Chopin: The Women Behind the Music (2010)

About the Looking for and the Finding of Love

Director helmut Dietls and Patric Susskinds illustrate a legendary story of two lovers who cant keep themselves away from death.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

Ray

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Mr. Holland's Opus

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

August Rush

Lyla and Louis, a singer and a musician, fall in love, but are soon compelled to separate. Lyla is forced to give up her newborn but unknown to her, he grows up to become a musical genius.

Die Deutschmeister

Young Stanzi who is visiting Vienna helps a young corporal and musician to become famous for his marching song "Die Deutschmeister".

House of Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

The Life and Loves of Beethoven

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

Once

A vacuum repairman moonlights as a street musician and hopes for his big break. One day a Czech immigrant, who earns a living selling flowers, approaches him with the news that she is also an aspiring singer-songwriter. The pair decide to collaborate, and the songs that they compose reflect the story of their blossoming love.

Score: A Film Music Documentary

Music is an integral part of most films, adding emotion and nuance while often remaining invisible to audiences. Matt Schrader shines a spotlight on the overlooked craft of film composing, gathering many of the art form’s most influential practitioners, from Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman to Quincy Jones and Randy Newman, to uncover their creative process. Tracing key developments in the evolution of music in film, and exploring some of cinema’s most iconic soundtracks, 'Score' is an aural valentine for film lovers.

Bill Evans Time Remembered

A biographical film featuring the music and times of Bill Evans with interviews from Tony Bennett, Jack Dejohnette, Billy Taylor, Paul Motian, Jon Hendricks, Orin Keepnews, Bobby Brookmeyer, Pat Evans and more, including family and friends who knew Bill Evans well.

The Great Waltz

A musical based on the life and music of Johann Strauss, Jr.

Paris Blues

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

Song of My Heart

The portrait of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky focuses on his failed love affair.

Wandering Stars

This film follows the making of Nekfeu's 3rd album, between Paris, Japan, Greece and the United States.

Phantom of the Paradise

A gifted rock composer plots revenge after a devious record producer steals both his music and his girl.

Chopin, A Sonata in Paris

He is the talk of the town, the most romantic figure of decadent Parisian nights. When his lungs start bleeding, Chopin knows his days are numbered. Composing becomes his only obsession. The ticking clock rushes him to revolutionize music.

Immortal Beloved

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Children of Pleasure

A successful songwriter, dazzled by high society, falls for a society girl who is just playing around.

Fuga

Could a brilliant composer's music actually be killing his loved ones? Eliseo can't help but believe it when his younger sister dies tragically and then his pianist Georgina suddenly dies on the piano. Completely traumatized, Eliseo is taken to a mental hospital where he can find escape only through music.

You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story

Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.

Copacabana

In 1948, aspiring songwriter Tony works as a bar pianist; he meets aspiring star Lola, and is immediately smitten. At Manhattan's Copacabana lounge, they both start finding fame. However, fate steps in and she is swept to Havana to work in a splashy nightclub act where she is convinced she will find her stardom. Instead, she finds Rico, a suave gangster and the club owner.

The Eddy Duchin Story

The life story of the famous pianist and band-leader of the 1930s and 1940s.

Night and Day

When his first stage show fails, songwriter Cole Porter goes off to fight in WWI until, injured, he lands in a hospital. He impresses nurse Linda Lee with his creativity, but their budding romance must wait as Cole heads home. Back in New York, he mounts a series of popular shows, and when his work brings him back to Europe, he eventually marries Linda. But success doesn't spare him from marital complications or bad news about a beloved relative.

Rhapsody in Blue

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

The Seventh Veil

A concert pianist with amnesia fights to regain her memory.

Between the White Key and the Black Key

In an audacious reworking of the biopic, this ensemble drama sees jazz pianist Minami Hiroshi’s memoir cleverly reinterpreted into a surreal and playful story about chasing dreams, disillusionment and the inner lives of professional artists. Closer to playing two sides of the same coin than tackling a dual role, Ikematsu Sosuke embodies two versions of Minami – the naïve upstart and the jaded pro – who magically cross paths as they become entangled with a cast of colourful characters in the seedy alleyways and jazz clubs of Ginza over a single night.

Frank Zappa: The Torture Never Stops

Halloween, New York City, 1981 Live at The Palladium with Ray White, Steve Vai, Bobby Martin, Tommy Mars, Ed Mann, Scott Thunes, Chad Wackerman

Passion

Passion concentrates on Grainger's unusual relationship with his mother and his sexual peculiarities (especially his obsessive self-flagellation, though homosexuality is also hinted at) which affect his relationship with a woman who comes to love him. It is set mainly in London in 1914, when Grainger's mother Rose was ill (she would later jump to her death in New York, upset by ill-founded rumours of incest with her son).

Frank Zappa: A Pioneer of the Future of Music

Frank Scheffer's (collage like) documentary on the American composer and rock guitarist Frank Zappa, as broadcast by VPRO in the Netherlands April 22,2007. Most of what’s on here is seen before, particularly in Roelof Kier’s 1971 documentary and/or Scheffer’s own documentary “A present day composer refuses to die”. But there is some new stuff too, particularly interviews with Denny Walley, Haskell Wekler, Elliot Ingber and Bruce Fowler.

