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Interview: Ethan Hawke & Seymour Bernstein

SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION directed by Ethan Hawke. A Mongrel Media release. 84 minutes. Opens Friday (March 20). For venues and times, see Movies.


While everyone at TIFF was swooning over Whiplash and its fevered depiction of a toxic teacher-student relationship, another movie about musical mentorship made its Canadian premiere, quietly and without much fuss.

That movie is Seymour: An Introduction, Ethan Hawke’s documentary about New York pianist Seymour Bernstein, who gave up public performance decades ago to teach, mentoring a generation of musicians.

Bernstein believes in encouraging and nurturing talent rather than breaking students down in order to build them back up in the teacher’s own image.

“Very gifted people are far more insecure than less gifted people,” Bernstein explains when I sit down with him and Hawke just before the film’s first TIFF screening. “We were talking about this with mentors. That’s all a monster teacher has to do, is tell you how unworthy you are. And then you say to yourself, ‘At last, someone’s telling me the truth.’ This is how monster teachers work.”

As the documentary illustrates, Bernstein’s philosophy emerged in direct contrast to the “monster teachers” he rejected as a student. He works one-on-one, helping a musician find his or her own style, more like a life coach than an instructor.

Hawke decided to make the documentary after meeting Bernstein at a dinner party and becoming fascinated by the man and his theories.

“I really wanted the movie to be about what he teaches and not about him,” says Hawke. “It’s an easy thing to do, to make a [straight] biography. And while that biography would be awesome and very interesting, what I value most about [Seymour] is him as a teacher.”

Their relationship becomes part of the film as well when Hawke himself asks Bernstein for a little mentorship. Hawke finds himself wondering whether, after acting in movies for almost three decades, it might be time to shift his energy to something else.

“I really think that’s the nucleus of the documentary,” Bernstein says. “Because that documentary is supposed to be about me, but it’s also about you.”

“I think I thought the answer was so much more complicated than that,” Hawke says. “You think there needs to be some grand change, as opposed to just doing what you are [already] doing with more mindfulness, more attention. I was looking for some grand philosophical answer, and what I didn’t realize is that…”

“…it’s not so complicated,” Bernstein says.

Hawke smiles. “It’s not so complicated.”

“Your talent is the essence of who you are,” Bernstein says. “Nothing else expresses it as succinctly.”

And later it struck me that throughout the conversation, neither one of them ever raised his voice.

Interview Clips

Bernstein and Hawke on Hawke’s acting work and “the fallacy of talent”.

Bernstein, Hawke and I get caught up in a discussion of BOYHOOD.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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