ZORN III (2018-2022)

Following a commission from a television channel, Mathieu Amalric has been filming the composer John Zorn for twelve years, whenever they meet. In this third instalment, Zorn has asked the opera singer Barbara Hannigan to perform a piece which he wrote, Jumalattaret, inspired by Finnish pagan deities. In the course of the emails they exchange – in which she says she is “rather downhearted” at the idea of disappointing him and he replies that “you can’t transcend anything by staying on familiar ground” – and of the rehearsals accompanied by the pianist Stephen Gosling, there is an attempt to avoid giving in to fear and uncertainty without resigning oneself to the cliché that artists always creates in a state of torment. By devoting a prominent space to doubt as well as rigour and by embarking on a quest for “another type of perfection”, music full of audacity, life, freedom and joy is born.