Volume 26 Issue 1 - September 2020

MUSIC AND FILM
9th ANNUAL
TIFF TIPS
PAUL ENNIS
The Disciple
COURTESY OF TIFF
In this year like no other, the Toronto
International Film Festival (TIFF) has adapted to
the pandemic’s parameters by making most red
carpet events virtual and scaling back on how films
will be presented.
TIFF’s 45th edition – running from September 10 to 20 – offers
both digital and in-person screenings, using TIFF Bell Lightbox and
the Isabel Bader Theatre at reduced capacity to conform to measures
provided by the City of Toronto and Public Health Ontario,
ensuring that there will be a modicum of lineups. As well as driveins
at CityView and Ontario Place, there will be an open air cinema
at Ontario Place. A sophisticated, secure digital platform, called Bell
Digital Cinema, will house most of the 50-plus films selected for TIFF
2020 enabling Festival-goers to watch Festival films at home on their
television screens.
Given The WholeNote’s early deadline, TIFF’s schedule and
program notes were unavailable, so the current guide is based on a
film’s subject matter, a filmmaker’s track record and gleanings from
across the Internet.
The Disciple
“A finely crafted labour of love set in the world of Indian traditional
music… The Disciple is a refined yet uncompromising portrait
of a young artist’s journey, his dreams and his loneliness, featuring
some extraordinary musical performances.” (New York Film Festival).
Classical musicians prominent in the film include lead actor Aditya
Modak, Arun Dravid and Deepika Bhide Bhagwat. In an interview
on the scroll.in website, director Chaitanya Tamhane said he was
drawn to the stories and anecdotes about musicians of the past, their
secret knowledge and ancient wisdom. “The more I studied, listened,
and attended concerts, the more I was enticed, and I realized Indian
classical music is not as simple as the perception goes – how its practitioners
act and behave, for instance.
“The lead character is a young vocalist, raised and introduced to
music by his father. He has grown up on stories of the past, these
secrets, modern-day myths and masters, purist concepts of music, and
how one should live their life in accordance with them.”
For research, Tamhane travelled to cities with a vibrant Hindustani
music culture: Delhi, ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata,
Benaras, Pune, Ahmedabad. “I needed to form genuine friendships
and build a rapport so they opened up and let me understand their
inner world, and that took time. What you will see in the film is an
amalgamation of insights I gained over two years.”
No Ordinary Man
For decades, the life of
American jazz musician Billy
Tipton was framed as the story
of an ambitious woman passing
as a man in pursuit of a career in
music. In Aisling Chin-Yee and
Chase Joynt’s documentary, No
Ordinary Man, Tipton’s story is
reimagined and performed by
trans artists as they collectively
paint a portrait of an unlikely
hero. Working with Tipton’s
adopted son Billy Jr., the filmmakers
delve into Tipton’s
Billy Tipton
complicated and contested legacy: how do you tell the story of
someone who was hiding in plain sight yet desperate to be seen?
According to Diane Midddlebrook’s book, Suits Me: The Double Life
of Billy Tipton (quoted in the April 2013 issue of Allegro, the magazine
of the NYC musicians’ union AFM Local 802), Tipton did not make
a serious effort to become a recording star. He mainly earned his living
COURTESY OF TIFF
10 | September 2020 thewholenote.com