This week we watch a non-linear film tilted Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. This film took thirty-two vignettes that concern some aspect of Glenn Gould's life. Vignette is that in theatre and script writing, these are short, impressionistic, scenes that focus on one moment or gives one impression about a character, an idea or a setting. Each of these thirty-two shorts are glimpses into the life of Gould, they are like puzzle pieces that we, because of the non-linear aspects, are forced to piece together the life of Gould. It was 32 shorts that were all different from each other, which helped to bring out the theme. It is possibly named after a musical piece that Gould did an interpretation on, Bach's Goldberg Variations. Because these vignettes are broken up into various sections it was more interested than if it were linear. The shorts demand out attention in order to make connections between the disassociation of these clips. In order for us to understand the irrational we must use the irrational thought to explain it.I think that this was done beautifully in Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. We are drawn in to the film by the various clips and the beautiful music that we hear. The beat of the video draws us to want to learn about this man who in this documentary tells his own story. This man seems to interview himself. He holds his interviews by telephone. While he is on a phone conversation he talks through out the night to himself while the person on the other side of the line has fallen asleep. On a play of what was going on, he would introduce his own thoughts by asking himself a question, and then he acted out the answer. This helped us to understand who he was and helped us look at him subjectively.This man was a genius, in his musical abilities many were awed. It could be said that isolation can breed genius but genius can breed isolation. Is it possible that this is what happened to Gould? Who knows what could have been going on in his mind? An outward appearance that we get of him is his clothes. He would wear layers of clothes even in the summer time to prevent from catching a cold. There is a short where we see all the various pills Gould was taking trying to balance each other out shown in various shapes, sizes, and color.The music that we hear is what connected Gould to the rest of the world but at the same time it kept him separated from it. Technology was able to help Gould perfect his music. There is a clip where Gould is in a recording studio and we are listening to a play back of a recording he just made. He says that after listening to it that it is almost good. The recording seems to takes the soul out of music. He decides that he wants to re-record the track, so he prepares to play, but we don't see him play. The show is about a piano player but we never saw him playing the piano. It is possible that he hated the instrument that he is most known for. You would think that since this is a documentary about a piano player that you would get to see him play, but you don't. Is this out of respect for him, he is so into his music that it was about him and not his music. It could also be that the film is not about him but about who he was. A genius mind is very complex and often difficult or hard to understand. I think the film does well to try and portray the randomness of a genius mind in the style of non-linear film where we are forced to use our own minds to make the connections in the life of Glenn Gould.

'Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould' will not appeal to everybody: it is not a traditionally narrative biographical documentary, and it will not present much in the way of the facts of Gould's existence. Rather, it attempts to portray many facets of his eccentric and self-centered genius largely by non-narrative means. There are a few documentary-style interviews, but I found these to be simply providing background for the dramatizations and visuals used to bring out his character.Gould's passions, quirks, and personality are presented with Colm Feore's decent likeness and obviously very thoroughly researched character development. Story takes a back seat to image and music, and the result for the audience is a feel for the persona of Glenn Gould, rather than the story of his life.I am biased, as a Canadian and a lover of Gould's music, but this is one of my all-time favourite films.

This mild offering is nothing I would recommend, except to hard-core NPR listeners and channel 13 partisans. In its heart, 32 Films wants to be an Errol Morris documentary when it grows up. And while there's nothing wrong with that desire, what we see on screen is a thin gruel that fails to match Morris's ability to turn a subject – about whom most know nothing – into a fascinating, complex and problematic creature. The film's failing is particularly unfortunate, as the bits of Glenn Gould's life that we can thresh out of the superficial psychologizing and imagined scenes of what purport to be critical moments in Gould's life make him seem like an ideal subject for documentary treatment. Here, Gould comes off as simply a delightfully strange bachelor uncle, a sainted `eccentric of the people': a holy fool who is civil to stagehands and hotel chambermaids, waves his hands around in recording studios and reads hagiographic radio monologues on Canada's frozen north. His genius, far more than this sum of his press myths, is what would have made for a worthwhile filmed biography.

The eccentric behavior of rock and pop icons usually take center stage in the media, but here's a classical musician and virtuoso performer that literally steals the show, both in achievements and lifestyle.Glenn Gould popped pills, gave up performing live concerts because not everyone in the audience could hear the music the same way, created radio documentaries that mirrored symphonies and played the stock market like an expert. Glenn Gould was a typical hermit who only called people to talk when he was bored, he wanted to visit the arctic in the dark of winter and he donated his estate to charity.He died from a stroke at age 50, but recordings of his music have been sent into space. Glenn Gould lives on in the hearts of classical music fans and those who have seen 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.