From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China

From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (1981)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-winning documentary follows Isaac Stern's tour of China where he was invited by the government to spend three weeks. The tour included him performing some concerts but the main goal was to introduce children to the world of music, which was something they couldn't learn due to the Cultural Revolution that ran for over a decade. While I haven't seen every nominated film from 1981, I'm not certainly I'd heap too much praise on this film or find it Oscar-worthy but I think it's a pretty interesting look at a place where something as simple as music was taken away from them. This documentary does cover quite a bit of ground as we start off just seeing Stern travel to some rehearsals where he comments on the music playing and we also see the master at work himself. Fans of Stern will certainly enjoy hearing him play but they also get a chance to hear him speak about his craft as he teaches those around him. The film never gets overly political but it does deal with some darker issues of how the people were abused and just never given the freedom to do things that other places take for granted. There's a scene towards the hour mark where a man recounts his time of abuse that is really heartbreaking. I think what the film proves the most is how there's really no language to music and how so many people can be effected by it even if they're from different parts of the world.

This is one of the most moving films I have ever seen. The 'language of music' gets a lot of mileage in general, but here you see it as the common voice of people who have no other mutual language. It is a film of great sensitivity and honesty, showing the depths of tragedy people experienced under the Cultural Revolution in China, as well as an engaging whirlwind tour into the rich world of traditional and modern (well, 1980s) China. Stern's master classes with young Chinese students are delightful - humorous, enlightening and beautifully human. Well worth seeing or owning.

My review was written in February 1981 after a screening on Manhattan's UWS: "From Mao to Mozart" is an entertaining and perceptive documentary on violinist Isaac Stern's three-week visit to China in June 1979. Filmmaker Murray Lerner, known for his 1967 docu "Festival" on the Newport Folk Festival, has recorded the human contact across different cultures that comes out in the faces and musical exchanges of the tour. Net result emphasizes the universality of human beings rather than their obvious differences.

As guest of the Chinese government, Stern and pianist David Golub visited Peking, Shanghai and other cities, with impressive young native ballet artists, acrobats and musicians all captured on film. The amazing degree of discipline and concentration among young Chinese is evident in every type of activity observed. Arresting travelogue footage of the vast, green countryside and bustling cities is included in the pic for transitions.

Though brief concert performances by the duo are featured, Lerner concentrates on numerous rehearsals and auditions to give a candid view of what amounts to cultural shock. Stern is no diplomat, but his colorful criticisms of the young players' technique and lack of emotion in their playing pays off in priceless lessons from a truly gifted teacher. The reaction of the huge rehearsal audiences and the improvement in the players' work justifies Stern's lack of tact. Throughout, his emotional commitment to music is the film's inspirational hook.

Stern and Golub narrate various segments, giving their impressions of the trip, while Tan Shuzhen, deputy director of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, narrates a most revealing segment dealing with his students. Shuzhen reports on his harrowing 14-month incarceration and other horrors during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966, and concisely discusses the need for openness in music, which is why the tour and film came about in the first place.

Though ostensibly a music documentary, picture succeeds due to Lerner's visual rendering of human faces. Editing, photography and sound recording are all top-notch. Already nominated, pic looms as a heavy Oscar contender and merits specially-handled commercial bookings based on its entertainment and educational value.

I'll admit to being a bit confused as to the purpose of this documentary. It follows a select tour by Ukrainian-born American violinist Isaac Stern to communist China where he meets some of their prodigiously talented young folk who are adept at just about everything from playing musical instruments to table tennis to gymnastics. The one thing he seems to want to identify and correct is a certain rigidity with their playing styles, but that often leads to what appears to present a rather condescending approach to their skills. Hence my confusion. Is he there to impart his "Western" techniques on the Chinese or to see how they have embraced and adapted European classical music to their own style of music? We visit some Chinese opera and again, there is a degree of patronising going on which suggests an inferiority of East v West that didn't sit so well with me. It touches, quite harrowingly in one interview, on the attitudes of the Maoist authorities when it came to eradicating the influences of Mozart et al and replacing them with domestic themes, but that again seems to ignore the facts that the musical traditions of this nation are easily as old as anything that was imported from the courts of Vienna or Berlin. Stern is very clearly a talented musician, but as a communicator and a teacher, well I found him lacking in understanding or respect for a heritage that dates back aeons and that's musical styles he, himself, might struggle to master. It's a bit long, but is still an interesting treatise on the weaponisation of music that showcases some sublime talent - epitomised by a young lad on the piano - amidst a politically manipulative environment.

If you know anything about performances of classical music, then you probably know that Isaac Stern was one of the most renowned violinists of the 20th century. With the formerly isolationist China opening up to the world in the 1970s, Stern went and performed there. Murray Lerner's Academy Award-winning documentary "From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China" shows the maestro's travels in the People's Republic, and his exposure to China's culture. Probably the most impressive scene was the gymnastics and athletics; that must've taken an unimaginable amount of discipline!

The documentary does also make sure to note the damage caused by the Cultural Revolution (which China was just coming out of at the time). Whatever the case, this is one fine look at cultural exchange. I wonder if any of the Chinese students whom Stern met remember meeting him.