You Cannot Start Without Me Allan Miller, USA, 2009, 87 minutes
Saturday, May 8 | 12:00pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
In the world of classical music, conductor Valery Gergiev is a towering figure. The principal conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra and the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, as well as a guest conductor at the 2010 Winter Olympic Closing Ceremonies, Gergiev follows in the mould of past-greats including von Karajan, Toscanini or Sir George Solti (dubbed the screaming skull by some members of the orchestras he conducted).
Like the many legendary men who preceded him, Gergiev pours his body into his work with almost frightening intensity. Conducting is a physical job, and Gergiev, dark, brooding and mostly unshaven, possesses the necessary force of will, not to mention flying hair, to vault good performances into staggering ones.
Director Allan Miller trots around the globe, capturing Gergiev like one would a Siberian tiger (i.e. in his element), whether that means calming skittish ballerinas or coaxing nuances and subtle colour from an orchestra. A child prodigy, Gergiev grew up in the Caucasus Mountains of North Ossetia, a place renowned not only for its beauty, but also for the ferocious temperament of its people. Tapped early as a possible conductor by Professor Ilya Musin, one of Russia’s most famous music teachers, Gergiev was conducting major orchestras while still in his early 20s.
Miller’s film glides over some of the more unsavoury aspects of Gergiev’s life, such as the rumour that he is godfather to Vladmir Putin’s children and vice versa, to focus intensively on the demands of the job. The personal sacrifices required to exist in such rarified air are many and multiple, and the demands on his time preclude being a good father and husband, as Gergiev somewhat ruefully admits. Whether he is conducting the volcanic roar of the immolation scene from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung or Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, You Cannot Start Without Me reveals not only the near-fanatical dedication of Gergiev himself, but the price paid to exist in the highest stratosphere of the classical music realm.
“...His mode of expression (in wonderful English) is often soulful, yet the movie, though conventional in form, brings us close to an elemental ferocity just barely held in check.”
- The New Yorker
Director’s biography
Allan Miller has produced and directed over 35 films and television programs documenting some of the most important musical events of the last two decades. He has won numerous awards including and Emmy and two Academy Awards. Miller was the founder of The Late Late Concerts at Lincoln Center; Educational Conductor for the Baltimore Symphony, Associate Conductor of the Denver Symphony, and guest conductor of several orchestras in the US. Miller is also co-founder of Symphony Space, a Performing Arts Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
