Shine Poster

Shine (1996)

Biography | Music 
Rayting:   7.7/10 51.5K votes
Country: Australia
Language: English | Yiddish
Release date: 6 February 1997

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

Movie Trailer

Where to Watch

User Reviews

moonspinner55 19 February 2006

The true story of David Helfgott, a piano virtuoso who suffered a mental breakdown early in his life while under the thumb of his demanding father who, for the purposes of melodrama, is not just embittered and jealous but abusive as well. Well-acted, fairly well-made film has a jumbled narrative that moves along in fits and starts, with most of the real story left off-screen. Movies about domineering dads goes back to "Fear Strikes Out" and beyond, but the clichés have remained intact. This father-son relationship doesn't work because the filmmakers are too literal-minded about the material, which seems dramatically heightened anyway. There are moving moments, and Geoffrey Rush is worth watching in his Oscar-winning portrait as Helfgott, but the picture itself is rather cold. ** from ****

FilmOtaku 8 April 2004

Fmovies: When I originally saw this film in the mid-90's, I was absolutely devastated throughout the first forty-five minutes. So much so, I was pretty much uncontrollably weeping, much to the chagrin of the friend I went with. Time has softened the film a lot for me, but it still remains a powerful, tender and somewhat inspirational film about a piano prodigy who has led a pretty tragic life. Geoffrey Rush is unbelievable as the piano prodigy David Helfgott, and although the film is kind of sewn up a little quickly with the Vanessa Redgrave subplot (what about Helfgott made her so in love with him in a short period of time as to want to marry him?) it is a very well done film that I highly recommend to just about anyone, but especially musicians and music lovers.

--Shelly

george.schmidt 22 April 2003

SHINE (1996) **** Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Alex Rafalowicz, Armin Mueller Stahl, Lynn Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Googie Withers. Excellent Oscar nominated bio pic about acclaimed Australian pianist virtuoso David Helfgott (played equally brilliant by Rush {deservingly winning the Oscar as Best Actor} as an adult, Taylor as a young man and Rafalowicz as the child prodigy) who suffered mental anguish thru his art largely due to his overbearing father (Mueller Stahl, Best Supporting Actor nominee, in a demanding yet effective role) that led to his nervous breakdown that nearly destroyed him. Poignant and beautifully directed by newcomer Scott Hicks (Best Director nominee), the film never panders, preaches or offers any simple answers yet does depict mental illness earnestly with devestating clarity. Rush gives a bravura performance that deserves a standing ovation. Best sequence: the lead-in to Helfgott's crash as he attempts the monumental musical challenge, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3, or notoriously known as "The Rach 3".

Boba_Fett1138 23 July 2008

Shine fmovies. "Shine" is one of the great movies of the '90's, that became an unexpected success in 1996 and was the movie that earned Geoffrey Rush his as of yet only Oscar win and got the movie 6 more Oscar nominations, including best director and best picture.

The movie shows how Australian born David Helfgott gets formed and influenced in his early life by his demanding and abusive father (wonderfuly played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), who is in strict control of the family. He asks a lot from the already very unstable David and influences ever step in his life, probably also to make up for his own shortcomings in life. He's an unpredictable character with two faces and you can really feel the fear he puts in the family and David in particular. Things go worse and worse mentally for David as he grows up and eventually goes to study in England at the Royal College of Music. He has a breakdown which for once and for all definitely labels him as a psychotic man. His personality could definitely been described as crazy.

He gets perfectly and beautifully portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, who truly deserved the Oscar he received for his role. But in fact he is only in the movie for perhaps halve the running time. For "Shine" uses lots of flashbacks about Helfgott's early life and as a young adult, when he is being played by different actors. One of those actors is the know very well known Noah Taylor, who also plays the part fine. Also really impressive is Armin Mueller-Stahl. He doesn't usually have very big parts in English spoken movies but in this movie he plays one of his bigger and more interesting roles. It's a true memorable performance from him and he also truly deserved his Oscar nomination for this movie. I keep thinking it's a great shame he got discovered so late by the big-money movie industry, since he is already close to 80 by now, which should mean that his biggest and greatest roles should already be behind him by now. But who knows, some actors just go on forever, till a very old age. Take for instance John Gielgud, who also stars in this movie. At the time he was already well over 90 years old and he would continue to play on in many more great and big productions, till his death in 2000. Some actors are just truly born as actors. It simply is in their blood and they can't stop playing.

