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| Grant Gee: Everybody Digs Bill Evans (IE/GB 2026). Anders Danielsen Lie as Bill Evans. |
A biopic
Director Grant Gee
Starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Laurie Metcalf, Isabelle Harriet
Country Ireland, United Kingdom
Languages English
Duration 102 min
Theme The Power of Music
Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2026
Viewed at Savoy-teatteri, Helsinki, 22 Sep 2026
NB. The movie shares the title with the 1959 Bill Evans album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, but it has nothing to do with it. The focus of the music is in the 1961 Village Vanguard sessions of the Bill Evans Trio. Plus there is an independent score composed by Roger Gould.
Johanna Siik (HIFF 2026): "In July 1961, jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans was confronted by a tragedy, when bassist Scott LaFaro died in a car accident. The death impacted Evans’s own ability to play music and contributed to his heroin addiction worsening. Without the support of his brother Harry’s family as well as a period of forced rest at his parent’s home in Florida, it is questionable whether Evans would have ever been able to return to playing.
For a biopic of a musician, this film, outside of the opening credits, includes fairly little music. Evans’ best-known song, Waltz for Debby, is beautifully placed in its tender context. Apart from that, we experience an interval, something that also belongs to music.
Grant Gee’s film, which received the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, presents us with flashes of the inevitable: more people die, as does, in the end, Evans himself. From the black-and-white focus of the tale and a future distorted by colours is born a broken melody, which is presented harmoniously as the protagonist (played by Anders Danielsen Lie) marches towards his next period of creativity.
After the movie, one can tune into Yle Areena to take in a living room concert filmed in Lauttasaari in Helsinki in 1970, in which Evans and his trio perform three songs in the course of an interview." Johanna Siik
Johanna Siik (HIFF 2026): "Kaunistelematon kuvaus muusikko Bill Evansin vaikeasta vuodesta 1961, jota ennen ja jonka jälkeen syntyi maailman parasta jazzmusiikkia.
Heinäkuussa 1961 jazzpianisti ja säveltäjä Bill Evansia kohtasi tragedia: kontrabasisti Scott LaFaro kuoli auto-onnettomuudessa. Tapahtuma vaikutti merkittävästi paitsi Evansin soittokykyyn, myös heroiinin käytön eskaloitumiseen. Ilman veljensä Harryn perhettä ja pakkolepolomaa vanhempiensa luona Floridassa Evans tuskin olisi toipunut takaisin pianon äärelle.
Henkilökuvaksi muusikosta elokuvassa kuullaan alkutekstejä lukuun ottamatta vähäisesti musiikkia. Evansin ehkä kuuluisin kappale, Waltz for Debby, asetetaan hienosti herkkään kontekstiinsa. Muutoin eletään väliaikaa, joka ”joskus kuuluu musiikkiin”.
Grant Geen ohjaamassa, Berliinin elokuvajuhlilla Hopeisella karhulla palkitussa elokuvassa nähdään välähdyksiä väistämättömästä, jossa kuolee lisää ihmisiä ja lopulta Evans itsekin. Mustavalkoisesta kertomuksen painopisteestä ja väreillä vääristetystä tulevaisuudesta syntyy rikkinäinen melodia, joka kuitenkin kerrotaan harmonisesti päähenkilönsä (Anders Danielsen Lie) kulkiessa kohti seuraavaa luomiskautta.
Elokuvan päälle voi katsella Yle Areena -palvelusta Helsingin Lauttasaaressa vuonna 1970 kuvatun olohuonekonsertin, jossa Evans esittää silloisen trionsa kanssa kolme kappaletta haastattelun lomassa." Johanna Siik
AA: The music of the Bill Evans Trio is subdued to convey a power too overwhelming to let loose. Like in the vicinity of a pressure cooker or a power plant. The music is subtle, gentle, soft, controlled and cool like a mountain creek. A pure stream of consciousness in sharp focus. Grace under pressure.
Ten days after the Village Vanguard Sessions of 25 June 1961 the bassist Scott LaFaro dies in a car crash, and Bill Evans, the pianist-bandleader, lands into a severe crisis, worsened by a heroin habit.
Like Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (US 2025), Everybody Digs Bill Evans focuses on an "intermission" to quote the title of the 2013 novel by Owen Martell on which the movie is based. A void, a transition, a suspension, a calm before a new beginning... or nothingness.
Grant Gee borrows explicitly from D. A. Pennebaker's Daybreak Express, and evidently he is an aficionado of jazz cinema, experimental film of the 1950s and the 1960s and modernist French and Italian cinema of the period. At times the film feels like an hommage, but Gee stays outside of pastiche and creates something fresh from the great legacies.
It is a sensitive study of a psychological crisis and family dynamics. The black and white imagery is stark and expressive. The associative montage is assured and tender. It is about art as a matter of life and death.
Great performances by Anders Danielsen Lie (Bill Evans), Bill Pullman (father Harry), Laurie Metcalf (mother Mary), Barry Ward (brother Harry Jr.) and Valene Kane (Ellaine Schultz, tragic girlfriend).
At home after the screening we immediately sought our copy of the complete Village Vanguard Sessions and started to listen. This double cd was the purchase number four in my "jazz record of the week" project 12 years ago, curated by Emu Lehtinen at the Digelius Music store. A pure treasure, sounds even better after seeing the movie.
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| Scott LaFaro (bass), Bill Evans (piano) and Paul Motian (drums) at the Village Vanguard, Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Village, New York City. |
Double CD compilation
Essential Jazz Classics – EJC55564
Country: Spain
Released: 2012
Genre: Jazz
Style: cool jazz
Contains all the material from Sunday At The Village Vanguard (1961) and Waltz For Debby (1962) plus the unreleased track "I Loves You Porgy".
Recorded 25 June 1961.
CD 1
1 Alice In Wonderland
2 My Foolish Heart
3 All Of You
4 My Romance
5 Some Other Time
6 Solar
7 Gloria's Step
8 My Man's Gone Now
9 All Of You
10 Detour Ahead
11 Conversation
12 Waltz For Debby
CD 2
1 Alice In Wonderland
2 I Loves You Porgy
3 My Romance
4 Milestones
5 Detour Ahead
6 Gloria's Step
7 Waltz For Debby
8 All Of You
9 Jade Visions
10 Jade Visions
11 A Few Final Bars
Piano – Bill Evans
Bass – Scott LaFaro
Drums – Paul Motian
Art Direction – Tony Lane
Liner Notes – Michael James
Photography By – Melvin Sokolsky
Producer – Orrin Keepnews, Orrin Keepnews
Recorded By, Engineer – Dave Jones
Remastered By – Mike Reese
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