Movie Review: Lateness in Art and Life

A late review of Late Quartet (2012)

By Jonathan Price

This film foregrounds music in ways that are rarely done in American cinema, though it uses the focus to trace the elaboration of a 4-way intimacy. It’s a quartet, not a tercet, so it’s not the traditional romantic triangle, but there are three men in various involvements with a single woman, all of them playing classical music together for 25 years as a group designated “The Fugue.” This one woman is in various stages and types of love with the three men; however, we don’t see a great deal of bedroom antics onscreen – a brief fling by the married man with a much younger woman; a longer affair between the one offspring generated by the two married members of the quartet and its chief violinist. So the focus is primarily on relationships and music rather than bedroom acrobatics.

    We do learn a certain amount about music, at least for those of us like me who are not experts but merely occasional appreciators. We learn that Beethoven’s Opus 131, a very late quartet and one of the pieces the group focuses on during the central time of the film, is remarkable for having seven movements while the traditional quartet has four. We also learn that the role of second violin Robert Gelbart, played by (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is not simply second fiddle to first violin, but has responsibilities and skills unique to the role, often in counterpoint. However, this explanation comes from the second violin himself. Juliette, his wife and the violist (Catherine Keener),...is often a bit too honest, never quite saying what he wishes she would say. In one scene he abruptly leaves a cab in mid-journey, so devastated by her middling support.

The crisis confronted by this 4-way group, however, is not essentially romantic; it is the crisis of evolution, aging, and eventual death – one meaning of lateness. Early in the film, the cellist, Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken), presents the group with, essentially, a genteel ultimatum. He has learned from his physician that he is in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, and it will eventually and inevitably affect his playing. Not wanting to go out in severe decline, he wants the next concert to be his farewell, and he wants the quartet to progressively incorporate his replacement. As artists, friends, and idiosyncratic personalities, none of the other three is enthusiastic about this decision. The second violin chooses it as an opportunity to press his long-held desire to be first violin, at least occasionally.
    We see the four in a variety of settings, in their apartments, in the snow, in cafes, in bed, together….

    One powerful climax comes when Gelbart punches out Daniel (Mark Ivanir), the first violin, for having an affair with his daughter. Presumably, this is for a variety of reasons – that the affair toys with his daughter’s affections for an older, accomplished man who is also her mentor, that since it involves three of the principals of the quartet, it assaults the supposed emotional equanimity of the group. Although the assault is also a kind of displacement for the role Juliette has played all along, married to one quarter member, carrying on a variety of not quite clear flirtations or intimacies with the other two male members of the group. Gelbart is too refined to directly confront his wife or even fully articulate to her his dilemma or disappointment, so as the shrinks say, he acts out: he has a one-night stand with his regular female running partner, who is also a flamenco dancer, he physically assaults Daniel.

There are scenes in a frozen Central Park, scenes among horses in upper New York state, scenes in music classes conducted by Peter. We learn various tidbits that inform both music and life: that all instruments lose their tuning over time, in different ways – a kind of synechdoche for what is happening to the quartet itself, subtly attuned to each other but also falling out of tune, withering with age, seeking near incestuous relationships, engaging in fistfights, having doctrinal disputes over perfectionism v. passion in music. Robert’s ode to Daniel about the need for passion in playing music is followed, ironically enough, by Daniel embracing physical passion with Robert and Juliette’s daughter. But Daniel’s superior musical skill and perfectionism also hide his loneliness, his privacy, his vulnerability. He hides his vulnerability and flaws under a cloak of criticism and “artist’s temperament.”

    Despite tension, rupture, breakup, and violence, the four return to play music and resume their playing of Beethoven’s Opus 131 after Peter retires in medias res on stage and is replaced by Nina Lee, who is actually cellist for the Brentano String Quartet, the background group playing the music we hear. Supposedly the structure of the film by emotion echoes the emotional structure underlying the seven movements of Beethoven’s Opus 131. We also learn that Schubert on his deathbed had supposedly requested the playing of this piece.
    Juliette may be the emotional center of this quartet/triangle, but she always seems sorrowful, near tears. In one way or another she may be in love with each of her three partners; it’s clear she confides regularly in Daniel and hides confidences from her husband Robert. At some level it may be that the daughter’s affair with Daniel is a kind of offer of love from Juliette, though apparently none of those involved is directly aware of this.
    At one point Daniel points out what a key artistic decision it was to become a member of a quartet as opposed to a soloist: playing the same pieces over time with the same people leads to a self-discipline and heightened awareness that can create change as well as develop perfection in art; this can contrast with a variety of random encounters with accompanists and orchestras. Some quartets are nearly eternal, such as the Guarneri quartet, , with its four original players staying together for nearly 45 years. So this film is an attempt to implicitly examine musical construction and human relationships using an unusual key.

Copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Price