Product Description

This film is by George Gacho and includes participation of Nelson Freire, Friedrich Gulda, Geza Hosszu-Legocky, Edouardo Hubert, Ricardo Rossi, Mauricio Vallina, Wuerttembergisches KammerorchesterJoerg, and Juerg Faerber. Argerich shares her memories.

Review

Director Georges Gachot centered the hour-long portrait on an informal, night-owl cafe talk with Martha Argerich -- a living legend, if there are any left in classical music. He doesn't ask probing questions of this most enigmatic and media-shy of major musicians, and there is no outside commentary. But, switching from French to English and back, the pianist alights on key topics, dissecting herself bemusedly. With Gachot having gained the trust of a friend, the camera reveals her bohemian incandescence. Argerich flirts naturally with the lens, as beautiful women can. -- Neward Star-Ledger, Bradley Bambarger, September 08, 2008

The conversations are what holds the film together; they are soft, immensely appealing, not at all the Matha I would have expected from say, that cannonade of a performance of Prok [sic] 3 she gave here last year. Director Gachot is - I assume that's he - is an attractive interlocutor, and he has put fireball Martha at her ease. More accessible and self-revealing than I would have expected, she talks of her fear of Beethoven; she will never brave the mountain that is the Fourth Concerto, finding satisfaction in the milder-mannered Second. I like what Alex Ross wrote about her, that "her native language is music." She sounds like someone I would like to meet. I wouldn't have thought so before. -- SoIveHeard.com, Alan Rich, July 2008

This film offers fans an insightful, unguarded portrait. -- The New York Times, Vivien Schweitzer, August 2008

Top 2008 Classics List: "Schumann is my best friend," this most unpredictable of pianists remarks as she relaxes at the piano, rambles through magnificent excerpts from her repertory and, wonderfully at her ease in an hour of sheer, endearing wisdom, confides to filmmaker George Gachot some of her inmost thoughts about the music she plays better than anyone else on earth. -- Bloomberg.com, Alan Rich, December 2008

Without any scripted dialogue or cue cards, filmmaker Georges Gachot captures the enigmatic Argentine in spontaneous moments of candor and stillness. Hidden behind long hair and in a thoughtful pose reminiscent of Susan Sontag, Argerich muses on the music that's shaped her career and the people who made it happen. She recalls with laughter how one of her heroes, jazz pianist Errol Garner, had never heard of Debussy and how her teacher, Friedrich Gulda, exerted more musical influence on her than anyone else. Seeing those diminutive hands dominate a keyboard in the Prokofiev Third is a real wonder, but the maturity she shows in Schumann's simple "Of Foreign Lands and People" from Kinderszenen convinced this longtime skeptic the woman can play. -- Time Out Chicago, Bryant Manning, August 2008