The Red Violin (1998): Story, Scenery, and Music Analysis
This essay analyzes Francois Girard's 1998 film The Red Violin, arguing that three key elements — storytelling, vivid scenic time periods, and music — transform what could have been a disjointed anthology into a cohesive cinematic experience. The paper traces the violin's journey from 17th-century Cremona through Vienna, Oxford, and 1960s Shanghai, showing how each episode connects thematically. It also examines John Corigliano's score as the essential musical bridge between eras, and draws on Roger Ebert's critical praise to support the claim that these elements together achieve a rare sense of cinematic harmony and beauty.
- Introduction: A Unified Story Across Time: Violin unifies disjointed stories across cultures and time
- Storytelling: Blending Past and Present: Narrative moves between Montreal present and historical past
- Scenic Time Periods and Global Settings: Film shot across Italy, Vienna, Oxford, and Shanghai
- Music as the Connective Thread: Corigliano's score bridges each era musically
- Conclusion: The Harmony of Story, Scenery, and Music: Three elements together achieve cinematic harmony
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay uses the violin itself as a unifying thesis device, mirroring the film's own structural conceit — a smart choice that keeps the argument focused across multiple plot threads.
- Each body paragraph addresses a distinct cinematic element (storytelling, setting, music), giving the essay a clean and logical three-part structure that is easy to follow.
- The paper integrates both critical sources (Roger Ebert) and production details (film locations, John Corigliano's score) to support its claims, lending credibility without overloading the analysis.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The essay demonstrates effective use of evaluative film criticism: rather than simply summarizing the plot, the writer identifies specific cinematic techniques — narrative fragmentation, location photography, and musical leitmotif — and argues for their collective role in producing the film's aesthetic impact. The bracketed quotation from Ebert is used as a capstone rather than a crutch, reinforcing the writer's own thesis rather than substituting for it.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a classic five-paragraph essay model: an introduction establishing the central argument, three body paragraphs each devoted to one cinematic element (storytelling, scenery, music), and a conclusion that synthesizes these elements and returns to the opening claim. At roughly 500 words, it is compact but complete, making it a strong model for short analytical essays at the undergraduate introductory level.
Introduction: A Unified Story Across Time
With such disjointed stories, one would think that Francois Girard's The Red Violin (1998) would not coalesce to form one single story about the film's main character: the red violin itself. Yet the magic of the red violin comes through precisely because this object ties all of the stories together, forming a powerful connection that spans not only countries and cultures, but also time. Through its storytelling, vivid scenic time periods, and — most importantly — its music, Girard's film creates such compelling depictions of a journey that even Roger Ebert proclaimed the movie's beauty and "perfection" (Ebert, Roger).
Storytelling: Blending Past and Present
The storytelling of The Red Violin mixes past and present time periods. In the present, the story follows Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson) and his experience discovering the history and authenticity of what could be Nicolo Bussotti's final violin. In Montreal, he witnesses a group of potential buyers who each have, in some form or another, a reason for purchasing such an artifact.
Simultaneously, the film takes viewers to the origins of the red violin: the home of Nicolo Bussotti himself, in Cremona, Italy, during the late 17th century (Grove, Jeff). This Bussotti scene is poignant because the story truly encompasses Anna's journey, made vicariously possible through the journey of the violin. During a tarot card reading, chronological scenarios begin to unfold — each corresponding to a card drawn from the deck. From this point, the storytelling takes the audience through a series of segments, each set in a different time period and featuring varied characters.
Scenic Time Periods and Global Settings
No discussion of The Red Violin would be complete without addressing its time periods and scenery. The film takes viewers not only to Italy and Canada, but also to Vienna, the United Kingdom, and Shanghai (Grove, Jeff). About one hundred years after the violin's creation, it makes its way to a child prodigy in Vienna — a sequence in which the film showcases the musical capital of Europe and the emotional bond between player and instrument. Another century later, the violin arrives in Oxford, London, where its aristocratic owner seeks inspiration through carnal desire — not an uncommon pastime during the Victorian era.
Finally, the violin finds itself amid the 1960s Cultural Revolution in Shanghai — a setting so intense to film that "hundreds of armed policemen [sealed] off the streets" during the scheduled shoot (Johnson, Brian).
Conclusion: The Harmony of Story, Scenery, and Music
Story, scenery, and music created the magic of Francois Girard's The Red Violin. Without these elements, the film would have been disjointed and messy — the stories a set of sub-episodes connected only by a single object. "There is a kind of ideal beauty that reduces us all to yearning for perfection. The Red Violin is about that yearning" (Ebert, Roger). Without these three elements working in concert, the film would not have achieved the harmony that Ebert found so appealing in this highly musical and vividly detailed work.
References
Grove, Jeff. "The Saga of the Red Violin." American Record Guide 62.4 (1999): 19. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.
Johnson, Brian D. "A Violin Rhapsody in Red." Maclean's 111.37 (1998): 59. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2011.
Ebert, Roger. "The Red Violin." Chicago Sun-Times, 18 June 1999. Web.
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