Ben and Van

I finally got around to seeing Argo today, four days after it won the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s brilliant, no doubt about it; more in a minute.

I read in the paper that Van Cliburn died yesterday. While not necessarily a great fan, I was aware of him most of my life; I can’t claim to specifically remember his winning the Tchaikovsky Competition in in 1958 but I do remember all the buzz surrounding him. And the piece with which he won, the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 was the first piece of classical music I ever knew well; I of course have Cliburn’s recording of it, though the rendition I knew better was by Claudio Arrau with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Cliburn played the Rachmaninoff third piano concerto at the Moscow competition as well. I don’t have that recording, though his death will likely prompt me to get it. Like the Tchaikovsky, it is a staple of the classical repertory and a fantastic piece I have long loved.

Great artists and their work live for the ages; these performances are as exciting today as when they were recorded all those years ago.

Which brings me back to Ben Affleck and his film Argo. I liked it; I liked it a lot. But is it best picture material? Will we be watching it and talking about it in fifty years as we do with Casablanca, Gone with the Wind and West Side Story? No way to know yet.

The old-fashioned part of me thinks that Oscar-winning films should be grand, or important, or sweeping. Is Argo? Grand and sweeping, I think not; important, yes, for sure.

The more liberal, willing-to-try-new stuff side of me disagrees totally with the grand and sweeping concept. Look at Chariots of Fire, perhaps still my favorite film of all time. Small, intimate and quiet – and yet it too was a Best Picture.

When Cliburn won in Moscow, New York welcomed him with a ticker-tape period. Imagine! A ticker-tape parade for a classical musician! First time ever. Last too.

We need more cultural heroes who play classical music.