Moments in Helfgott's life are never portrayed too long but also never too short. This means that the story always comes right to the point and doesn't dance around it. The movie becomes very effective because of this and on top of that gets presented with a good steady pace. It's a reason why this movie is really one of the better autobiographic movies ever made. It's a really great directed and told movie, from Scott Hicks.

But of course like every good biopic, the movie doesn't only presents facts and some things are altered, in order to enhance the movie and its story or characters. For instance right after this movie the real Helfgott became a true full God, while in all honesty David Helfgott is a great piano player but just not the genius one as portrayed in this movie. It's kind of like the piano man. The mysterious mute man who was found in Kent England in 2005. It was said he was a brilliant piano player, while in fact he just simply knew how to play a piano well but was by no means a great or professional player. Just like David Helfgott, it are just the unusual circumstances and character personalities that makes people say they are gen

chaos-rampant 1 January 2014

Okay, so I did some reading after this driven by idle curiosity about the account. The real Helfgott didn't spend 15 years abandoned in a room with a piano, he didn't have to stand in the rain outside of a bar before they would let him in. He was pretty well known in the local scene as a pianist, his father was not a Holocaust survivor and David had been married before. Father and son were never really estranged and David was present at his funeral.

But just the same, the 'objective' point-of-view that purports to explain him, or any of us at any time based on a few facts, is in the end no less hypocritical than any attempt to pass dramatization as 'the real story'. This matters. Someone can be present at a funeral without being truly present, and someone can feel forgotten and alone even when they're factually surrounded by people, estranged from a parent even when formally this was never so.

The film is at a simple emotional level where the attempt to conquer a maddening complexity (music, life) snaps the tethers of mind and in due time the reconfiguring of this damage into blossoming art. The moral is that we must keep trying and hope for the best, perhaps the worthiest lesson even if it appears slightly trite in the context of a more or less happy ending.

Still, why feel the need to invent all those things, knowing you are doing so? When the violence inflicted on the son could be inferred by a more ambiguous tension instead of an outright beating.

Because, it seems, we can only choose to accept the lesson if at the center we find a good soul worthy of the saving. In other words, it is not the fact that he gives a great last recital that matters, but that he plays at all; not that a genius was salvaged because he might never have been that, but a human being. And this is what rankles so much Helfgott's critics who find him borderline incompetent in his playing - he is cheered on in concerts because he is the character from this film.

Ideally we would be able to discern all these points here instead of one harmony: the truly damaged but kind soul, the inability to place blame for that damage on any ogre father or Holocaust, and being able to somehow experience his music (the real Helfgott recorded for the film) as a trained ear would, fixated flourishes followed by distraction and incompetence according to critics, musically extending the damaged self.

For a more demanding film on the same subject of madness and transcendent musical genius see a little known film on a medieval composer called Death in Five Voices: all about the dissonance between different voices trying to harmonize a story and this carried in the music itself.

peter.codner 23 October 2000

This is a good film in every sense but will mean most to fathers with strong views :).

The story of a brilliant young pianist whose relationship with his father drives him to some sort of mental illness. Watchable, absorbing, brilliantly edited, deeply seriously moving, one of the rare films that pays attention to incidental sound. Wonderful direction and acting. This is a seriously good film.

Similar Movies

7.6
Elvis

Elvis 2022

8.9
Toma

Toma 2021

6.6
Respect

Respect 2021

6.3
The USA vs. Billie Holiday

The USA vs. Billie Holiday 2021

6.5
I Still Believe

I Still Believe 2020

7.5
Clouds

Clouds 2020

2.3
Zenek

Zenek 2020

7.5
Variações: Guardian Angel

Variações: Guardian Angel 2019


Share Post

Direct Link

Markdown Link (reddit comments)

HTML (website / blogs)

BBCode (message boards & forums)

Watch Movies Online | Privacy Policy
Fmovies.guru provides links to other sites on the internet and doesn't host any files itself.