Orchestral
manoeuvres

Scott Hicks documents a composer’s life in the thought-provoking but drawn out Glass:
A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts

by MALCOLM FRASER

At 71, composer Philip Glass is a comfortable member of the highbrow mainstream, as well as a renowned film composer with several scores under his belt. It wasn’t always thus; his highly repetitive style made him the scourge of the classical establishment in the ’70s. Now, Scott Hicks brings the composer’s life to light in a personal documentary, Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts.

Using a minimal crew and a hand-held video camera, Hicks spent parts of Glass’s 70th year documenting his life at home and at work—which, as the film shows, often intertwine. Whether he’s composing in his New York apartment with his young boys running around in the next room, or discussing projects with collaborators while cooking dinner at his Nova Scotia summer home, Glass blurs the lines between work and non-work. Combined with the small crew’s unobtrusiveness, this allows for a refreshing degree of intimacy and a window into the composer’s ideas and creative process.

In interviews with Glass’s collaborators—fellow musicians, and directors ranging from Errol Morris to Woody Allen—we get a sense of his approach and his unique talents. A biography for beginners this is not; many details of Glass’s life and career are skimmed over.

The closest the film comes to airing dirty laundry is with Glass’s preternaturally camera-ready third wife, Holly, who discusses the couple’s personal life with remarkable candour. In general, though, Hicks verges on hagiography, making no secret of his admiration for his subject.

The film’s main problem is structural: while the division into 12 chapters may be minimally clever in its reference to Glass’s composition “Music in Twelve Parts,” having each one numbered leads to the feeling of a countdown. Given their varying length, as the two-hour mark creeps up, the film starts to feel as interminable as some of Glass’s more repetitive pieces.

If you can get past that, though, there’s a lot of depth in Glass’s thought-provoking ideas, making this definitely of interest to fans or anyone interested in the creative process in general.

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