TÁR

As celebrated conductor Lydia Tár starts rehearsals for a career-defining symphony, the consequences of her past choices begin to echo in the present.

Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band

Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But for a Black woman in the early 1900s, life as a star did not come easy.

The Yellow Shark

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt by the Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based chamber orchestra that performs only contemporary music. Composed and conducted by Frank Zappa.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda

Oscar winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto weaves man-made and natural sounds together in his works. His anti-nuclear activism grew after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and his career only paused after a 2014 cancer diagnosis.

La La Land

Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

Lisztomania

In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner.

Rimsky-Korsakov

Biographical film about the composer Rimskiy-Korsakov. Belongs to the gallery of costume historical and biographical films of the postwar cinema of the Soviet Union. The film tells about the last two decades in the life of Russian composer.

The Music Lovers

Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately, he chooses wacky nymphomaniac Nina, whom he is unable to satisfy.

Classic Albums: Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

The worlds of glitz, glam, and pop-rock fused immortally on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, born of the formidable partnership of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. This 1973 double album may well have been the peak of their collaboration. Ranging from perennial favorites like "Candle in the Wind," "Bennie and the Jets," and the title track to more ambitious compositions like "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and everything in between, Goodbye is unmatched in its depth and scope. This entry in the Classic Albums series of DVDs documents the often tumultuous writing and recording sessions for that masterpiece through vintage clips of the musicians in the studio and new interviews with Elton, Bernie, producer Gus Dudgeon, and the band members. We may never know how the John-Taupin team achieved their magic, but this release offers a both a peek at the process and a few reasons why the album endures today.

Lover Divine

A section from the life of composer Franz Schubert as a material for a love story. Also known in English as Gently My Songs Entreat. An English version called Unfinished Symphony would follow in 1934.

Four Daughters

Musician Adam Lemp and his four equally musical daughters, Emma, Ann, Kay, and Thea, live happily together. Each daughter has an upstanding young man for whom she cares. However, the arrival of a cynical, slovenly young composer named Mickey Borden turns the household upside-down, and romantic and tragic complications ensue.

Boléro

Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.

Classic Albums: Frank Zappa - Apostrophe (') Over-Nite Sensation

This episode focuses on Zappa's early 70s albums, Overnight Sensation (1973) and Apostrophy (') (1974). Together they encapsulate Zappa's extraordinary musical diversity and were also the 2 most commercially successful albums that he released in his prolific career. Included are interviews, musical demonstrations, rare archive & home movie footage, plus live performances to tell the story behind the conception and recording of these groundbreaking albums. Extras include additional interviews and demonstrations not included in the broadcast version, 2 full performances from the Roxy in 1973 and Saturday Night Live in 1976, and new full live performance done specially for these Classic Albums.

Zappa

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

A Song to Remember

Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.

Song of Love

Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.

Tori Amos: Live from New York

On January 23, 1997, Tori Amos gave a sell-out benefit concert at the Felt Forum in New York City to launch "Unlock the Silence", a year-long promotional and fund-raising campaign sponsored by cK Calvin Klein to raise awareness of the extraordinary work undertaken by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a non-profit organization who offer support and counseling to survivors of sexual assault. Tori performs compositions from her three albums, including "Silent All These Years", which appeared on her 1992 debut album "Little Earthquakes" and is the touchstone track for the "Unlock the Silence" campaign.

Shut Up and Play the Piano

The documentary follows Chilly Gonzales from his native Canada to late '90s underground Berlin, and via Paris to the world's great philharmonic halls. Diving deep into the dichotomy of Gonzales' stage persona, where self-doubt and megalomania are just two sides of the same coin.

The Blue Note

A look at the last few days of in the life of composer Frédéric Chopin's professional life.

The Sweatbox

Trudie Styler, a documentarian, had been allowed to film the production of 'Kingdom of the Sun'/'The Emperor's New Groove' as part of the deal that originally brought her husband Sting to the project. As a result, Styler recorded much of the struggle, controversy, and troubles that went into making the picture on film (including when producer Fullmer called Sting to inform the pop star that his songs were being deleted from the film). Styler's completed documentary, The Sweatbox, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 13, 2002. Disney owns the rights to the documentary and has not released it on home video or DVD.

The Cat and the Fiddle

A romance between a struggling composer and an American singer.

Frank Zappa - Live in Paris 1980

Recorded Live in Paris in 1980, this is a rare recording of Frank Zappa performing at the peak of his career with his incredible backing band, including Ike Willis (guitar/vocals), Ray White (guitar/vocals), Tommy Mars (keys), Arthur Barrow (bass) and David Logeman (drums). It was the year after Zappa released two of his greatest albums - Sheik Yerbouti, and the masterpiece Joe's Garage - and this cracking live show includes the classic Zappa songs Joe's Garage, Dancing Fool, Bobby Brown and The Illinois Enema Bandit. Tracklist : 01. Chunga's Revenge 02. Keep It Greasey 03. Joe's Garage 04. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? 05. Dancin 'Fool 06. Bobby Brown 07. Ms Pinky 08. Illinois Enema Bandit

Carnegie Hall

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.