John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.
#27 — Roberta Guaspari, a real-life violinist and instructor who brought music education to the classrooms of Harlem.
MATTHEW: One of the pitfalls that tends to come with occupying such a prominent position in the highly public realm of moviemaking is a gradual inability to disappear into the most straightforward of roles. I’m not talking about the magical acts of self-vanishing that allow Daniel Day-Lewis to seemingly become figures as disparate as Bill the Butcher and Abraham Lincoln nor the larger-than-life personas achieved through virtuosic, full-scale deglamorizations by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Charlize Theron, but rather the everyday characters who may achieve great things but whose lives are decisively rooted in reality, their appearances neither remarkable nor particularly conspicuous. No matter how hard a performer tries to shed her star persona and immerse herself in distinctly un-Hollywood settings, it is often up to us, the viewers, to forget everything we know about a star in order to actually believe her as, more or less, one of us...
Meryl Streep has been frequently lauded for her preternatural ability to wear her characters like a second skin, submerging herself in the identities of women from all walks of life to the point of unrecognizability. This may be true to an extent, but it can also register as a slight exaggeration, one that occasionally glosses over and even mythologizes Streep’s meticulous construction of her assorted characters; as with any great movie star who has graced our screen for numerous decades, there are tics and trademarks that pop up even in the most selfless of Streep’s screen turns, not as detriments to a given performance but as signature touches that illuminate certain aspects of a character that a different performer might not have located.
I mention all of this as prelude to our discussion of Wes Craven’s Music of the Heart, which dramatizes the life and work of Roberta Guaspari (played, of course, by Streep), a well-respected violinist who never went professional but found her true calling in music education, teaching her instrument of choice to thousands of students in some of New York City’s most neglected schools and neighborhoods since the 1980s. We’ve seen this “White Lady Enlightens Students of Color” narrative countless times before; Pamela Gray’s script even includes an exchange with a skeptical parent who refers to Roberta as “Michelle Pfeiffer,” explicitly alluding to 1995’s Dangerous Minds. But Music of the Heart doesn’t really valorize our protagonist beyond the scope of her achievements, which are many and meaningful, and remains equally concerned with the ups-and-downs of Roberta’s not-always-joyous personal life as it is with the lessons and triumphs of the classroom. And I think a lot of this is made possible by Streep.
We first meet Roberta as a mascara-stained mess, reeling from the end of her marriage to a never-seen Navy officer and faced with practical concerns (like feeding her two children and moving out of her mom’s house), all while refusing to accept that the life she knew has been ripped out from underneath her, never to return. It isn’t long before a serendipitous run-in with a childhood acquaintance-turned-successful and attractive writer (Aidan Quinn) connects her with a substitute teaching job in a Harlem middle school, overseen by none other than Principal Angela Bassett. These progressions move at a clip that beggars belief, but Streep makes these developments credible by reacting to them in the ways we might expect of a busy, broken-hearted woman with a plate that’s increasingly full. There is seldom a moment where Streep isn’t extending her focus and giving even the most expositional moments multiple loaded meanings, whether she’s listening to Quinn’s job pitch while also palpably telegraphing arousal or straining to impress Bassett while slyly expressing disdain for Josh Pais’ disagreeable, tenured music teacher. Roberta will ultimately remove herself from her state of grief and find a far greater purpose in the profession she only half-heartedly takes up, but Music of the Heart unmistakably begins as a movie about a woman craving stability, intimacy, and respect in her life. Even as Roberta encourages her students to explore their full musical potential, Streep never takes her eye off of the character’s domestic and romantic situations, keeping the film balanced by keeping her performance embedded in a place of lived and familiar experience. What stands out for you about Streep’s rendering of Roberta Guaspari, a role, I might add, that Madonna (!) was initially attached to?!
