Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould

Released 1993
Stars Colm Feore
Directed by Francois Girard

Canadian musician and composer Glenn Gould was born in Toronto in 1932. By age three, his gifts were apparent, and he was performing professionally nine years later. Gould became one of the world's most renowned classical performers, making more than 60 recordings, as well as working in the fields of publishing, conducting, radio and television broadcasting, and scoring feature films. His version of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" is definitive, and was included as one of the samples of humanity's best on both Voyager spacecraft. Gould died of a stoke in 1982 at the age of 50.

Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould presents a unique, impressionistic look at the offbeat musician. Instead of giving a chronological view of Gould's life, writer/director Francois Girard has elected to present a variety of snapshots, including recreations of actual events (with Gould played brilliantly by Colm Feore) and interviews with real-life contemporaries and friends. Says Girard: "As Gould was such a complex character, the biggest problem was to find a way to look at his work and deal with his visions. The film is built of fragments, each one trying to capture an aspect of Gould. There is no way of putting Gould in one box. The film gives the viewer 32 impressions of him. I didn't want to reduce him to one dimension."

Summary by James Berardinelli