Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
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| Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould | |
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 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | François Girard |
| Produced by | Michael Allder Niv Fichman Barbara Willis Sweete Larry Weinstein |
| Written by | François Girard (screenplay) & Don McKellar (screenplay) Glenn Gould (additional material) |
| Starring | Colm Feore Derek Keurvorst Katya Ladan |
| Release date(s) | September 14, 1993 (Toronto Film Festival) |
| Running time | 98 min. |
| Language | English/French |
| IMDb profile | |
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, released in 1993, is an award-winning movie about the famous piano prodigy Glenn Gould. François Girard and Don McKellar wrote the film; Girard directed.
The film consists of a mixture of documentary shorts (five interviews with people who knew him), re-creations of scenes from Gould's life (with actor Colm Feore as Gould), and various odd items (such as Gould Meets McLaren, where animated spheres move to Gould's music). The thirty two short films range in length from six minutes to less than one. The form is inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, which was also Gould's much-acclaimed initial recording.
According to 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."
The film features piano and organ recordings by Gould exclusively. Present are pieces famously linked with him, such as Bach's Goldberg Variations, and the Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as others which are less so.
An episode of The Simpsons, "22 Short Films About Springfield" (April 16, 1996), had its title inspired by this film along with its vignette-based narrative structure.
