In July 2005, filmmaker Scott Hicks started shooting a documentary about the composer Philip Glass to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2007. Over the next 18 months, Scott followed Philip across three continents – from his annual ride on the Coney Island “Cyclone” to the world premiere of his new opera in Germany and in performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia.
Allowed unprecedented access to Glass’ working process, family, spiritual teachers and long time collaborators, Hicks worked with a skeleton crew and shot the lion’s share of the film himself, giving us a singular revelation into the life of this surprising and complex man. THIRTEEN’s American Masters: GLASS: a portrait of Philip in twelve parts premieres nationally, Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). This documentary is a mosaic film portrait of one of the greatest – and at times controversial – artists of this era. The film coincides with the DVD release from KOCH LORBER Films.
“The music of Philip Glass is instantly recognizable. Its layered, repetitive notes are transcendent to some and unbearable for others. Yet, no one can dispute the influence Glass has over contemporary music,” says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters, a six-time winner of the Emmy Award® for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. “This film offers a fascinating personal study of the dedicated artist doing what he does best – from making music to making pizza.”
Over the year and a half of shooting, GLASS follows the innovative composer with a casual, immediate honesty. The film features performance footage of Glass’ seminal collaboration with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach, interviews with former partners JoAnne Akalaitis and Holly Critchlow, artist Chuck Close, musician Nico Muhly and directors Woody Allen, Errol Morris, Godfrey Reggio and Martin Scorsese.
Born in 1937, Glass grew up in Baltimore and was educated at the University of Chicago and The Juilliard School. After a period in Europe where he studied with the legendary Nadia Boulanger and the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, he returned to New York in 1967 to form the Philip Glass Ensemble. The radical musical group performed at various art happenings in the downtown gallery scene, where Glass cultivated his signature sound. His unique soundscape of reiterative structures was initially vilified but has since achieved international acclaim. Today, his versatile, prolific body of work spans multiple genres including opera, symphony, experimental theater and dance, film score – for which he has received three Oscar nominations – and even rock. His collaborators have ranged from Allen Ginsberg and Twyla Tharp to David Bowie and Paul Simon to Yo-Yo Ma and Doris Lessing.
Simply magnificent! From his spirituality/way of life to his artistry and musicianship, Phillip glass is truly an American Master. Thank you PBS! (www.twitter.com/fotojunki)
Maestro Glass thank you sir for allowing us to see the truth in the creative process. I appreciate you having the courage to allow the cameras to shadow you and your family in the most private moments which intersect with your work life balance dynamic. There have been some who also had the courage to invite the public into their death process. However you have invited us into the life process and this to me has given me my air to breath. A beautiful freedom. You have given voice to music. Thank you for your work ethic and love of creation! Bruce Vapnitsky
Thank you for exhibiting the complexity and simplicity of humanity through the documentation of a moment with Phillip Glass.
I feel like inviting him to dinner.
I’m so happy I surfed into this magnificent journey through the life of Philip Glass. No matter your approval or disapproval he is a brilliant man who must follow his desire to make music in many ways. I found this doc to be absolutely brilliant and beautiful. Scott Hicks too is a great artist in his medium. Every frame intrigued me and did justice to Mr. Glass.
This film is simply captivating for the view it offers of the day-to-day living of one particular creative life.
I ordered the DVD of this film the instant it was released; the out-takes are priceless, and the commentary of Scott Hicks, the director, adds immensely to one’s experience of the film.
Thank you, PBS.
I had an opportunity to work with Philip Glass when I sang one summer over 20 years ago with the Saratoga-Potsdam Chorus and the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Festival in New York. We performed excerpts from Akhnaten and Civil Wars with Denis Russell Davies conducting. This wonderful documentary brought memories from that summer flooding back to me, especially memories of Glass’ warmth, friendliness, and relaxed manner as he explained to the chorus these very interesting and challenging compositions and how to perform them. I am going to buy this DVD for my music students to be sure they know just who this American musical genius is. Thank you for two riveting hours of television.
Documentary was wonderful! I appreciate seeing him in a richer, more humane light. The pizza cooking sequence and the shots of him on the beach with his family were very touching.
I first heard Glass on a Columbia Records sampler that had a track from “Einstein on a Beach.” Second exposure was Thin Blue Line. Then I went out and bought Glassworks and The Photographer within a week of eachother…which was a big deal on a college student’s meager earnings (no mommy and daddy scholarship).
When I watched this show I have to admit I was most facinated by the woman who were attracted to him. Kind of strange but get me glued to the TV.
I have watched this episode of American Masters. It truely changed the way i think about music. It was the greatest documentery i have ever seen.I truely want to thank Philip Glass for letting them broadcast this. Thank you
I wanted to thank pbs and philip glass for his cooporation for being such a great composer. he has changed music for all man kind as we know it. i was an honour being able ot watch this program. thank you mr.glass
Is PBS great, or what?!
This documentary left such a deep impression on me that it inspired me to return to music composition after 40 years of inactivity. Every time I run into a writer’s block I watch the documentary and get reenergized. I’m am inspired by the simplicity of his life and the complex beauty of his works. Thank you Mr. Glass, Mr. Hicks, PBS and my Rochester WXXI station.
Fortunate enough 01.30.12 to see a repeat of this extensive meeting. Do you have any further
schedules of repeating “Twelve Parts” in 2012? Please advise. Thank you.
Amazing.
I love PBS and I love this series. However, I must say that Mr. Glas comes across as a real, well, baby. He seems like he relies on his wife to do all the grown up stuff around the house while he goes off on his visionl quests and follows his inner yearnings without any concern for taking his family with him or including them in anything he does. I was so disappointed in his character, since he makes such beautiful music. He seems closer to his spiritual guides, who also come across as a bit self-centered and childish. I love his music so I guess that’s what’s most important. Sigh.
I first was introduced to the music of Philip Glass when I was a piano performance major at the University of Washington in 1956-57. Some of it intrigued me, especially when paired with drama or ballet or mime—–but, I am sorry to say—now, at the age of 74—-and I think I understand his music now much more than I did as a teenager—-I still do not want his music to be ringing in my ears when I shuffle off this mortal coil—–sorry—-I like a lot of it—-superficially—-not emotionally—-and the PBS program was very interesting——but give me the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th every time—-among many others. I think Mr. Glass and a lot of his cohorts—-including people I grew up with and went to school with—-not in NY—but all the same type—–are only superficially talented people—-they lack staying power emotionally—-they do not reach people at their deepest needs. Brilliant—but shallow. I doubt that, like Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin—-etc. etc. etc.—-his music will be sought after over 300 years from now. I could be wrong, of course—but then ===I wouldn’t want to live in that society anyway.
Phillip Glass is most likely a genius. However, the absence of connectivity to his former wife, Holly, and his children are not signs of creativity but evidence of his “other” existence that he fights so hard not to claim. His music comes close to capturing my harmonics, but, unfortunately, has too many vibratory holes that slip past my sincere initial interest.
When I hear “great music,” I want more. When I hear much of Phillip Glass’ music, although unique and intersting, I feel full and have had enough. Phillip had been given the gifts of life but was “too smart” to write them into his play. For a man in his mid-seventies, he should have heard the finer notes of this journey being played in front of him.
But who am I? Probably another genius who was blinded by his own light.