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The Competition
The movie centers on a piano competition whose winner is assured of success. It is Paul's last chance to compete, but newcomer Heidi may be a better pianist. Can romance be far away? Will she take a dive despite the pressure to win from her teacher, Greta, or will she condemn Paul to obscurity?
Release : | 1980 |
Rating : | 6.6 |
Studio : | Columbia Pictures, Rastar Productions, |
Crew : | Production Design, Set Decoration, |
Cast : | Richard Dreyfuss Amy Irving Lee Remick Sam Wanamaker Joseph Cali |
Genre : | Drama Music Romance |
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I wanted to but couldn't!
best movie i've ever seen.
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
I was about to start this review by pointing out that I think 'The Competition' is merely an example of 'typical Hollywood schmaltz, but that would be unfair. For one thing, it's not 'typical'. There, I've got that out of the way.Directed by once only director Joel Oliansky. it stars Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving as a pair of duelling pianists who are trying to win the piano competition of the title. Dreyfuss is a mercurial genius in two minds whether to persist with his career, as other pianists are receiving the recognition he feels he deserves. For this reason he is losing his perseverance to carry on and feels that he should abandon his nomadic life of travelling around the country competing in these types of events and just 'get a life' like everyone else. Irving is the conscientious worker with a dedicated teacher: with a little luck and perseverance she can be a winner and doesn't need the brashness of Dreyfuss to succeed. Irving and Dreyfuss are meant to be competing with each other, but what do they do? Yep, you guessed it. Questions arise as to who is the most dedicated, which one of them deserves a career in classical music, and how fate somehow has a role in all our lives - more than we are prepared to admit.The piano performances as captured on film are better than most. The two actors trained to mimic at least the appearance of playing at concert level. Their piano performances were actually recorded by two prodigies of that era, Daniel Pollack and Chester B. Swiatkowski, and then dubbed later on. Aside from this competent presentation of piano music, penned by the great classical composers and performed with an accuracy that Hollywood is not renowned for, 'The Competition' is unfortunately, a little bit dull. Sam Wanamaker has a small but entertaining role as a temperamental conductor who takes no nonsense from his students in the competition. The respective parents of the protagonists for example, are stock characters and are brought into the story for a bit of interest but their impact is minimal. There are a few interesting minor characters who round out the competitors but they have minimal screen time. One sub-plot involves an eastern bloc competitor defecting to the west but it really is of less interest than the main plot involving whether Irving and Dreyfuss can overcome their differences and have a romantic relationship away from their individual dedication to the piano.The principal thespians Amy Irving and Richard Dreyfuss have on-screen rapport and work well with each other. But somehow they spend too much time either in competition, or going out on dates and wondering if this means whether they're having a relationship or not. Amy Irving was at one stage married to Stephen Spielberg. She was an extremely talented young actress, but her career seemed not to go anywhere, appearing to fall out of favour with the public. Richard Dreyfuss subsequently had a hiatus due to personal problems but had the talent to return and carry on his successful career. My perennial favourite Lee Remick has a featured role as Irving's wise and demanding piano teacher and she looks beautiful and is a major asset to the project. Classical music is rarely used as the backdrop for a story in a Hollywood film and I suppose we should at least be grateful to 'The Competition' for that but otherwise in most other respects it is the type of conventional entertainment we have come to expect from Hollywood 'The Competition' just scrapes by with a pass mark from me because of the music, and if it tweaks your interest in the subject, become a member of Naxos and you can get your classical music education from there.
Amy Irving, Richard Dreyfuss, Lee Remick, and Sam Wanamaker star in "The Competition," a 1980 film, written and directed by Joel Oliansky. The story concerns pianists gathering for the semifinals of a competition in San Francisco. Paul Dietrich (Dreyfuss) has one last shot at a career as a pianist, given his age, and the fact that his parents have been supporting him, and his dad is in bad shape. Heidi (Irving) knew Paul from a summer program. She studies with a top teacher, Greta Vandeman (Remick) and is there basically to see how far she can go. Despite Paul's attempts to put off the smitten Heidi, he finally admits his feelings, and the two fall in love. Greta isn't happy - she's afraid Heidi is going to lose her competitive edge and take a back seat so that Paul can win.This very good movie is just about overshadowed by the brilliant music and the magnificent fingerings and look of the actors as they're playing. They obviously had the benefit of great coaching.The film gives a realistic look at the tension of competitions, and the various states of mind that people have going into them. For Paul, it's his last shot; the Joseph Cali character wants to use it as a steppingstone to Vegas and a Liberace-type act; Heidi has nothing to lose. There is a lot of psychoanalysis throughout the film, which some may find off-putting. It does go on.Amy Irving is an excellent actress, and she does a beautiful job here. Dreyfuss is also excellent, coming off as desperate, arrogant, and sad. Lee Remick is the ultimate piano teacher who knows too well the pitfalls of being a woman, particularly a woman in love.If you like classical piano, don't miss "The Competition."
If this flick was going to be the great prelude to the movie "Shine," I would definitely say yes.As you may know, "Shine" also takes place during a big piano concerto competition at the Royal College of Music, where the character David Helfgott tries to the utmost to beat his schizophrenic mind as he plays the most notorious concerto ever--The Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. 3."The Competition" also takes a moderate borrowing from the aspects and the plots from another movie called "Madame Sousatka", which depicts a competitive piano performer preparing for a concerto competition with Schumann's A Minor Piano Concerto, with an old--but very strict---piano teacher. Both movies tell a little bit on how some people are so obsessed with practicing for a piano competition and teachers who are almost or not almost always strict in pianistic interpretation.But what makes "The Competition" even better than "Madame Sousatka" or "Shine" is how a romance can make or break piano competition training, and how winning a competition can change your life for the better. The best character I liked was the one played by Amy Irving.During the final competition scene, where competing piano concerto participants play with a full orchestra, you hear snipets from some of the great piano concertos that are still played today. They were: the Haydn D Major Concerto, The G minor by Saint-Saens, the 3rd Concerto in C Major by Prokofiev, and the Emperor Piano Concerto by Beethoven.
In 1980 this was a heartwarming love story. In 2005 this is a stale piece of soap. Stand by Your Man should have been the piece Amy Irving played in the competition, because throughout the entire film her character's growth consists of becoming a doormat for the Richard Dreyfus character. I could hardly sit through this two decades later, amazed at Irving's masochistic need to take anything Dreyfus dished out.In this movie, love means having to say you are sorry, over and over again, especially when you have nothing to be sorry for.Ugh.