CINEMA: Soloist

A film explores the curious life of great pianist Glenn Gould

If celebrity -- its getting, having and spending -- is the great theme of late 20th century life, then reclusivity is surely its most haunting variation. To be known for your unknowability, or anyway your elusiveness, is a possibly unintentional yet perversely elegant strategy for drawing attention to yourself, as Garbo and J.D. Salinger have demonstrated. But they had to stop performing and publishing to pull it off. Glenn Gould, the genius-struck Canadian concert pianist, could have his cake and eat it too. He quit making public appearances in 1964, but he never stopped recording -- and obsessively re-recording to achieve...

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