Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's movie is the 1998 drama "The Red Violin".

It was directed by François Girard from an original screenplay he co-wrote with Don McKellar.

A cast drawn from several different countries is led by Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi, and Sylvia Chang.

With support from Jean-Luc Bidot, Greta Scacchi, Jason Flemyng, and co screen writer, Don McKellar.

"The Red Violin" moves back and forth among five different historical eras, tracing the history of a unique violin with a distinctive red varnish.

The bookends of this history are the violin's creation in Cremona, Italy in 1681 and its sale at auction in Montreal, Canada in 1997.

The violin is the work of Nicol ò Bussotti a luthier whose workshop produces all sorts of stringed instruments.

His young wife, Anna Rudolfi is soon to give birth to their first child and she consults with one of the servants, Cesca to find out what the future holds in store for her by reading the tarot.

Each card Cesca turns over points to some future owner of the violin Bussotti is crafting, which will become known for its red color and the purity of its sound.

We see in succession each story the cards have to tell as the violin moves from Cremona in 1681 to Vienna in 1793, from late 19th century Oxford to mid 20th century Shanghai, and finally to Montreal at the dawn of the 21st century.

In Montreal, the violin's impending sale at auction leads appraisal expert Charles Morritz to conduct an intensive investigation of the instrument in search of the secret surrounding its past, the purity and quality of its tone, and its distinctive deep red color.

The origin of the film that became "The Red Violin" was director Francois Girard's conviction that, as he put it, "Making film is making music."

He has directed operas on stage including Igor Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" and Richard Wagner's "Parsifal", and is best known for his film "Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould", a biographical anthology about the renowned Canadian pianist that was released in 1993 and widely considered one of the best films of that year.

Girard also wrote the screenplay with actor, playwright and filmmaker Don McKellar, who would later be his partner in developing and writing the screenplay for "The Red Violin".

The inspiration for the story was a specific violin produced by the renowned luthier, Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, in 1720.

It is nicknamed the Red Mendelssohn because it has an unusual red stripe on the right side of its soundboard.

It was a product of Stradivari's so-called "golden period" from 1704 to 1720, and it was one of several that included red pigmentation in the varnish.

At the time Girard and McKellar were working on the screenplay "The Red Mendelssohn", whose distinctive color came from Burgundy wine, was the possession of classical violinist, Elizabeth Pitcairn, who had received it as a gift on her 16th birthday.

It was given to her by her grandfather who was the son of John Pitcairn Jr, co-founder of Pittsburgh Plate Glass, now better known as PPG.

The cost at auction was $1.7 million.

Girard and McKellar wanted to explore how such an object, itself a work of art, that had the capacity to inspire others in the creation of a different sort of art, might influence and affect those who came into its possession.

The story would necessarily cover different historical eras but they also wanted to incorporate different nations and cultures, cultures united in veneration of the violin, that most versatile of musical instruments.

Their commitment to historical realism meant the film would involve different languages: Italian, German, English, Chinese, and French.

And actors and extras who were fully conversant of those languages and the cultures they represent.

Their commitment to this aspect of the project and their desire to maintain artistic control over the film meant that Girard and McKellar were turned down by the major American film studios.

They ultimately made the film with the Toronto based production company that made "Thirty Two Short films about Glenn Gould", Rhombus Media.

It's not unusual for a feature film to tell several different stories connected by some common element.

It might be a single location, as in MGM's all star 1932 production of "Grand Hotel," or Neil Simon's, 1971 comedy film "Plaza Suite."

It could be something more tangible, like the car in Terence Rattigan's, "The Yellow Rolls Royce," in 1964.

The shared jeans at the center of, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," in 2005, or the unlucky frock coat that passes from one owner to another in 20th Century Fox's 1942 anthology, "Tales of Manhattan."

"The Red Violin" shares with this last film, a prevailing sense of mystic interconnection between its different episodes, the film repeatedly returns to Cesca's tarot reading for Anna Rudolfi, as each card introduces another story about the people in the violin's future.

There is the clearest suggestion that not only does the red violin carry with it the life of Anna Rudolfi, herself, but that each of those who later come into possession of the violin, are, in turn, themselves, possessed by it.

This comes across most clearly in the Oxford story, which takes place in the 1890s.

Jessica has turned over the third card, the Devil, and tells Anna she will be seduced by a handsome and intelligent man.

This is Lord Frederick Pope, an Antarctic musician and composer who carries on a torrid affair with Victoria Bird.

When she leaves him to travel to Russia, he falls into drug use and dissipation with the red violin as his only companion.

When Victoria returns, she finds him of the throes of passion with the Romany woman who gave him the violin, and after turning a pistol on her, then him, Victoria instead shoots the violin, calling it "her," the true cause of his betrayal.

Nowhere else in the film did the themes of inspiration, love, lust, madness, art, and desire, or the mystic bond between Anna Rudolphi and the red violin come together so effectively as they do there.

There seems to be some connection between Anna Rudolphi, and the Orphan Prodigy, Kasper Weiss, and the Vienna story, as well.

The Hanged Man card signifies disease and suffering.

After losing his mother and father, Kaspar is left to be raised by monks.

His is a male dominated world, even after he is taken on as protege by George Poussin.

His devotion to his music expresses itself in both his dedication to practicing his instrument, and his habit of sleeping with a red of violin as his main source of comfort.

The violin is what mothers him and makes him feel whole.

When he dies, he again loses a mother, and Anna again loses a son.

The connection between the violin and Xiang Pei in the Shanghai story is less personal, and more about the political imaginations of the cultural revolution in China.

But, Xiang Pei is drawn to the music the violin produces, and so ultimately is the Boy Ming, who as an adult, attends the Montreal Auction in hopes of buying the red violin.

But, it is the appraiser, Charles Morritz who is most deeply drawn to the violin, and whose obsession with it, less as an instrument than as a work of art, leads to the resolution of its mysteries, at least for the present.

The Red Violin was an international co-production that was one of the costliest Canadian films of its time with a final budget of $15 million.

Most of the location work was actually shot in the places named in the movie, Cremona, Vienna, Oxford, Shanghai, and Montreal.

Surprisingly, the most difficult part of the shoot, according to Director Gerard, were the scenes taking place in the Montreal Auction House, where the complexity of the action put a strain on actors and crew alike.

In a motion picture with the musical instrument at its center, the musical performance associated with that instrument is obviously of chief importance.

In the case of the red violin, all the solo performances were by a single musician, Joshua Bell, an American virtuoso, whose own instrument is the Gibson ex-Huberman, A Stradivarius made in 1713 during the Golden Era.

When a non-musician played the red violin, Bell would stand behind him to allow his left arm to be seen on camera on the neck of the instrument.

He later claimed he was rebuked by Director Francois Girard more than once for overacting.

The young actor who played Kasper Weiss, Christopher Koncz, was only nine when the film was made.

He was chosen because he was a violin prodigy whose arm movements would match the music being played.

Born in 1987, he now performs internationally as a conductor and soloist, and serves as principal violinist of the Vienna Philharmonic.

He plays the Bruce Line Stradivarius made in 1707, an instrument now owned by the National Bank of Austria.

Please join us again next time for another "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.