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Impromptu (1991) Starring Judi Davis, Hugh Grant, Bernadette Peters, Ralph Brown, Julian Sands, Mandi Patinkin..Directed By James Lapine Judi Davis is doing what I feel is an Oscar winning performance as French feminist radical cross-dressing author George Sand, who is ultimately a woman who belongs to no one and who lives life to the fullest. She has raised children to be as creative as she is and taken full responsibility for her children as well as for her elderly mother. Bored of the dull life after her divorce from the father of her children, she takes her current lover to the French countryside. There, she is invited by a wealthy hostess to her estate. The drama heightens in a soap opera sort of way when none other than Alfred De Musset the poet and ex-lover of Sand shows up. Her jealous boyfriend, Malfitte, challenges him to a duel. Meanwhile, Sand has fallen for Chopin, who is her polar opposite. While she is free, intense, devil-may-care and very healthy, Chopin is reserved, emotional, sensitive, refined and suffering of bad health with tuberculosis. Their relationship is accurate to truth but not in the way the film depicts. The disaster that happens in the country estate, comedically produced, never really happened. Bernadette Peters delivers a terrific performance as well as the scheming and bitter Marie D'Agoult, whose own marriage to Franz Liszt after having many children with him, including Cosima who later marries Richard Wagner, but that's another story and even another movie. This is a well-done movie with lots of charm and witty scenes. I especially enjoyed the entire portion in the country estate, in which the artist Delacroix, Franz Liszt and Chopin discuss over dinner the existence of God in front of a priest, put on a satirical farce play that ends badly and Sand's adorable children who are always finding some excuse to play with explosives and dynamite.
This 1991 movie directed by James Lepine is an absolute charm. It's a romantic comedy, it's a historical piece and a colorful introduction to the music of Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and the life and writings of Madame George Sand Aurore Dudevant. The romantic comedy is well-written, the actors are doing top-notch performances and the music is heaven. I don't know yet if there is a soundtrack but it's likely there is and it must be beautiful. George Sand was the pen name of the feminist writer Aurore Dudevant who scandalized proper Victorian society in the 19th century by dressing as a man, smoking cigars, abandoning her wealthy and respected husband to live the liberal lifestyle of a bohemian writer of novels. She had many lovers, including Alfred De Musset (who is played in this film by Mandy Patinkin)and her most famous lover, Frederic Chopin. It is their love story that this movie focuses on. Stars Judi Davis as George Sand, Hugh Grant as Chopin and Bernadette Peters as the Countess Marie D'Agoult. I will not give away the answer. But Chopin, though he never married Sand, was greatly influenced by his knowing her and his most productive period of composing piano music came after their heartbreaking separation. Chopin died young of tuberculosis. It's very possible that he loved George Sand but I'm thinking that for Sand, no man was really ever good enough for her. After all, she was the embodiment of the feminist, independent single woman who did'nt really need marriage or love. Great scenes: Judi Davis must woo Hugh Grant as a man wins a woman (gender role switch because Chopin was very frail and feminine) and Sand was more aggressive. "Art does not apologize" is another great line. Great movie, great music.
score 10/10
FloatingOpera7 9 April 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1336800/ |
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1-3-2021 00:06:17