365 Day Movie Challenge (2018) - #58: Itzhak (2017) - dir. Alison Chernick (52 Films by Women 2018: #18)
There may be a great documentary to be created about the world-famous violinist Itzhak Perlman, but Alison Chernick’s Itzhak is not it. Perlman’s brilliant artistry shines through in every frame of the performance clips that Chernick assembled for the film, but there is far too much emphasis placed on the musician’s vaguely philosophical statements about art and life. It’s no surprise that the working title for the documentary was Itzhak & Toby, a reference to Perlman’s wife of half a century; in some ways Toby Perlman was more compelling to me while watching because I didn’t know anything about her - Itzhak, on the other hand, I’m quite familiar with since (full disclosure) I played the violin from ages 6 to 21 - but Toby's repetitions of those touchy-feely maxims became grating after a while.
The film lightly traces Itzhak Perlman’s biography, including his struggle to overcome polio as a child in Israel and his incredible American TV debut (Ed Sullivan) when he was thirteen years old in 1958, but Chernick’s film evidently was made for longtime devotees. The uninitiated will likely come away from Itzhak with an admiration for the subject’s singular gifts - given that he has lived in Manhattan for sixty years, there is immense joy in seeing him soar through an energetic violin solo on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” played at one of the New York rocker’s many Madison Square Garden concerts - but a more thorough study of Perlman’s life and career to fill in the film’s blanks can probably be accomplished online with a few Google searches.
