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Here is a second piece, the begging of the finale and the "Ode To Joy". How will the fourth movement be done? Beethoven must have asked that question. I certainly did. And what a struggle. How would I present in images and story the most famous music the world has ever known. I started with an idea. Long before I thought about what should go where,  I called the fourth movement of the film "Become Who You Are". The quote is from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, and at first glance seems obscure. And since Nietzsche is, to say the least, an elegant but slippery writer at times, I imposed my own interpretation on his words. That is, in the progress of our characters' lives, they set out on one path only to discover who they really are in acts that, from an outsider's perspective, seem foolish or self-defeating. Feng Congde, for example, the student Leader at Tiananmen Square who set up the broadcasting system to send the Ninth out to the world during those momentous days, thought he wanted merely to leave China and find himself a good job--make serious money, buy things with that money, and settle down--and begin his climb. When his computer broke down while studying for exams, Feng went down to the square and found out who he truly was, what kind of human being was digging to get out of the cramped space that was his soul under a Communist dictatorship. In the eyes of his government, he became a criminal, a traitor against "the people," and other such things that it takes no imagination to invent. In his eyes, Feng found out what he had to do--not what he should do--with his life.

We then move to Japan and spend a bit of time with Machi and Isabel, the main characters for the Chile story.

 As for delays and obstacles in making films, in this case one big one came when I had to add a story about the fall of the Berlin Wall, also in 1989, and Leonard Bernstein's Ninth concert there to celebrate the unification of Germany. How to tell that story? I found Lene Ford to do the job. A former resident of East Berlin with a spirited way of describing her own life and the lives of others, Lene takes us through her discovery of the other side of the Wall, and through another side of herself. Her story is rich and subtle, as she loved her country but was eventually brought face-to-face with hard questions that could not be answered with slogans and flags.

There is so much more to the four individuals that wind their way through the film, held up by the Ninth soundtrack (a story and character in itself), sometimes brushing against the grain of the music, and often finding an eddy that sweeps us along for the ride. 

I won't post more for a time, and hope that the full monty of a film will be at your service soon.

Sincerely,

kerry