The Yellow Tie review – John Malkovich gives major hauteur as legendary record-hating maestro
This biopic of Sergiu Celibidache, the renowned Romanian conductor who refused all recordings, is a sturdy labour of love directed by his sonHere is an old-fashioned biopic from central Europe that is also a labour of love on the part of its director: a little stolid and stately, yes, but robustly made, heartfelt and high-minded, with workmanlike performances and decent visual effects work. It is the story of the Romanian conductor and composer Sergiu Celibidache, a brilliant musician who became renowned among musical connoisseurs in the years following the second world war for his unique and uncompromisingly purist belief – derived from his Zen Buddhist studies – that music should never be recorded. He believed that LPs and CDs were inert and dead, and that music had to be experienced live, in the passionately authentic present.The director is the musician’s son, Serge Ioan Celebidachi,
Peter BradshawFilmBiopics