In the opening scene of director Allan Miller's new film about the acclaimed Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, the sweaty-browed maestro poises his baton over a student orchestra in Rotterdam. “I’m important now,” he says, daring the musicians to better respond to his stick. “You cannot start without me.”
The 86-minute film, aptly titled You Cannot Start Without Me: Valery Gergiev, Maestro, is a window into the life of Gergiev, international conductor and director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Throughout the film, Gergiev conducts everywhere—from the Metropolitan Opera to the London Symphony Orchestra—and builds the Mariinsky, a famed Russian ballet theater and opera house, into musical prominence.
Produced by Thirteen, a PBS affiliate, the film was directed
by Miller, who previously won an Academy Award for the
documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac
Stern in China. “I’ve been making films about musicians for 35 or 40
years, and was never able to make one about a conductor,” Miller explained. “They are elusive and private, and
it’s hard to get in a situation where the conductor and orchestra would be
comfortable.”
Persuading Gergiev to cooperate wasn’t easy at first. “He threw all kinds of roadblocks and tests,” Miller said. “We’d meet in New York in February, and he’d say, ‘The next time I can talk to you is the sixth of April in Miami. So I’d say, ‘What time?’” Miller’s persistence paid off, and he was eventually given the access he desired.
The most telling scenes of the film are the rehearsals, in which a stubble-chinned, sweat-drenched Gergiev coaxes, cajoles and yells at his orchestras to play the music that the maestro hears in his head. “The playing of modern orchestras is usually very good,” Gergiev says. “That doesn’t mean it's always very interesting.” The rehearsal scenes, and entire film, are saturated with Russian music: Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff. “He is very dedicated to keeping the culture of Russian composers and compositions alive,” Miller explained.
“The biggest challenge was to show what a conductor does to a lay audience,” said producer Margaret Smilow, who has worked with Miller on previous music documentaries. “We wanted to show not only the work that he does, but also his humanity.”
Connecting the rehearsal scenes are a series of interviews with important players in Gergiev's life, endless train and plane trips and a brief interview with Gergiev's wife and children. Miller insisted that the busy 56-year-old conductor has an ability for greater focus than most, and all the rushing around doesn't detract from his music-making. “The greatest capacity he has is to be 100 percent focused on whatever he’s doing, and then to change 100 percent to something else,” Miller said. “He’s not thrashing and dashing around, he’s just living every minute.”
You Cannot Start Without Me
Directed by Allan Miller
