Unbiased Reviews by Real People
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Unbiased Reviews by Real People
Top-Ten Non-English Language Films Featuring Classical Music (with links to full reviews)Mar 11, 2005 (Updated Apr 9, 2006) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If you love classical music, check out these excellent non-English language films that feature classical music in significant ways.
To qualify for this list, a film must be (a) non-English language; (b) an excellent film; and (c) incorporate classical music into its soundtrack and/or storyline in a meaningful way. Filmed versions of operas are excluded from consideration. Films in which the music actually figures into the story are given higher priority than those in which the music merely helps to convey an emotional context. The films are rated relative to one another based on how important the music is to the film, not on the overall worth as works of art. There's a total of eight different countries represented here, with France (24 entries), Italy (eight entries), and the U.S.S.R. (four entries) leading the way. I make no claim that this list is comprehensive. There are many other non-English language films that feature classical music. Amadeus (1984) would head my list were it not in English. ******************************************************************* 1. Alexander Nevsky (1938) Country: U.S.S.R. Director: Sergei Eisenstein Featured Composer: Prokofiev Rating: * * * * There is no other film for which the musical score is so much an equal partner to the images. Eisenstein provided Prokofiev with film scenes as quickly as each was completed. Prokofiev then drafted settings, which the two men discussed, and then Prokofiev made whatever adjustments were required. For some scenes, Eisenstein edited the film to fit music already composed by Prokofiev, rather than the other way around. 2. Ivan the Terrible, Pts. I/II (1945/58) (See Eisenstein: The Sound Years.) Country: U.S.S.R. Director: Sergei Eisenstein Featured Composer: Prokofiev Rating: * * * * * Prokofiev teamed with Eisenstein once again for the film director's masterful depiction of the life of Ivan the Terrible. Though only the first two parts of an anticipated trilogy were completed, the combination of Eisenstein's lavishly stylized mise-en-scene and Prokofiev's beautiful choral and orchestral music make this pair of films among the finest ever. 3. Death in Venice (1971) Country: Italy Director: Luchino Visconti Featured Composer: Mahler Rating: * * * * Mahler's music is such a major part of this film that some have suggested that the film could qualify as a visual accompaniment for two of Mahler's symphonies. The featured works are the Third Symphony and the Fifth Symphony. There's also bits and pieces from a Franz Lehár opera, Beethoven's Für Elise, and some Mussorgsky strains. 4. Un Coeur en Hiver (1992) Country: France Director: Claude Sautet Featured Composer: Ravel Rating: * * * * * The musical segments of this film are integral to the story, which involves a burgeoning romance between a violinist, Camille, and an expert instrument maker, Stephane. Stephane’s exquisite sensitivity to Camille's instrument and the nuances of her performances is what sparks her interest in him. The featured works are Ravel's Piano Trio and Violin Sonatas. The actress Emmanuelle Béart, who plays the violinist, projects the gestures and emotional expressiveness of a violinist with remarkable effectiveness, considering that she had never played the violin. Concert violinist Jean-Jacques Kantorow provided the actual violin performances. 5. Bleu (1993) (See Three Colors.) Country: France Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski Featured Composer: Preisner Rating: * * * * * Juliette Binoche plays the distraught widow of a composer who died suddenly in a car accident, along with their only child, with his last choral masterpiece unfinished. Binoche's character, who worked closely with her husband in his compositional work, has to struggle between her enormous grief and the immortality of her husband's music. All the while, the great final chorus of the unfinished piece reverberates through her mind, as her husband had begun to conceive it. Zbigniew Preisner wrote the actual music for the film. 6. Diva (1981) Country: France Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix Featured Composers: Catalani and Gounod Rating: * * * * * This film's protagonist, Jules, is an adoring fan of a talented black American opera star, but she has never permitted a recording to be made of her voice – either live or in the studio. Jules surreptitiously makes a high quality tape during one of the diva's performances in Paris, for his personal enjoyment, but must keep it out of the hands of two thugs from an Asian recording company who hope to blackmail the diva into an exclusive recording contract. The music performed includes Gounod's Ave Maria, the Overture from Gounod's Faust, and an aria from Catalani’s La Wally. Wilhemenia Fernandez, who plays the diva, is a real life opera star and actually performed the arias for the film. 7. Farinelli: Il Castrato (1994) Country: Belgium Director: Gérard Corbiau Featured Composers: Broschi, Hasse, Händel, Pergolesi, Porpora Rating: * * * * One of the principal thematic issues in this film is music as art versus music as showpieces for virtuosi. On the one side, we have the great Georg Friedrich Händel, composing music of elevated artistic sensitivity, and, on the other side, Riccardo Broschi, writing artistically pedestrian music designed to showcase the magnificent voice of his castrato brother, Farinelli. The film features music by five contemporary Baroque composers. The Händel excerpts are taken from Rinaldo. The castrato voice, which doesn't exist today, was synthesized electronically. 8. A Sunday in the Country (1984) Country: France Director: Bertrand Tavernier Featured Composer: Fauré Rating: * * * * * This film is about an aging artist who regrets not having explored impressionism as he developed his style as a painter. As complement to his theme, Tavernier has shot his film as though it were itself an impressionist painting. The soundtrack, featuring chamber works by the French impressionist composer Gabriel Fauré, beautifully matches the lyrical quality of the images. The works heard in the soundtrack include portions of the Quintet for Piano and Strings, Op. 115, the Quartet for Piano and Strings, Op. 121, and the Trio for Piano and Strings, Op. 126. 