Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds: The Conductor Zubin Mehta
A vivid, comprehensive documentary that is a tribute to Zubin Mehta, following him on tour in India, Tel Aviv, Florence, Berlin and Munich. The screenings are presented in collaboration with the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation.
Director: Bettina Ehrhardt, Colour, 89 min., 2016
Synopsis
Zubin Mehta, one of the music world’s most charismatic conductors combines very different characteristics: Indian culture and Parsi spirituality; the musical culture of Vienna - his “musical home”, as he calls it - and the music traditions of Asia, Europe and North America.
Film maker Bettina Ehrhardt has produced a vivid and comprehensive tribute to Zubin Mehta, following him on tour to his Indian home land, to Tel Aviv, Florence, Berlin and to Munich. Her film portrait features artists such as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta’s lifelong friend, pianist Yuja Wang, in concerts with "his" orchestras, the Israel Phiharmonic and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (both orchestras who have appointed Mehta Music Director for Life) with orchestras who honoured Mehta as their Music Director Laureate: Daniel Barenboim's Staatskapelle Berlin, the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Philharmonics. Archives recall particular moments of Zubin Mehta's life.
The film portrays an artist beloved by audiences and musicians alike for the warmth he radiates both in his music-making and in his life.
Director's Bio
Bettina Ehrhardt met Zubin Mehta when he became Music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich back in 1998. She then made a film about the staging of “Tristan”, the first opera Maestro Mehta conducted in Munich as General Music Director. Since that time their contact never stopped, leading eventually to this film.
Bettina is both a documentary producer-director and an author and journalist. Based in Munich and active internationally, she holds a Master’s degree in French Literature, a Diploma in cinema and a degree in semiotics/linguistics from the University of Lyon II. In addition to making films on the arts, she also directs journalistic documentaries.
Bettina’s documentaries on the arts have focused on composers Luigi Nono, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Pierre Boulez and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, conductors Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta and Kent Nagano, classical pianist Maurizio Pollini, jazz pianist Chick Corea with his Trio as well as singer and conductor Bobby McFerrin. She also directs multi-cam music recordings.
She produced and directed films for television networks as ARTE, the WDR, the ZDF, 3SAT, the BR, the SWR, the ORF, the SVT, Radio Canada and ARTV.
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