I saw this film at the Cleveland Cinematheque tonight at the first major screening in over 40 years and with what the director said was the largest audience ever to view the film. The beautiful, recently completed digital restoration was presented from a Blu-ray disc with digital projection (a rarity for the Cinematheque). For anyone who grew up in Cleveland, and especially in the late 1960s, this film will be a nostalgic treat. Its superb photography memorializes in time-capsule fashion some wonderful locations on Cleveland's East Side, most notably Severance Hall (the main characters are Cleveland Orchestra musicians), University Circle, Hessler Road, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, and Bratenahl.
In terms of theme, the film deals with race and class relations in Cleveland, not thickly enough to be polemic but too thinly to be striking or thought-provoking. The story is not strong; there is nothing that we would consider today a typical story "structure"; the movie has no stars, no action sequences, no real suspense or element of danger. For these reasons, it is understandable why the film never received a wide release, despite the fact that it was carefully and loving crafted. It is an art film and a very artfully done one at that, and will appeal to music lovers (its title refers to the technique of bowing two strings at once on a stringed instrument to create harmony, as in the Bach cello pieces that texture the film's score) and photography lovers, as well as native Clevelanders. RKS
