Michel Petrucciani (2011)

Directed by: Michael Radford | 105 minutes | music, documentary

Nice tribute to the jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani, who unfortunately died far too young, and his immense musical talent. In his efforts to get the most out of his life, even the Roman proverb “Carpe diem” or “Seize the day” seems to fall short as a life motto for Petrucciani. He filled his days with booze, women, performing as often as possible and perfecting his playing. And all with great physical limitations.

Petrucciani was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a hereditary bone disease that causes extremely brittle bones. The disease, which is incurable, has various types, of which Petrucciani had a severe form, which also limited his growth. In osteogeneis imperfecta, there is also a high risk of serious lung disease and patients have fragile lungs. That is also what ultimately killed Petrucciani, at the age of 36, in 1999. His grave in the huge Parisian cemetery Père Lachaîse, is well worth a visit.

Director Michael Radford started his career as a documentary filmmaker, but became really famous with the film version of George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-four’ from, yes, 1984 with John Hurt and Richard Burton. This was followed by ‘Il Postino’, with a posthumous Oscar nomination for actor Massimo Troisi and ‘The Merchant of Venice’, with Al Pacino in the lead role. With ‘Michel Petrucciani’ he returns to his roots. Radford is a craftsman and shows all facets of the pianist’s life, without shying away from the sharp edges.

Petrucciani was a whirlwind in the lives of the people he met, but sometimes just as hard to drop again. It is clear that he has hurt others in his passion and drive. Yet the interviewees often look back with great love and affection. His illness is of course discussed, quite extensively, but even more important is Petrucciani’s virtuoso piano playing. The makers have selected a number of beautiful shots that show how special his gift really was. Not just “talking heads” in other words, but also fragments from interviews with Petrucciani himself and – in a funny addition – actually portraying what is being said. When Petrucciani tells that as a child he smashed his toy piano with a hammer, because he wanted a real one, Radford portrays that by showing that destruction in front of the camera.

Michel Petrucciani, of mixed French-Italian descent, is in all sincerity a dream of a subject for a documentary. Any filmmaker would rejoice in the biographical building blocks: a poor family; an enormous talent in a specialist field; a physical disability that results in many setbacks that require perseverance and an eventful private life in which boundaries are continuously pushed back. Radford knows how to take full advantage of this. Because it is about the life of a jazz pianist, the intriguing life story will (unfortunately) not appeal to a lot of people. Although the documentary was certainly made for a wider audience, it will mainly appeal to fans of his music. It’s also helpful to have some insider knowledge about the artists Petrucciani looked up to and which greats he would later play with.

However, Radford has made one unfortunate choice, which makes the documentary less appealing. That is because he does not identify the many “talking heads”. Radford has apparently stated that knowing who’s who isn’t that interesting, but many viewers will disagree wholeheartedly. Would it have been so difficult to write a short text with the name (and possibly the connection with Michel)? Now you as a viewer have to figure it out for yourself. Sometimes it is simple, because the context indicates that it is a relative or a friend, but sometimes it remains unclear. That omission gets really annoying after a while. Still, it would be a shame to drop the film for that, because there is a lot to see.

Radford has made a beautiful portrait of Michel Petrucciani with a lot of love and craftsmanship, in which the playing time of more than one and a half hours flies by and which gives a candid insight into a much too short, but oh so rich life.