• Summary: A uniquely intimate portrait of the music icon, Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts explores the contemporary composer's creative process in opera, concert, and film, interwoven with candid scenes of his personal and spiritual life. In July 2005, filmmaker Scott Hicks started shooting a documentary about the composer Philip Glass to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2007. Over the next 18 months, he followed Glass across three continents, from his annual ride on the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster, to the world premiere of his new opera in Germany, to a performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia. Allowed unprecedented access to Glass' working process, family life, spiritual teachers, and longtime collaborators, including Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris, Chuck Close, Christopher Hampton, and others, Hicks gives audiences a remarkable mosaic portrait of one of the greatest--and at times controversial--artists of this or any era. (Koch Lorber Films) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 6
  2. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Reviewed by: Joshua Kosman
    75
    With his self-deprecating demeanor and easy laugh, Glass is a congenial presence, and now and then he lets an insight drop.
  2. 67
    As fascinating as Glass often is, it's simultaneously too conventional and not conventional enough.
  3. Much like its subject: affable, quotable and emotionally guarded in the extreme.

See all 6 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. 10
    A must-see for every Philip Glass fan out there, the composer and the man really come across in this documentary and there is a great deal of insights about his musical upbringing and the cultural climate in which he developed his unique skills. Expand
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