Customer Reviews

Touch the Sound - A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Thomas Riedelsheimer's "Touch The Sound - A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie" presents the captivating world of sound and music, perceived and played by Evelyn Glennie, a renowned percussionist. I confess I never knew her name before watching the film, and perhaps you don't know her, but if so, don't let that fact discourage you to watch the documentary.

The documentary follows the journey of Evelyn Glennie traveling around the world - New York, Germany, Scotland, and Japan -- to discover the fascinating world of sound and music. For Evelyn, who has been hearing-impaired since she was 8 years-old, listening to sound and playing music should be called `touching the sound,' as the film's title suggest. And this documentary film, with the combination of beautiful images and thrilling music, is an attempt to explore the world perceived by Evelyn Glennie.

Though the film contains the interview with Evelyn, it is most arresting when it shows the gifted musician playing and improvising the instruments. The most beautiful moments is Evelyn's solo performance of playing the snare drum at New York's Grand Central Station. Another two standout scenes in this documentary film are her improvisation with guitarist/composer Fred Frith in a huge deserted factory in Cologne, Germany, and the Taiko drummers of `Za Ondekoza' in Fuji City, Japan.

The interviews given by Evelyn are slightly disappointing. Though the film brings her back to the farm in Aberdeen, Scotland, where she grew up as child, and gives her some occasions to talk about her views on sound and music, what she says sounds sometimes a bit too ordinary. She is mostly reticent about her life, and as to her remarks about the sound, the film includes the meditation at the Zen garden at Ryo-anji Temple in Kyoto, but it seems the artist is trying to find the right words to describe what she feels. Even the camera occasionally fails to reveal the artist's heart. When Evelyn is listening to the loud bleeping electronic sound of the basement food floor at department stores in Kyoto, what does her close-up face means? Is she enjoying it? Or is she annoyed by it?

For all its flaws as documentary film, "Touch The Sound - A Sound Journey with Evelyn Glennie" has thrilling moments that easily make up for the lack of words. Those moments are filled with her music, of which touching sound and thumping beat would fascinate the people who are not particularly fond of classic or modern music.

The person who labeled this, "Disappointing," missed the point altogether. While I agree that the actual performances are the most captivating part, the other parts of the film give us insight into why those performances are so captivating. Yes, it is a noisy world, so noisy that it can even inspire a deaf musician!

As a percussionist, what I like most about this film, is that while Glennie is best known for her work with symphony orchestras, the music here is improvised. And with that, it is often very playful (not the serious stuff of classical music). Glennie is at her best when challenged by the avant garde guitar stylings of Fred Frith. His view of seeing everything as possible sound seems to inspire the natural curiousness of Glennie (Frith takes a bow to various metal beams in the abandoned factory they are filming in, noting the sounds they make). Their duo improvisations are the highlight of the film. [As a side note, it would have been nice to have an option to view all the material they did as a separate feature. And what about a CD of their improvisations???]

Glennie is also playful and imaginative when she plays glasses, cans, and bottles in a Japanese club, showing that the music is in the musician, not the instruments. Surprisingly, some of the generous out takes reveal more of Glennie herself.

All in all a fascinating portrait of a fascinating musician. Highly recommended.

What a great inspirational movie. In my Sound for Picture classes here in the bay area I plan on using the DVD as a starting point for the students in understanding film sound. Sound has never before been portrayed as ambient/organic and musical as well as it is in this film. Check it out..

I first should say that Riedelsheimer's previous documentary "Rivers and Tides" is one of the best documentaries ever made and it illustrates the complex trials of the creative process. I think he was attempting to do the same with this film. But Goldsworthy is Goldsworthy and Glennie is Glennie. As a subject, Glennie is not as eloquent as Goldworthy and her "art" is somehow less interesting.

As a film that attempts to capture the artist process, it is a worthy attempt and should not really be compared to "Rivers and Tides". Her performance is made all the more interesting by her lack of hearing.

The one jarring aspect of this film is the film itself call attention to Riedelsheimer's craft. He presents what he thinks Glennie senses and feels throught editing and sound design. Which left me with the feeling that this film was not just about it's subject but about the director's version of the subject. To me, a good documentary director stays out of the way and let's the subject reveal themselves.

