Stravinsky Inside Out by Joseph Charles M

Author:Joseph, Charles M. [Joseph, Charles M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300129366
Publisher: YaleUP
Published: 2001-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

The composer with David Oppenheim, producer and director of the 1966 CBS documentary Portrait of Stravinsky (The Fred and Rose Plaut Archives, courtesy of the Yale University Music Library).

The film, Portrait of Stravinsky, was produced and directed by Oppenheim and narrated by Charles Kuralt. The shooting was done over an extended period beginning in late March 1965, and it first aired on CBS on 3 May 1966. Mrs. Stravinsky’s diary entries during April record the continuous and often disruptive shooting. The Stravinsky family sailed for Europe in early May on the Kungsholm. Oppenheim would often scout locations, working closely with Craft in preparing interviews and the filming of various concerts, and the producer even joined the family on the ship, where they all continued working on the film while they sailed for Europe.

I spoke with both Oppenheim and Kuralt about the making of the documentary. Kuralt claimed that in this film, as opposed to many of the other documentaries in which he participated, he was strictly a narrator—that is, the post-production overdubbing was “dropped into” the program after it had been completed. Whereas Kuralt usually wrote his own scripts for such televised projects to accommodate his manner of delivery and add his well-known “color,” here he followed what he was handed. The only occasion on which he and Stravinsky spoke in any detail was when the composer tried to explain the compositional vocabulary of Schoenberg’s “seriality” to him. The fact is, the longtime CBS commentator had very little interaction with Stravinsky him-self—nothing more than some publicity photographs for promoting the documentary. But he also recalled that virtually every aspect of the film was handled by Craft, who continually guided Stravinsky through the entire shooting.

Oppenheim, himself a musician, had known Stravinsky for years, and the two often made music together. Although the usual story is that CBS originally approached Stravinsky about making the film, Oppenheim remarked, when I asked him, that instead it was the composer who sought out the network. Though naturally unwilling to admit it, Stravinsky had seen the Casals film shortly before contacting Oppenheim, and he felt that a similar documentary about him would make an interesting project. Were there any restrictions, I inquired, regarding what could be filmed? None, according to Oppenheim, and he said that Stravinsky, his wife, and Craft cooperated fully in permitting the cameras to roam freely. Stravinsky had no say in what was to be used in the final print, for it was network policy to work without restrictions. But Oppenheim recalls that Stravinsky did not object to anything, and if he had, “I would have fixed it.”

Of the hundreds of rolls of film that were shot over the year, most of the footage naturally could not be included in the forty-two-minute documentary. The decisions on what to include were left to the editor, Patricia Jaffe, who made cuts seeking to balance the events of the composer’s life with the entertainment value for the viewing audience. So extensive and intense was the filming

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