Everybody Digs Bill Evans
The American pianist and composer is superbly played by Anders Danielsen Lie in a biopic that should appeal not just to jazz lovers.
Image courtesy of Break Out Pictures.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
There are two reasons for regarding this film by Grant Gee as a kind of companion piece to Ido Fluk’s Koln 75which received its UK release a month or two ago. Let's start first with the implications inherent in their titles. That of Fluk’s film referenced the famed jazz concert in Germany by Keith Jarrett which, recorded live, yielded an album which became a lauded best seller. In much the same way, Everybody Digs Bill Evans takes its title from the 1958 album featuring the pianist together with a bassist and a drummer. However, here the film is more directly linked to the performances in 1961 at New York City’s Village Vanguard when the other members of Evans’s trio were Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian. That occasion was one that also yielded recordings which are regarded as masterworks - indeed they have been called the most influential live jazz recordings of all time. In these circumstances one might expect that both of these dramatised films would be conventional musical biopics aimed first and foremost at audiences devoted to the music of Jarrett and Evans respectively.
However, the second reason for comparing these movies lies in the fact that each in its own way offers something different from what might have been expected. Although Fluk’s film was indeed built around the concert in Cologne in 1975 that is indicated by its title, that film’s central figure was less Jarrett than the young and relatively inexperienced promoter who set up the concert, Vera Brandes. Given that the title of Gee’s film does not pinpoint that Village Vanguard performance with which it begins, viewers might well expect that this movie would prove to be a full-scale biopic about Evans who was born in New Jersey in 1929 and died in New York in 1980. Instead what we get is a work which, despite incorporating a few scenes from later in his life, very much concentrates on the months immediately following the concert on 25th June 1961. It proved to be the last time that Bill Evans would be able to play with the bassist Scott LaFaro whom he had found to be an inspirational partner. This fact is indicated almost at once since the opening sequence portraying the performance itself incorporates intercut footage relating to the car crash which only days later would kill LaFaro at the early age of twenty-five.
But, if Koln 75 and Everybody Digs Bill Evans both provide viewers with something different from what they might have anticipated, it is Gee’s film which does so rewardingly and is by far the more distinguished. His background is in documentary films and his interest in and instincts for music are already well established. Consequently, the opening scenes of his film carry a deep sense of the time and place. This is felt all the more strongly because all the scenes set in that year are superbly photographed by Piers McGrail in black-and-white thus enhancing the period sense of the piece. Because Bill Evans had found that playing alongside Scott LaFaro had taken him to new heights, the young man’s death was traumatic for him. When it happened, he felt unable to play for some months and initially he looked to his older brother, Harry, who also lived in New York to take him in while he adjusted to the shock.
At this time both Bill and his girlfriend, Ellaine Schultz, were taking drugs and, while Bill was initially welcomed into the household that included his brother, his sister-in-law Pat and their young daughter Debby, Harry would eventually decide that it was not good for the child to have Bill in the house. Needing more time to recuperate, Bill travelled to Florida to spend some weeks with his elderly parents. Only when he felt that he could play again did he leave, by which time the recordings from Village Vanguard were on sale.
The impact of Gee’s film stems from the fact that Mark O’Halloran’s screenplay, an adaptation of the book Intermission by Owen Martell, creates characters who are so deeply persuasive. In theory Vera Brandes’s story as told in Koln 75 might have achieved that too being no less based on fact, but the telling of it lacked conviction making one regret that Jarrett and his music were to some extent sidelined. Here, in total contrast and aided by a superb cast, we have figures drawn in depth who feel absolutely real. What we see of them suggests that the film should be seen as a portrayal of life as we know it, one in which all too often we see convincing instances of ordinary lives which below the surface are marked by discontent and disappointment. The extent to which LaFaro's death weighs on Bill Evans is part of this, but other instances emerge too. Bill’s father is seventy and, now retired, is looking back on a life that has not brought him satisfaction and, when drunk, he admits that he has treated his wife badly. For her part she has stayed loyal but is putting up with an existence that is frustrating and empty for her. As for Bill's brother, we learn that in childhood he had been regarded as a more promising pianist than his younger brother but he is all too aware that Bill has overtaken him and, while he has his own life and a sympathetic wife and daughter, he also lacks any sense of fulfilment in addition to which he has serious health issues. So too with Bill's girlfriend: Ellaine is less important to Bill than his music and her need for him is greater than his for her.
Fortunately, the quality of the writing is fully matched by the excellence of the cast. All of them give the kind of performance that creates the sense of these being relatable living people: Anders Danielsen Lie as Bill, Barry Ward as his brother, Kate McGrath as his sister-in-law, Bill Pullman as his father and Valene Kane as Ellaine. They are all impressive in a splendidly unshowy way while Laurie Metcalf as Bill's mother achieves a warmth in her concern for Bill which makes her stand out even in this cast. The naturalism in all the sixties footage is just what is needed. What is arguably slightly off in this context is the decision to jump forward at intervals to provide previews of the fate that awaits several of these people. These glimpses of the future – 1973, 1979, 1980 – are shot in colour and also involve images of a more stylised nature with the result that in this context they become rather too self-conscious. Even so, this is a film that contains much that is remarkable. Despite the music being so prominent at the very start, it might seem that it subsequently takes a secondary role in the piece. However, at the close there is a sense that the piano style of Bill Evans finds its expression in a kind of cool jazz which can supply a balm to counter suffering. The last shot in Everybody Digs Bill Evans relates to this music and, with Anders Danielsen Lie quietly expressing so much, it is the perfect final image.
Cast: Anders Danielsen Lie, Laurie Metcalf, Bill Pullman, Barry Ward, Valene Kane, Will Sach, Katie McGrath, Boz Martin-Jones, Tallulah Cavanaugh, Juliette Crosbie, Isabelle Harriet, Leon Danza.
Dir Grant Gee, Pro Janine Marmot and Alan Maher, Screenplay Mark O’Halloran, from the book Intermission by Owen Martell, Ph Piers McGrail, Pro Des Ellen Kirk, Ed Adam Biskupski, Music Roger Goula, Costumes Kitty Bennett.
Cowtown Pictures/Hot Property Films/Bona Fide Productions/Finite Films/Shoni Productions/Onsight/Mister Smith Entertainment-Break Out Pictures.
102 mins. Ireland/UK/USA. 2026. UK Rel: 11 September 2026. Cert. 15.