While this may seem like a negative review, this is still an amazing film that anyone interested in the artistic process should see. It just does not compare to "Rivers and Tides".

A beautifully filmed montage of various settings in which sound and music play important roles. Our guide is the ever playful and ever competent percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Segments of this film can be shown to open the world of different musics to students who have limited exposure to music other than that of the pop culture. Glennie relishes in hearing and in creating every conceivable kind of sound. Interspersed in the montage of sounds are bits of her life's story. Her deafness seems to have made her more sensitive to the wide range of rhythms, timbers, genres, cultures of the world of music and sound. The pace is meditative, reflective, with beautiful images to complement the sounds heard on the film. When shown in short clips, the film can be effective learning impetus for those who want to expand their repertoire of known and loved musical styles. There is much to contemplate and savor in "Touch the Sound".

I liked this. This documentary presents the concept of sound in a way those of us who can hear don't usually think about. Evelyn Glennie is a percussionist who is deaf - something you don't normally see. This video captures her work, her philosophy, her style in an easy to follow format. While deaf, Ms. Glennie can speak quite articulately, and one has no difficulty following what she is saying. Her love of her work is quite evident, and will, oddly enough, open your eyes to what our ears so often miss.


Children of a Lesser God

This documentary is very much in the same style and aesthetic as "Step Across The Border," the 2003 documentary on Fred Frith. In fact Fred co-stars as he and Evelyn Glennie, the deaf percussionist, prepare tracks for a new album. Recorded all around the world, with at least three different hair colors, Glennie is a mesmerizing presence, attuned to sounds and rhythms that most of us pass over unconsciously. She gives quiet lessons in participating in life -- in accommodating so-called handicaps -- in striking out in new directions -- and in being connected to the instrument of your body.

Thought provoking, remarkably filmed and a damn sight more interesting musically than any of her CDs!

This movie really captures the way sound influences our body and how limited of a view we have of an important source of information in our environment. Evelyn is truly gifted and this window into her world is fascinating. This is a slow movie compared to the usual sound bites we're used to in this day and age and I like that about it.

Touch the Sound (Thomas Riedelsheimer, 2004)

I've watched two Thomas Riedelsheimer films this month, and have had a great deal of trouble reviewing either one. (I had no idea this was by Riedelsheimer when I DVRed it; I knew only that it was about Evelyn Glennie.) What that says about my method of approaching the films of Thomas Riedelsheimer I don't know. What I do know is that the best way to approach them is to sit back and let them wash over you. When you lock yourself into a Riedelsheimer joint, you're going to be buffeted with a large number of very attractive, somewhat loosely-joined images. There's no denying his films are documentaries, but often they seem as if they're documentaries as such things would have been filmed by Seurat, had he access to a handheld video camera.

Touch the Sound seems to center on Evelyn Glennie's meetings with Fred Frith to record The Sugar Factory, but there's a lot more about Glennie than that short description would imply; playing in a subway station, a trip to Japan to study taiko drumming, teaching deaf school students the joy of percussion, other stuff, all surrounded by that Thomas Riedelsheimer mystique, lots of environmental shots and the like that seem to have little to do with what's going on. (They do; you just have to turn your mind a little way off-center to figure out how.)

It should be noted, however, that a lot of people's reactions to this movie seem to hinge on whether or not they like the music being produced. This, of course, makes perfect sense, given that much of the movie's soundtrack comes from the Sugar Factory recordings; if avant-garde music isn't up your alley, you may want to give this one a pass. But, like all of Riedelsheimer's films, it's a very pretty thing, and worth watching. ***

This film is the most inspiring film I have seen to date, a film from the perspective of (Profoundly Deaf) Evelyn Glennie the film explores sound. The film deftly tosses aside the assumption that deaf people cannot make exquistively beautiful music. This is especially inspiring for me because I myself am profoundly deaf, and I too have a deep love of music. People have been telling me all my life of the things that I cant do because of my disability. Here's Evelyn Glennie proving them wrong! Experience sound in a new dimension, not by listening but by feeling, touching, and in the case of this film, seeing as well.