AFI Fest 2019 ‘The Song of Names’
The Song of Names directed by François Girard (‘The Red Violin’, ‘Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould’), is an instant classic about World War II, a Jewish child violin prodigy who disappears on the eve of his debut as a violinist and his “brother” who tracks him down.
We are entranced by the period on the eve of war in London when an Orthodox Jewish man leaves his son with a British family whose father recognizes the great talent of the child. We watch with interest as he fights and bonds with the son of the music publisher who has taken the boy in as his father leaves to return to Poland in the late 1930s.
You can see this at AFI Fest FOR FREE!
November 17, 3:00 p.m., TCL Chinese Theatre
November 19, 1:00 p.m., Chinese 1
Director François Girard (Hochelaga, Land of Souls) takes Norman Lebrecht’s acclaimed novel and orchestrates a stellar ensemble as its players in this story about two Jewish boys, connected by World War II and music.
Shortly before World War II, Martin’s music publisher father, Gilbert (Stanley Townsend), invites young Dovidl Rapoport (Luke Doyle), a nine-year-old Jewish violin prodigy from Poland, to live in their London home. Gilbert’s intent is to help the boy achieve his musical potential and protect him from the imminent German invasion of Poland. Martin (Misha Handley), also nine, initially sees Dovidl as an invader in his house, but Dovidl’s worries about the plight of his family in Warsaw elicits Martin’s compassion, and he is won over by the young genius’s charisma and rebelliousness. Soon they are as close as brothers. Having the extraordinary Dovidl as his best friend and confidante opens up Martin’s narrow world, and enhances his self-confidence.
Luke Doyle, who plays Dovidl from age 9 to 13, is a violin prodigy himself, but unlike the other members of the cast, he was cast for his experience as a virtuoso violinist, and had no prior experience as an actor. “If a young person is already in touch with his emotions performing music, you can expect that he will be able to express his emotions with acting,” says Girard.
The director found a musical process for communicating with Doyle, which sometimes meant literally conducting him: “I’d give him a tempo, give him a flow, much like a conductor does with musicians, using my body and my arms to keep the rhythms of the text flowing through a scene. And Luke, being the brilliant young artist he is, reacted to that really well.”
Luke Doyle found young Dovidl to be a fascinating character to play. “There are not too many people out there who are like Dovidl,” he says. “He never does anything boring, and that always makes him the center of attention. His arrogance and confidence is quite gravitational. At the same time he can sometimes be quite selfish, and doesn’t really care about others.” Doyle also perceives hidden vulnerability in Dovidl: “In the first few scenes, it feels as if Martin is the one who can’t control his emotions, but as the story progresses and the two get to know each other, the tables turn and you begin to realize that it’s actually Dovidl who can’t control his emotions, and for good reason.”
Over several years as the boys grow up, Gilbert lavishes all his attention and the money he has on developing Dovidl’s (now Jonah Hauer-King) talent, a process that elicits jealousy from Martin (now Gerran Howell), despite his love for Dovidl. Eventually, in 1951, Gilbert stages an extravagant London debut for Dovidl at age 21 which will launch his brilliant career. Unfortunately, as the audience and orchestra await Dovidl’s arrival on stage, Dovidl fails to appear.
The cancellation of the concert bankrupts and devastates Gilbert, who dies soon after. It also leaves Martin with the loss of the “brother” he loved, the lingering question of what happened, and a growing bitterness over Dovidl’s responsibility for Martin’s father’s death.
Almost four decades later, the adult Martin (Tim Roth), he is coasting through an essentially dull and passionless life. “Martin is living in a crumbling house with his wife, with not much money in the bank,” says Roth. the adult Martin (Tim Roth) sees a child at an audition perform the same ritual as Dovidl, a unique stylistic flourish, before playing the violin and this impels him to find how such a ritual was passed on. That in turn, sends him on on a transcontinental journey in search of his beloved friend (Clive Owen). That charges up his life again as he goes looking for him.”
From that moment on, Martin’s quest to find Dovidl becomes the force driving the film’s narrative. “When Martin sees the first clue, his passion is awakened,” says Girard. “It transforms him from a state of drifting around to being driven by a mission.” What follows include the young actors and their impeccable recitals.
The culmination of his search and of the film bring us to the meaning of The Song of Names, a profoundly moving piece of music. After hearing this song, we understand in our soul the need to name those who have disappeared in all wars and dictatorships and by violence. The memory sears our psyche as “The Songs of Names” is sung in its original entirety.
As The Song of Names is set within the world of music and musicians, producer Robert Lantos saw François Girard as an ideal director. “This film lives or dies on the emotional impact of its music,” says Lantos. “I thought it wouldn’t be enough to have a terrific film director who just left the music to the composer. It had to be someone who is as familiar with the language of classical music as he is with the language of cinema, so he could work with a composer from a place of knowledge and conviction. And that led me to François. He directs opera, theatre, and 7 Cirque du Soleil shows. I doubt there are many other filmmakers in the world who are as comfortable and familiar with classical music as he is.”
Despite his passion for music, Girard didn’t want the film’s emphasis to be on music and the artistic temperament, as he felt it had been in Lebrecht’s novel: “Music is a very important vehicle in tackling this story, but to me this is not a film about music,” he says. “This is an intimate story of two brothers, in which the undercurrents of the Holocaust and the memory of those that disappeared, gradually emerges. I made sure at all times that the music was always serving that, and never the reverse.”
