4 | Germany, 2015 | 94 min | director: Daniel Kutschinski | cinematography: Arnd Buss- von Kuk | cast: Quatuor Ebène
A tale of creation and destruction, struggles and friendship, as told by the Quatuor Ebène,
one of the world's most exciting string quartets.
Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival 2015 | Best Documentary Award
For more: www.4-thefilm.com
Facebook: / 4thefilm
Never before have we revealed so much about our relationships among ourselves for a project, film or interview. - Raphaël Merlin, Quatuor Ebène
The best movie about classical music I have ever seen. True art. - Nicolas Altstaedt, cellist and conductor
Synopsis
4 is an independent cinema documentary on one of the world's most exciting string quartets - the Quatuor Ebène.
The film takes viewers along on the quartet’s tour of Italy, gradually drawing them into the ambivalent interactions that have come to characterise the four musicians’ long-standing relationship. Bolzano, Perugia, Florence and Siena, Salzburg and Berlin, form the involuntary backdrop to a piece about relationships and the antagonism between ambition and reality.
Rather than focusing on the stage performances of the multiple award-winning French Quatuor Ebène, 4 takes us behind the scenes to observe the musical and human processes usually hidden from the eyes of the concert audience: the string quartet’s struggle with scores and interpretational details, with colleague-friends - and with themselves.
The Quatuor Ebène allowed themselves to be observed at close quarters, wherever they were and whatever they were doing. Never putting on a front for the camera, they embraced the opportunity to rediscover themselves through the filming.
As a result, we now have not only a unique testimony of the conflicting desires, sufferings and joys of music making, but also an interpersonal story of a quartet rich in exquisite intuition and subject to bizarre misunderstandings that cannot help but make us think.
3 окт 2024
