "forget the notes...play the passion!"), who coaches David when he decides to play (gasp!) Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3 in order to win a competition. The scene in which David finally plays the concerto ("Rach Third" as it is referred to in the film) is truly a stunning and nerve-wracking one. After the last note is played, David collapses on the stage, the victim of an apparent nervous breakdown.
We then rejoin the adult David, now jabbering away as a voluntary patient in a psychiatric hospital, and under doctor's orders not to play the piano. Moments later, we have returned to the film's opening scene. The remainder of the film concerns David's journeys back into the real world, into the heart of a kind astrologer (played by Lynn Redgrave), and finally back to performing his art on stage.
The acting in Shine is uniformly superb. All three actors playing David Helfgott perform admirably. Geoffrey Rush, of course, is the one to watch, though. He has only an hour of screen time in the film, but what he does with it is devastating. Detractors will say that he'll be given the Oscar based solely on the "physical or mental handicap factor" (which in recent years may have benefited the Oscar-winning lead actors of Rain Man, My Left Foot, Scent of a Woman, Philadelphia, and Forrest Gump, to name a few), but they'd be wrong.
Rush creates a wonderful and unforgettable character, alternately grating and lovable. And if that were not enough, he didn't use a hand double in any of his piano-playing scenes as many actors might have. I simply could not take my eyes off of him.
Returning to the original genetics vs. environment question I presented at the start, I think Shine is not quite complete enough in presenting its story. There is an awfully large time gap (almost 20 years) between the scene of adolescent David's collapse and that of adult David's appearance. It has to be assumed that he underwent massive changes in this time, because most of Rush's performance--rapid, disorganized speech, frequently closed eyes, constant touching and hugging of everyone he meets--is composed of mannerisms not seen in the younger actors.
Yet we are not given the chance to see him changing over this period or to hear any doctors diagnosing him, or even to know how he feels about being kept away from pianos. The film seems to declare David's breakdown and subsequent institutionalization to be a direct result of his father's psychological cruelty.
The real-life Helfgott, although never precisely diagnosed, is thought to suffer from some genetically based psychological disorder. This fact is never mentioned in the film. Artistic license is fine, but I felt it was irresponsible to leave the nature and cause of David's scrambled mind so murky.
I also found one important scene to be rather lacking in dramatic potency. The adult David is rediscovering success as a performer and discovering happiness as a man, and then Peter, now old and still bitter, visits unexpectedly. The initial tension of the reunion is never fully realized. This should be one of the "money" scenes in the film, and instead it left me a bit more confused about how to feel about both David and especially Peter.
Shine goes beyond piano concertos and competitions to deal with issues of pressure (those we put on ourselves and those we carry from our parents) and of overwhelming talent and how it should be nurtured, and of the nature of father-son relationships. In these respects, Shine plays as a darker companion piece to Steven Zaillian's Searching For Bobby Fischer. I had a few relatively minor problems with Scott Hicks and Jan Sardi's Oscar nominated screenplay, but the film definitely deserves to be seen on the merits of Geoffrey Rush's riveting and soon-to-be Oscar-winning performance.