The answer to why his brother vanished so suddenly from his life goes beyond the personal into the communal life of believers whose mission is to remember.
The core of the film’s story is the titular Song of Names, a recitation of the names of all who perished at Treblinka, set to music. It is through this song, chanted in a London synagogue by an Orthodox Rebbe (Daniel Mutlu), that Dovidl finally hears what befell his family at Treblinka. It’s significant that the names are not simply recited, but are sung like a prayer.
“Music is a language, and it is probably the most powerful of all languages because it goes across borders with no need for translations,” says Girard. “It talks to the heart with no intermediaries, and it says things that words can’t say, because it’s a place where we meet and that no other medium can provide.” Soon after learning the fate of his family through “The Song of Names,” Dovidl, who had once renounced his religion, goes to the opposite extreme and dedicates his life to Orthodox Judaism. He also pledges to write a violin version of “The Song of Names.”
The practice of remembrance through sung prayers is deeply rooted in Jewish tradition back to ancient times. The specific idea of “The Song of Names” on which the film is based was conceived by author Norman Lebrecht. “The Song of Names” and the violin theme heard in the movie is an original work by composer Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) based on traditional modes. Drawing on his own experience from growing up in the synagogue, Shore spent two years studying the cantorial tradition using early recorded audio but particularly recordings from the 1950s, when the song is first heard in the film.
Shore received particular guidance in recapturing the Jewish liturgical tradition by famed conductor/educator Judith Clurman and Bruce Ruben, who is Cantor of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue. Girard maintains that Shore’s contribution went beyond music. “Howard was a contributor to the script, because there are a lot of ideas that I developed and discussed with him, which were ultimately implemented into the script,” says Girard. “For instance, the final concert, where you have a converging of Dovidl’s three performances of ‘The Song of Names’ — with Weschler, at Treblinka, and on stage — as well as first hearing the Rebbe sing it, that was something I brought to the script and Howard embraced.”
The Song of Names is the first feature film to receive permission to shoot on the Treblinka memorial. Eight hundred thousand or more people were killed on that site in a period of nine months. “I’ve spent my adult life avoiding going to extermination camps,” says Lantos, the son of Holocaust survivors. “I don’t think most people would want to go to hell on earth. I didn’t want to and I never would have if I weren’t making this film, but the alternative would have been to build it somewhere in a field, and I really didn’t want to do that. I thought it was essential that we film there.”
At the center of Treblinka is a large irregular shaped rock, engraved with two words, in several languages: “Never Again.” Says Lantos: “For me, those two words encapsulate the most important reason a film like this needs to be made.” Everyone involved in the film shared this conviction. “One problem in society now is the general amnesia,” says Girard. “Fifty percent of people under thirty don’t even know what the word Holocaust means, and those who do know what the word means, you can be certain wouldn’t be able to explain much.
So it’s definitely a mission for this film to keep that memory alive, to keep those events meaningful and resonant.” Screenwriter Caine, whose parents died in the Holocaust, says: “I deplore genocide wherever it occurs and to whomever it occurs. I’m with the Armenians, the Tutsis, the people Pol Pot murdered in Cambodia, and whoever might be genetically or racially cleansed tomorrow. Whatever words people use to describe it, this is a process that’s ongoing in the human mind, and this film isn’t going to eradicate it. But the more aware we all are of that thing in human beings that makes them act like this, the better. We have to know about it in order to recognize what the dangers are for the human race.”
The story of The Song of Names illustrates how the brutal forces of war and genocide can leave indelible marks on those who manage to survive those scourges. Still, while the story passes through unimaginable darkness, it doesn’t end on a note of utter hopelessness. “There is a message in this story, that the things we lose, we don’t always lose,” says Lebrecht. “Things that we think are lost forever are deeply embedded inside us, and if we have the tenacity to go and look for them, we can start to understand loss as not total. We are able to build on what is left behind and move on.”
Film Guide:
https://fest.afi.com/2019/short-films-2019/the-song-of-names
Starring Tim Roth and Clive Owen, this classic was produced by Canada’s top producer, Robert Lantos of Serendipity and by one of Canada’s top directors The international sales agent Hanway is owned by Jeremy Thomas who is U.K.’s top and most respected producer. Another coproducer is Anant Singh, South Africa’s producer on the same level as Lantos and Thomas. And, Sony Pictures Classics has it for U.S.
Martin Simmonds (Tim Roth) has been haunted throughout his life by the mysterious disappearance of his “brother” and extraordinary best friend, a Polish Jewish virtuoso violinist, Dovidl Rapaport, who vanished shortly before the 1951 London debut concert that would have launched his brilliant career. Thirty-five years later, Martin discovers that Dovidl (Clive Owen) may still be alive, and sets out on an obsessive intercontinental search to find him and learn why he left.
World Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
Canada, UK, Germany, Hungary, 2019
113 min.
Director: François Girard
Screenwriter: Jeffrey Caine
Producer: Robert Lantos, Lyse Lafontaine, Nick Hirschkorn
Executive Producer: Mark Musselman, Randy Lennox, Peter Touche, Stephen Spence, Tibor Krsko, Anant Singh
Director of Photography: David Franco
Editor: Michael Arcand
Production Designer: François Séguin
Cast: Tim Roth, Clive Owen, Catherine McCormack, Jonah Hauer-King, Gerran Howell, Luke Doyle, Misha Handley
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