Best movies like J.S. Bach: The Music, The Life, The Legend
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like J.S. Bach: The Music, The Life, The Legend Starring Christian Vadim, Elena Lenina, Frédérique Bel, Jean Rochefort, and more. If you liked J.S. Bach: The Music, The Life, The Legend then you may also like: Three Colors: Blue, Confession of the Vanished, A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate, Rhapsody in Blue, Impromptu and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
A dramatic exploration of the life and struggles of the great composer, J.S. Bach, from his orphaning at the age of nine, through his struggles for the freedom to compose music in a restrictive society, to his eventual recognition after death.
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Confession of the Vanished
The film follows the staging of the opera Olimpiade while at the same time exploring the dramatic life of its composer Josef Mysliveček, a friend and teacher of W. A. Mozart.
A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate
When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.
Rhapsody in Blue
Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.
Song of Norway
Like the play from which it derived, the film tells of the early struggles of composer Edvard Grieg and his attempts to develop an authentic Norwegian national music. It stars Toralv Maurstad as Grieg and features an international cast including Florence Henderson, Christina Schollin, Robert Morley, Harry Secombe, Oskar Homolka, Edward G. Robinson and Frank Porretta (as Rikard Nordraak). Filmed in Super Panavision 70 by Davis Boulton and presented in single-camera Cinerama in some countries, it was an attempt to capitalise on the success of The Sound of Music.
Four Wives
In this sequel to Four Daughters, Ann struggles to move on after the death of her husband as she falls in love with Felix, but on the day of her engagement discovers that she carries Mickey's child.
Hymn of the Nations
Hymn of the Nations, originally titled Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations, is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the "Inno delle nazioni," a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the early 1860s. (For this musical work, Verdi utilized the national anthems of several European nations.) In December 1943, Arturo Toscanini filmed a performance of this music for inclusion in an Office of War Information documentary about the role of Italian-Americans in aiding the Allies during World War II. Toscanini added a bridge passage to include arrangements of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the United States and "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and the Italian partisans. Joining Toscanini in the filmed performance in NBC Studio 8-H, were tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The film also included the overture to Verdi's opera La Forza del Destino.
Immortal Beloved
A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.
It's a Wonderful World
Two aspiring songwriters finally manage to sell a tune by claiming that it was composed by a reclusive musical genius. When the tune hits the top of the charts, they find themselves having to produce the "real" composer.
Leadbelly
The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.
Paris Blues
During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Song of Love
Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.
The Great Waltz
Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer.
I Want to Destroy America
A documentary film by Peter I. Chang which traces the life of the Japanese musician Hisao Shinagawa through his early years as a folk singer in Tokyo to his current occupation as a street performer in Los Angeles.
My Name Is Bach
Composer Johann Sebastian Bach is introduced to King Frederick II of Prussia in 1747. The aging composer and the young monarch clash and a battle of egos ensues.
Scott Joplin
The life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
Bach: A Passionate Life
John Eliot Gardiner goes in search of Bach the man and the musician. The famous portrait of Bach portrays a grumpy 62-year-old man in a wig and formal coat, yet his greatest works were composed 20 years earlier in an almost unrivalled blaze of creativity. We reveal a complex and passionate artist; a warm and convivial family man at the same time a rebellious spirit struggling with the hierarchies of state and church who wrote timeless music that is today known world-wide. Gardiner undertakes a 'Bach Tour' of Germany, and sifts the relatively few clues we have - some newly-found. Most of all, he uses the music to reveal the real Bach.
Down the Deep, Dark Web
What do you know about the Darknet? Silk Road, hitmen for hire and outlets for the most depraved aspects of human behaviour? This film delves beyond this notoriety to reveal to undiscussed depths of this network, exposing how activists from around the world are hiding in the shadows of the Darknet to protect the freedoms we all hold dear. As privacy, anonymity and freedom of speech come under increasing threat, a group of self-appointed freedom fighters stand on the frontier of an unseen battleground. This Gonzo-style exploration tumbles ever deeper down this rabbit hole, guided by hackers, cypherpunks and cryptoanarchists, to find the hidden light at the bottom of the deep dark web.
Fat Camp
Although tens of thousands of young Americans struggle with obesity on a daily basis -only the fortunate few go to weight loss camp for the summer to learn how to live a healthy life. However, "fat camp" is hardly a restrictive prison. Teenage angst is just as much the rule of the day as maintaining a proper diet. MTV News & Docs followed five teens to fat camp for a day-by-day look at their struggle to turn their lives around and found that for these overweight campers - finding love, rebelling against authority, or just trying to fit in can be all-consuming obsessions.
Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution
50 years ago this week, on 1 June, 1967, an album was released that changed music history - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In this film, composer Howard Goodall explores just why this album is still seen as so innovative, so revolutionary and so influential. With the help of outtakes and studio conversations between the band, never heard before outside of Abbey Road, Howard gets under the bonnet of Sgt Pepper. He takes the music apart and reassembles it, to show us how it works - and makes surprising connections with the music of the last 1,000 years to do so.
Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle
Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.
Britten's Endgame
To mark the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth, Britten’s Endgame explores the composer's creativity in the face of death. Those closest to him watched anxiously as he raced to complete his final opera, Death in Venice, in defiance of medical advice, tackling an edgy subject with many resonances in his own life. His eventual heart operation left him incapacitated and prematurely old and frail, yet somehow he rediscovered his creative urge to produce two late masterpieces. This is a rich and poignant film about Britten’s final years, and the impact of what Peter Pears called 'an evil opera'.
Star Wars: Music by John Williams
BBC documentary. Witness John Williams composing the legendary score for The Empire Strikes Back and conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.
Lulu
Alban Berg's black, satirical opera is one of the masterpieces of the 20th Century. It charts the rise and fall of a femme fatale "created to make trouble", from life as a society hostess to prostitution and eventual bloody death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Berg's score is intensely beautiful, and the rich characterisation brilliantly executed.
Merrily We Roll Along
Triple Olivier Award-winner Maria Friedman makes an extraordinary directorial debut with a flawless cast. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, Merrily We Roll Along starts in 1980 and travels backwards in time. This powerful and moving story features some of Sondheim’s most beautiful songs including "Good Thing Going", "Not a Day Goes by" and "Old Friends".
Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
From civil rights to the anti-war movement to the struggles of workers, folksinger Phil Ochs wrote topical songs that engaged his audiences in the issues of the 1960s and 70s. In this biographical documentary, veteran director Kenneth Bowser shows how Phil's music and his fascinating life story and eventual decline into depression and suicide were intertwined with the history-making events that defined a generation. Even as his contemporaries moved into folk-rock and pop music, Phil followed his own vision, challenging himself and his listeners. Not one to pull punches, Ochs never achieved the commercial success he desperately desired. But his music remains relevant, reaching new audiences in a generation that finds his themes all too familiar.
Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued
A documentary that goes behind the scenes with some of today's most talented songwriters as they make new music based on long-lost, newly discovered lyrics from Bob Dylan's legendary Basement Tapes sessions. T Bone Burnett brings Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Marcus Mumford together in a dramatic two-week studio session in the basement of Capitol Records. Features an exclusive interview with Bob Dylan.
Three Colors: Blue
Julie is haunted by her grief after living through a tragic auto wreck that claimed the life of her composer husband and young daughter. Her initial reaction is to withdraw from her relationships, lock herself in her apartment and suppress her pain. But avoiding human interactions on the bustling streets of Paris proves impossible, and she eventually meets up with Olivier, an old friend who harbors a secret love for her, and who could draw her back to reality.