Beloved Clara

I just saw Geliebte Clara today, in an intimate theater of about 100 seats. Close to the screen, I was quickly drawn into the music and the emotion of the players. The costuming was fantastic, with rich colors and fantastic textures. Women didn't wear the most confining corsets every day, there were many different styles, and softer ones were used for traveling or daily wear. Women of lower social orders didn't wear them at all. Beyond corsets, the film had a remarkable sensitivity and cohesion I hadn't expected from the filmmakers. There was great attention to detail, and I found the cast to be highly committed to their roles. Only the actor playing Robert I found to occasionally be a little less than attentive. Martina Gedeck is now my favorite German actress. This is a must-have DVD for me.

With "Clara," Helma Sanders-Brahms has fashioned another film version of the turbulent menage-a-trois involving Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. In this relatively controlled musical biography, there is a sense of intention to delineate something of the efforts Clara faced: as a musically-talented woman, an outstanding pianist and composer, struggling to express herself boldly in the society of men at that time; as mother of several children and increasingly beleaguered caretaker of her husband, with Robert descending further into mental illness; and as galvanizing muse and romantic other to the youthful and impetuous Brahms. In terms of story there's not much new here. However, there is more than just a bit of music for listening to, and at some length with each occurrence. The big surprise of "Clara" is that it actually works against the film.

An effect is produced whereby, the more one hears the long passages of music, the more one attends to its depth, power and scope of expression, all of which unintentionally casts an unfavorable light on everything which tries to anchor it in the dramatic lives of the principals themselves. Although there is admirable restraint in Martina Gedeck's performance as Clara, as well as Sanders-Brahms' treatment (which is actually somewhat dry in itself), the intense focus on the music as a barometer of the inner lives of these people only seems to produce an unworthy melodramatic aura, and to paradoxical effect: Ms. Gedeck's luminous face seems at once more than adequate in its subtle registrations of feeling and thought, yet pathetically ineffective... Pascal Greggory doesn't appear to be dramatically excessive as Schumann, succumbing to the disabling "bipolar" fits he suffered, and yet he increasingly waxes unconvincing...

Until the realization occurs that the unusual abundance of music in the film overwhelms the proceedings, which points directly to a real problem with this kind of project (musical biographical films). 'Seeing' the drama of the passions 'behind' the music not only feels trite, but psychologizes one's reception to the music to the point of fixating its energy, so that it appears as the result of emotional conflicts and stresses which arise in a soap-operatic realm of human relationships. The music literally drags this burden with it and long before the end, I found myself wanting only the music, and not the accompanying images, because it was that much greater.

There is an unfortunate irony in that Sanders-Brahms has chosen to represent the inner tumult of the Schumanns, in letting the music-making on screen -- the intensity of the actors' expressions when hovering over the keyboard, their concentrated poise -- stand in for what cannot otherwise be outwardly depicted, which eventually likens to some form of psychodrama. Of course, when compared with something like Ken Russell's earlier outlandish forays into musical biography (Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Lizst), which added nothing to the appreciation of the music in itself except as soundtrack for his foolish visual pyrotechnics, perhaps Ms. Sanders-Brahms' example may seem more reasonable with its quieter veneer of finesse.

But the very fact remains that the music has survived to this day due to its own profound attributes, especially its intrinsic ability to move us, and entirely without the benefit of any behind-the-scenes scenarios as illustration, or even illumination (usually a greater error), for it. Such strategies tend to wind up revealing the music itself at a completely different emotional depth than that which is depicted on screen: there is no match. This inevitable discrepancy between the two serves the conviction that, ultimately, this story does not need to be told again, and perhaps many others like it.

I see that I am not the only person to be disappointed by this film. I fully agree with the other comment that has been written before mine. I am no expert in music or in the lives of the Schumanns and Brahms, and I have seen no former film about them. But I know something about history and about period drama, so I will constrain my notes to this area. The first time we see Clara Schumann, she lounges in a railway carriage as if she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Did the filmmakers not know or not care that the kind of dress she is actually wearing comes with a corset, and that a corset influences the way a woman sits and walks? Maybe Clara was infamous for not wearing one. Then it should have been told in the film, somehow. In this same scene, she tells how she is missing her kids, but in the rest of the film, we never see her really interact with them. In fact, the little ones are barely more than extras, and speak their lines like at the third rehearsal of a school play. Unfortunately, this goes for most of the dialogue. It is wooden, to say the least, and does nothing to illuminate the characters. Most of it could be left out without a loss. The film centers on the love triangle, but never shows why these men love Clara, and how she fell in love with them. What ties this married couple together? How did she decide not to compose anymore? Did she ever compose again, after Robert's death? Why did Johannes Brahms show his compositions to Schumann, and why did he ask them back? What draws him to Clara? You'd think the music is behind it all, the way they share their understanding of music and the way they can understand each other by listening to and playing each other's compositions. But nothing of that is shown in the way the actors move, talk, or interact. Not even Martina Gedeck, whom I sincerely admire, was able to show her range of emotional expression. Yes, she did portray a passionate piano player, but it somehow didn't seem to matter what she was playing at all. Another thing I noticed was how many scenes were showing candles, but the light was unchangingly cold. In the theatre I went to, midway through the film it suddenly stopped, and it took the employees some minutes to restart it. I sincerely considered leaving then and there, because I had been disappointed from the first scene. Well, if I stayed, it was mostly for the sake of the friend I had come with, and for the sake of the music. If you care for the music of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, don't watch this movie. Listen to a good recording. The three stars I gave are merely for the music.