9. The Spider's Stratagem (1970) Country: Italy Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Featured Composer: Verdi Rating: * * * * * This mystery film relates to a murder that occurred decades earlier during the rise of the Fascists in Italy, when the village's foremost anti-Fascist was shot down during a performance of Verdi's Rigoletto. Bertolucci deftly uses that reference to deepen the intellectual puzzle that his film presents. When an Italian director includes a scene from an opera in his film, you can rest assured that the plot of that opera bears some parallels to the plot of the film. 10. Senso (1954) Country: Italy Director: Luchino Visconti Featured Composers: Bruckner and Verdi Rating: * * * The story of this film takes place during the Austrian occupation of northern Italy in the 1860's, in and around Venice. The music couldn't be any more appropriate, using Il Trovatore as a stand-in for the Italians and Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony as emblematic of the Austrians. It's a nice bit of musical allusion. ***************************************************** Some Other Worthy Non-English Language Films with Classical Music in their Scores: (Alphabetically): L’Age D’Or (1930) Country: Spain Director: Luis Buñuel Featured Composers: Beethoven, Schubert and Wagner Rating: * * * * * Ariel (1988) Country: Finland Director: Aki Kaurismäki Featured Composers: Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky Rating: * * * * * Au Revoir les Enfants (1987) Country: France Director: Louis Malle Featured Composers: Saint-Saëns and Schubert Rating: * * * * Babette's Feast (1987) Country: Denmark Director: Gabriel Axel Featured Composers: Brahms and Mozart Rating: * * * * * La Belle et la Bête (1946) Country: France Director: Jean Cocteau Featured Composer: Auric Rating: * * * * * La Belle Noiseuse (1991) Country: France Director: Jacques Rivette Featured Composer: Stravinsky Rating: * * * A Bout de Souffle (1960) Country: France Director: Jean-Luc Godard Featured Composer: Mozart Rating: * * * * La Cérémonie (1995) Country: France Director: Claude Chabrol Featured Composer: Mozart Rating: * * * * * Les Cousins (1959) Country: France Director: Claude Chabrol Featured Composers: Mozart and Wagner Rating: * * * * La Dolce Vita (1960) Country: Italy Director: Federico Fellini Featured Composer: J.S. Bach Rating: * * * 8 ½ (1963) Country: Italy Director: Federico Fellini Featured Composers: Tchaikovsky and Wagner Rating: * * * * * Fanny and Alexander (1982) Country: Sweden Director: Ingmar Bergman Featured Composers: Britten, Chopin and Schumann Rating: * * * * Gervaise (1956) Country: France Director: René Clément Featured Composer: Auric Rating: * * * * Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978) Country: France Director: Bertrand Blier Featured Composers: Mozart and Schubert Rating: * * * Harvest (1937) Country: France Director: Marcel Pagnol Featured Composer: Honegger Rating: * * * * * Jean de Florette/Manon (1986) Country: France Director: Claude Berri Featured Composer: Verdi Rating: * * * * * Lieutenant Kije (1934) Country: U.S.S.R. Director: Aleksandr Fajintsimmer Featured Composer: Prokofiev Rating: * * * Lola Montès (1955) Country: France Director: Max Ophüls Featured Composer: Auric Rating: * * * * Masculine-Feminine (1966) Country: France Director: Jean-Luc Godard Featured Composer: Mozart Rating: * * * Mayerling (1936) Country: France Director: Anatole Litvak Featured Composer: Honegger Rating: * * * * Nights of Cabiria (1957) Country: Italy Director: Federico Fellini Featured Composer: Beethoven Rating: * * * * 1900 (1976) Country: France Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Featured Composer: Verdi Rating: * * * Nostalghia (1983) Country: Russia Director: Andrei Tarkovsky Featured Composers: Beethoven and Verdi Rating: * * * * * Ossessione (1943) Country: Italy Director: Luchino Visconti Featured Composers: Bizet and Verdi Rating: * * * * Les Parents Terribles (1949) Country: France Director: Jean Cocteau Featured Composer: Auric Rating: * * * * Pierrot le Fou (1965) Country: France Director: Jean-Luc Godard Featured Composers: Beethoven, Lully and Vivaldi Rating: * * * * The Rules of the Game (1939) Country: France Director: Jean Renoir Featured Composers: Chopin, Mozart, Saint-Saëns, and Johan Strauß Rating: * * * * * Symphonie Pastorale (1946) Country: France Director: Jean Delannoy Featured Composer: Auric Rating: * * * * Teorema (1968) Country: Italy Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini Featured Composer: Mozart Rating: * * * * * Testament of Orpheus (1960) Country: France Director: Jean Cocteau Featured Composers: J.S. Bach, Gluck, Händel and Wagner Rating: * * * * Viridiana (1961) Country: Spain Director: Luis Buñuel Featured Composers: Beethoven, Händel and Mozart Rating: * * * * * Weekend (1967) Country: France Director: Jean-Luc Godard Featured Composer: Mozart Rating: * * *************************************************************** You might enjoy my other genre lists of non-English language films as well. Top-Twelve Film Versions of Operas Ten Excellent Spanish-Language Films Ten More Excellent Spanish-Language Films Coming-of-age – Outside the USA! Top Ten Foreign Language Psychodramas Top Ten Non-English Language Political Movies My Top Ten Non-English Language Tragedies Top Non-English Language Comedies Top-Ten Non-English Language Film Biographies Top-Ten Non-English Language Action/Adventure Films Ten Best Non-English Language War Movies!! Top-Ten Non-English Language Mystery Films Top-Ten Non-English Language ~Horror~ Films Top-Ten English-Language ~Horror~ Films from Outside the USA Ten Excellent Films Featuring Royalty Ten Excellent Non-English Language Thrillers Ten Non-English Language High-Yield Tearjerkers Ten Excellent Non-English Language Senior Films The Top Non-English Language Epics The 10 Best Foreign Language Romance Movies!! The Ten Best Non-English Language Love Story Movies!!  |
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