Revisiting Rewatchables, week 32: “Impromptu”
Even famous artists have problems, could be the summary of this film. We meet a painter (Eugène Delacroix), composers (Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin) writers (Georges Sand and Alfred de Musset) and their lovers who always need money, have affairs, fight duels and/or sabotage each other’s lives. Being famous doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re nice, something the hapless Duchess d’Antan (Emma Thompson) realises when the illustrious guests she had invited in order to gain cultural cachet repay her benevolence with insults and explosives.
Director James Lapine had previously worked together with Stephen Sondheim on a number of musicals, most relevant here “Sunday in the Park with George” from 1984 which tells the story of Georges Seurat and his famous painting “Un dimanche après-midi à l'île de la Grande Jatte”, so it is fair to say that Lapine has an affinity for artists and their needs. The screenplay for “Impromptu” was written by Sarah Kernochan who is married to Lapine, and Lapine chose Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, who both starred in “Sunday in the Park with George”, to play major parts. One could say that “Impromptu” is a kind of family affair and it is all the better for it.
If this film were a drink, it’s flavour would be invigoratingly bitter. The main plot is about how George Sand (Judy Davis) tries to woo a very reluctant Frédéric Chopin (Hugh Grant). The other characters weave in and out of the plot, either commenting on George Sand’s obsession or trying to stop her from succeeding. The grown-ups are at each other’s throats and even the children are dangerous rather than sweet. George Sand’s children love to re-enact the French revolution and blow things up, and George Sand’s adversary (and Liszt’s lover), Marie d’Agoult (Bernadette Peters), is worn down by one pregnancy after the other.
The script is intelligent and with razor sharp lines, like this:
Marie d’Agoult: George! You'll want to sit over here, my dear - all the respectable people are on the other side.
The actors are all perfectly cast, the set design and the costumes are extraordinary and the soundtrack, comprising of music by Chopin and Liszt, is sublime. Grant as Chopin and Julian Sands as Liszt had a piano coach to help them with their technique, and for once one doesn’t cringe at the spectacle of actors pretending to play the piano, which is important because music is at the centre of this film. George Sand first falls for Chopin when she by chance hears him play one of his pieces and we return time and again to his music, most notably an “Impromptu” he struggles with. Chopin in turn is touched by something Sand wrote. Language and music open the heart, at least the heart of those who allow themselves to be touched by music or words.
Last but not least: this is a film for all who want to worship at the feet of Judy Davis. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote:
Judy Davis makes her entrances as if she were straddling a cyclone. She doesn't just walk in, she blows in on a torrent of extravagant self-assurance and wild temperament. Sand, who's the locus of this blissfully high-spirited romp about the circle of writers and musicians in 1830s Paris, never does anything halfway; her life is an experiment in full-throttle, passionate immersion, and that's why Davis is the ideal actress for the part. She's the most atmospheric of actors, perhaps the only one around capable of streaking the screen with lightning.
Yes, yes, and yes again!