★★★★★
“Seymour: An Introduction” is an exploration of life from an unexpected place. Directed by actor Ethan Hawke, the documentary is a biopic about Seymour Bernstein, a concert pianist who turned away from the spotlight to find peace in being a piano teacher. At first glance, a biopic about an elderly piano teacher might seem un-Hollywood and without intrigue. Admittedly, it does take some time to get used to the tone and wandering nature of the movie; however, “Seymour: An Introduction” brings the world of piano to life and offers a heartwarming account of finding happiness.
The film is un-Hollywood in the best possible way, offering a beautifully warm and human movie that offers germane and fresh insights. Like a good reflection, the movie does not wrap hard questions up with a pretty bow, but it gives some poignant insights about art, music and life. This is not a movie that will wow audiences with masterful effects and screenplay, but it thrives on its simplicity and brilliant subject. “[Ethan Hawke] filmed a pianist, and it could have just been another story about a talented musician, but the piano is a metaphor of life itself,” Seymour said in an interview with The Hoya.
Seymour’s beautiful insights on the world of art and questions of life, ecstasy and artistry will attract musicians and non-musicians alike. Seymour even noted that he has been told by people who are not musicians that “everything in the documentary relates to their lives.”
“Seymour: An Introduction” is a movie where simplicity goes a long way. Shots tend to be standard documentary footage and there is nothing too complicated, but the music and conversations make up for the lack of glamour. This is never going to be a movie that blows a viewer away with thrill or action, but each little moment capturing Seymour as he talks about his fulfillment is worth seeing. The simple artistry is appropriate, given that the movie often pushes the theme of appreciating the extraordinary — but seemingly ordinary — beauty in everyday life.
Appropriately, a documentary about life and music must be accompanied by a prominent musical score. Almost all of the music in the movie is performed by either Seymour or in collaboration with his students. Every piece by Seymour is fresh with emotion and life, even though many are pieces that have been played by pianists over and over again for generations. Through each captivating song, the movie proves Seymour’s point that music has inherent beauty and value. Regardless of preference of genre, anyone with an appreciation of music will be moved by the emotion that Seymour and his students play with.
The movie even has a Zen quality to it, in both its lessons and its feel. The movie sets the tone in the opening scenes with footage of Seymour’s humble apartment, a quaint apartment barely larger than Georgetown housing — and even older. He has lived in the same modest apartment for decades, but he takes great joy at his modest living.
Beyond the seemingly Zen lifestyle, the movie also explores the transcendent quality of music. One such scene that explores this is a conversation with former students in which a student tells Seymour that NASA research showed that while Beethoven, Schumann and others wrote many of their best compositions in B-flat major, there was a black hole that generated the note B-flat throughout the universe. In the final screen of the movie, the movie makes what would appear to be a cheesy quotation when out of context: “I had an experience of music creating the whole universe.”
Seymour firmly believes that music is essential because it allows us to experience ecstasy that has a transcendent quality. Seymour notes that the Greeks believed music was one of the four parts essential to educating the person. But a common issue with artful pursuits is the erosion of experience. Many artists from Faulkner to Ethan Hawke struggle with understanding the authenticity of their art as they look back and see art fade and no longer have the same effect.
“There is something about music that is a love affair that goes on forever. My colleagues do [get tired], I heard one colleague say ‘I am not going to teach the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata anymore, because I am tired of teaching it,’” Seymour said. “[My response was] ’Are you serious? How did you feel when you were very young and you traced your right hand over the broken C-sharp major chord for the first time? I’ll tell you how I felt, I burst into tears. Are you going to deprive your students of that experience?’”
Seymour is a strong believer that every piece of art is beautiful in its own way and each individual can give their own voice to appreciate. The movie helps to demonstrate the beauty in individual artistry.
Throughout the movie, Ethan Hawke has momentary appearances in which his lines are used as a sort of meta-level exposition to guide the documentary into the themes he is reflecting upon during the movie. The first of these introduces the overarching theme of the exploration, and what it means to live a good and authentic life as an artist and a human.
Hawke wants to know what it means to be successful as both a person and an artist and Seymour’s life is a fascinating one to explore this through. When asked about how he defines his success by The Hoya, Seymour explained he does not judge whether or not he has ‘success’ in the traditional sense of the term. “I just have ideals that I embrace and I work towards them and I am able to overcome certain challenges and actually play a beautiful phrase the way I want to. That makes me feel so wonderful about myself. But I never equate it to my being successful,” he said. “I feel exactly the same. Nothing has changed,” Seymour said of his new-found fame from the film’s critical acclaim and praise.
Seymour is the living embodiment of what he preaches. “If you care about me, you’ll never let me perform for other people again,” he said. He is someone who wants art for art’s sake and for the beauty of music. He admires amateurs for being what they want to be and not what the industry wants them to be. The movie itself is a beautiful example of what art should be according to Seymour. It is an unrelentingly personal and emotional piece of art that is not made for Hollywood’s expectations.
After watching the movie, it is easy to tell why Ethan Hawke would be compelled to make such a film. With this movie, he has beautifully explored the lives of Seymour and some of his students who so genuinely believe in the beauty of music in their lives. Rarely does the subject of a movie praise the movie, but even Seymour himself felt that the movie was “a masterpiece of moviemaking.”
