Against my better judgment, I plunked down my money for two tickets to
"Hilary and Jackie," the new biopic about cellist Jacqueline du Pre.  The
title, as cleverly cheap a bit of exploitation as I've seen in a while,
should have tipped me off.  As we all know, the movie is based on a book
by the cellist's sister, Hilary, a woman apparently so jealous about the
adulation lavished on Jacqueline that she can't see the obvious facts about
her sister's great talent.  The subliminal message of the book is that *I*
Was the Talented One.  *I* Deserved the Praise She Got.

The movie itself, despite marvelous performances (the actors are very,
very good), is simply a variation on the only two stories film people seem
nowadays able to tell about artists:  Artist as Sacred Monster and Artist
as Holy Fool.  So we get Shine, Immortal Beloved, Amadeus, and now this,
a combo of the two.  I've seen only two really good movies on artists in
my life:  Ken Russell's "Song of Summer" on Delius and an American PBS
film on Walt Whitman with Rip Torn as the poet (can't remember the title).
However, having read a little more on Delius since I first saw the film, I
now doubt its accuracy.  Still, it's a very good film, perhaps Russell's
best.  These two films rise above the cliches.

Through no fault of my own, I've met a lot of artists, some of whom
have accomplished signficant things.  What has struck me about the better
ones is that they're not worried about whether they're treated as proper
geniuses and whether obeisance is due.  Their main concern is for the work,
and they work harder than just about every non-artist I know.  That's
certainly two things that came through in the Delius and Whitman films and
gave them much of their (to me) authenticity.  But, let's face it.  Most
artists' lives on the surface are pretty boring.  The excitement that they
feel is an inner excitement, as they strive to bring possibilities into
actuality.  How do you get that into film? Let's see, Tolstoy sits at his
desk for hours every day and comes up with Anna Karenina:  Dull movie.  But
Tolstoy mistreating his wife:  That's Entertainment!  Nevertheless we learn
nothing worth knowing about how such a man produced such work - that is,
the reason why we presumably care to see a movie about him in the first
place.

What did duPre see in the Elgar concerto that others hadn't? How did she
arrive at her interpretation? If we knew, would it make an engrossing film?
How did this girl growing up in an isolated spot gain such musical maturity
so young? In other words, are we interested in du Pre as a great musician
or as a bit of cheesecake in a soap opera? The film obviously has banked on
the latter assumption.

The hell of it is, this piece of drivel and Hilary's book will have their
fifteen minutes of fame and sink beyond the ken of everybody but music
scholars.  However, du Pre's recordings will outlast them both and perhaps
prompt a writer with less baggage to investigate her life with the respect
it deserves.  Whatever the conclusions, Jackie will survive.

Steve Schwartz