Yes and no. It's really only one film, divided into thirty-two titled sections, to equal the number of movements in the Canadian pianist's signature recording, Bach's Goldberg Variations. (So why not The Gould Variations?) One of the sections, at any rate, is a legitimate short film (actually an excerpt from it), an animated abstract by Norman McLaren; others are composed of documentary-style interviews with people who knew the man; others are dramatizations (with Colm Feore as Gould), usually with not much narrative interest, but not without other types of interest: the pianist tuning into the voices at a truckstop cafe, for a good example, or delaying his entrance at his last public recital in order to make small talk with a stagehand. None of the sections is lengthy enough to wear out its welcome, and the composite portrait, though not a complete picture, is a pleasing one: lightly, mildly eccentric in contrast to the heavier and harder-to-take eccentricity of its subject. Directed by François Girard. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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