The Beat That My Heart Skipped
2005 ‘De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté’ Directed by Jacques Audiard
Synopsis
Like his father, Tom is a real estate agent who makes his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, deals. But a chance encounter prompts him to take up the piano and become a concert pianist. He auditions with the help of a beautiful, young virtuoso pianist who cannot speak French - music is their only exchange. But pressures from the ugly world of his day job soon become more than he can handle...
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A little more generic, and with more faults, than Jacques Audiard's two previous films, but still essentially good in many ways.
Before watching, I assumed it was essentially Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste in reverse order, but the DVD case told me it's based on an old Harvey Keitel film, Fingers.There are few panoramas and distance shots in Audiard's films, and they have an intense focus on one or two characters as a novel might. I've just read that his cinematography is very typical of recent European cinema, but having watched a lot of older films of late, the style is quite striking and claustrophobic - if the word can be used in a non-pejorative sense. I very much…
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Remake of the 1978 Harvey Keitel film Fingers.
Violent and elegant tale of a thuggish and shady businessman beginning to embrace his concert pianist roots. You can see a few of the ups and the downs coming but this is still stirring stuff. The scenes between him and his teacher are particularly affecting. I do have a soft spot sometimes for those films which unites two completely different type of people.
Just when you're revelling in the beauty of some moments, there's a brutal scene (none more so than the vicious testicle twisting attack) around the corner to remind you what world the film begins in.
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December Project #33
At face value this is a simplistic character study, but Jacques Audiard successfully disguises the depth it ultimately holds. Romain Duris plays Tom, a thug who at the turn of fate rekindles his desire to be a pianist. His mother was a concert pianist, but her death lead to him losing his passion and following in his father's footsteps and joining a shady real estate business. The film revolves around him gradually detaching from his criminal ways and completely immersing himself in the beauty of music. His relationship with his father (played by Niels Arestrup) is loving, but violent and unhealthy; he finds solace in their separation. His piano playing is tense and exhausting, like he is…
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A juxtaposition of sorts, a wannabe thug and tough guy who also is an amazing pianist. The movie shows that there are multiple sides to people, that rough exteriors can have softness within. The passion that is shown for piano music and piano playing is countered by some brutally ruthless acts of violence. If we have multiple sides of ourselves, who does each side come to the surface? Watching this movie I wondered if we have control over which "self" we present to the world, or if the world is able to pull this "self" out of us. The piano player and the thug. I have to reflect on whether I am pursuing a passion in life, if I am putting energy into graceful and beautiful "keystrokes". Or maybe I am bullishly trying to force my will onto others and using "violence" to achieve what I want.
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The thing I like about Jacques Audiard is the way he mixes storylines that I would never put together, like gangsters, classical piano and adultery, his latest Rust and Bone also has a strange mix of plot, and for me both work.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped also has a great cast, Romain Duris is excellent as Thomas, a man torn between his job as a slum landlord, like his aging father and becoming a classical pianist, like his dead mother. Neils Arestrup is Robert, Thomas's father who gets into trouble going into business with the wrong people.
First rate French drama from a brilliant director.
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Highly unusual and original story, played out ridiculous well.
Why is this such an excellent film? Because it was written and directed by a master craftsman who goes by the the name of Jacques Audiard, who if you wasn't aware was also responsible for the unbelievably good Un prophète.
And if that wasn't enough now it's time for an earlier work of Audiard, 'Sur mes lèvres' starring Vincent Cassel. Apparently it's even better than The Beat That Skipped.
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A bit of a stretch to couple a redeeming criminal to an aspiring concert pianist. Amusing nonetheless.
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66/100
[Originally published on Nerve.com]
Is there any point to a James Toback movie not directed by James Toback? More than almost any other American filmmaker, Toback is defined by his obsessions, virtually all of which are predicated on the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane. Fingers, his 1978 directorial debut, starred Harvey Keitel as a prototypical Toback protagonist, torn between a career as a concert pianist and his current gig as a low-level Mob enforcer; it's hard to imagine anybody else mining riches from such a schematic, implausible scenario, unless he happens to share the personal conviction that the stars are best viewed from a reclining position in the gutter. And yet here we have The Beat That…
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a struggle to be a better person
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Remake of the 1978 Harvey Keitel film Fingers.
Violent and elegant tale of a thuggish and shady businessman beginning to embrace his concert pianist roots. You can see a few of the ups and the downs coming but this is still stirring stuff. The scenes between him and his teacher are particularly affecting. I do have a soft spot sometimes for those films which unites two completely different type of people.
Just when you're revelling in the beauty of some moments, there's a brutal scene (none more so than the vicious testicle twisting attack) around the corner to remind you what world the film begins in.
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Audiard..what can you say?
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A decently interesting story of a thug with identity issues. He doesn't want to live in his father's rough world, but has trouble leaving it for his mother's civilized world.
Unfortunately the scenes are very repetitive and the acting isn't engaging enough to handle the close camera work (which I rarely appreciate).
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A juxtaposition of sorts, a wannabe thug and tough guy who also is an amazing pianist. The movie shows that there are multiple sides to people, that rough exteriors can have softness within. The passion that is shown for piano music and piano playing is countered by some brutally ruthless acts of violence. If we have multiple sides of ourselves, who does each side come to the surface? Watching this movie I wondered if we have control over which "self" we present to the world, or if the world is able to pull this "self" out of us. The piano player and the thug. I have to reflect on whether I am pursuing a passion in life, if I am putting energy into graceful and beautiful "keystrokes". Or maybe I am bullishly trying to force my will onto others and using "violence" to achieve what I want.
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Brilliant. A great remake of a good movie (FINGERS).
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A little more generic, and with more faults, than Jacques Audiard's two previous films, but still essentially good in many ways.
Before watching, I assumed it was essentially Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste in reverse order, but the DVD case told me it's based on an old Harvey Keitel film, Fingers.There are few panoramas and distance shots in Audiard's films, and they have an intense focus on one or two characters as a novel might. I've just read that his cinematography is very typical of recent European cinema, but having watched a lot of older films of late, the style is quite striking and claustrophobic - if the word can be used in a non-pejorative sense. I very much…