|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epicurus.com - Madame Sousatzka
|
List Price: N/A
Our Price: $2.99
Availability: N/A
Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Peggy Ashcroft, Twiggy, Shabana Azmi, Leigh Lawson
Directed By: John Schlesinger
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Video On Demand
Release Date: 2008-05-09
Running Time: 122
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1988-10-13
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful....
Comment: Although there is one rather foul word in the movie, for the most part, the movie is excellent. Great music, and a story that makes you think.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A fine study of the psychopathology in classical music
Comment: This is a very fine portrayal of the bullying, exploitation, and lack of interpersonal boundaries that pervade the classical music industry. I give it four stars for its entertaining "true-to-lifeness"---even the boy's mother uses him incestuously. The only reason I didn't give it five is that Schlesinger himself exploits his adolescent star at times, probably unconsciously (as in the massage scene). Instead of growing up and/or getting the intensive psychotherapy they so desperately need, these people will continue to perpetuate their unhealthy dynamics transgenerationally. The proof is in the statements of the other reviewers: no one has spotted that this boy is constantly being abused. The proof is also in the characters themselves: the movie ends with Souzatska's former student walking a new junior to her studio. He will never wake up to the fact that the woman is disturbed...and actually rather evil. Instead, the cycle of mental damage will continue for decades, if not centuries.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A pre-conceived tour-de-force for MacLaine
Comment: Derivative elements hinder story of an eccentric Russian piano teacher in a decaying neighborhood of London (a literary descendant of Jean Brodie and possibly Auntie Mame) who coaches a brilliant immigrant youngster from India in music and life. Modest drama, marked with false uplift and poor color, contains a multitude of sub-plots which never come together cohesively, serving little purpose other than to pad the slim central story. Shirley MacLaine has good moments as Yuvline Sousatzka, yet the character herself rings curiously hollow, despite MacLaine's obvious desire to make this woman both human and larger-than-life. Director John Schlesinger was probably too grim a filmmaker for such material; with the exception of a remarkable final shot of a neighborhood in transition, Schlesinger's touches are too heavy (he's hardly the filmmaker to find whimsy in any scenario). The screenplay is made up of musty literary mechanisms, though young Navin Chowdhry nearly makes the set-up plausible.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The clash of two wills
Comment:
A piano teacher lives into a glittering environment, plenty of expensive jewels in order to cultivate and inspire constantly the spirit, but the fate has prepared her a striking surprise when she looks her dark side in the mirror of the reality, personified by a teenager (15) who was born with an inner passion.
Interesting existential dialectics between what's real and what's untrue in this formidable clash of trains among two characters, the ostentation of experience against the rebelliousness of youth around th music and its intrinsic values.
A bold film brilliantly acted and best directed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brings Back Memories
Comment: I just watched this movie on an old vhs taped off of HBO from the late 80's! Terrible quality and sound, but a fantastic movie nontheless and it reminds me so much of my childhood. I need this on DVD. Who do we petition to get this on DVD?!?!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