JOHN: I’ll admit that “white savior” was a term initially floating around my head upon revisiting Music of the Heart, but, as Streep nimbly shows, Roberta never set out to save anything other than her own ass and the roof over her son’s heads. The film avoids such offensive clichés by foregrounding Roberta’s frenzied foray into music education as the coincidence it ostensibly was; she needs these kids to pluck those strings and put on a show for Principal Bassett more than her students seemingly need the violin to brighten their dreary lives. The violin doesn’t lift her students out of poverty nor does the film ever purport such a scenario to be on the horizon. In Streep’s taut exchange with the exasperated mother (Rosalyn Coleman) of Naeem (Justin ‘DJ’ Spaulding), the issue is addressed directly. “How many black classical composers can you name? How many black classical violinists?” his mom rightfully asks, explaining why her son doesn’t have time to learn the music of dead white men, to which Roberta counters, “That doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be. Naeem’s learning to play music — and that makes him feel good about himself. Why should it matter who wrote it?” Later on, Roberta pleads her case once more: “Look, I didn’t come up here to rescue anybody. I’m a single mother and I needed a job. And I know you think you’re protecting your son, but you’re not… The important thing is that when Naeem plays music, his whole face lights up. You should see that.” The film succeeds in this very regard, showing how the extreme diligence that learning an instrument requires can produce, after months of effort, an exquisite sonic reward. When an older Naeem appears, violin-in-hand, nearly ten years later to help Roberta coach another young group of kids, both actors glow with pride.
Streep’s Roberta is not a chameleonic performance, and that’s just fine. Yes, Streep transforms like few other actresses of her generation, but there is also the naturalistic, comedic Streep whose mere presence in contemporary films offers pleasures beyond compare, supplying this biopic with a truly fresh and lively performance. Streep’s creation of Roberta is indeed meticulous, from that slightly flat voice and mascara-stained eyes, the nervous imbalance of her gait, to the insane fact of her actually learning to play the violin for the movie. But, rather than sealing the character off, these qualities offer Streep tactile ways of making her spontaneous and unguarded Roberta into a flesh and blood woman. Whether begging for a job, attempting to wrangle her student’s attention, hoodwinked into a dating advertisement, battling parents and teachers for respect, or fighting for her program’s funding, Streep is constantly kept on her toes in both her professional and personal lives, scheming and strategizing amid the multiple surprises that life tosses her way.
In a scene from last week’s film, One True Thing, Streep and Renée Zellweger stop to admire some ornate halloween decorations in their provincial neighborhood. Streep’s Kate uses this opportunity to admit a key difference between herself and her erudite husband: “More is more,” she explains, “Your dad always says less is more. To me, more is more.” Streep’s Roberta is a more creation: more expressions, more vocal tics, more energy, more volume, more hair; her dogged pursuit to teach children violin forces Streep to be just as resourceful and eclectic in her approach. Every possible facet of Roberta’s personality is put on the line, each shade of her tenacity, compassion, and foolishness colored with a particular hue that adds up to a generously full portrait. But while Streep’s performance is undoubtedly frazzled and loose, Roberta also gets taken to task for the exacting demands she hurls toward her pupils, professing the virtues of discipline, practice, and precision when it comes to learning their instruments. In Music of the Heart, as in so many of her films, Streep shows first-hand the rewards of such discipline.
MATTHEW: Looking back at Music of the Heart after having spent ample time with Streep’s Sister Aloysius Beauvier and Julia Child and Florence Foster Jenkins, I’m not sure I agree with the “More is more” assertion. Yes, there are certainly a fair share of outsized Streep moments; my favorite of these finds her whooping with infectious delight at landing Carnegie Hall for a program-saving fundraiser and then, only seconds later, cringing with concern over her pupils’ ability to actually play a performance worthy of this space. The actress energizes this scene with that beaming, bellowing, arm-waving Streepian vigor that should be familiar to anyone who has ever watched her at an awards show. But she also shakes up many a prescriptively, similarly feel-good scene by keeping her reactions to scene partners, professional and amateur alike, playful and unpredictable, and thus keeping the movie open to the possibility of human surprise.
In this way, I understand the “More is more” takeaway. But when I think about Music of the Heart, I think of the deeply affecting late-night exchange in which Roberta’s eldest son (played by adorable Michael Angarano) forces his mother to face the hard truth about her husband’s departure. The scene is comprised mostly of an extended single shot that captures Streep and Angarano huddled by a window, rarely raising their voices above a hushed whisper, as seven-year-old Nick quietly begs his mother for a straightforward explanation of his father’s whereabouts. As perfectly scripted by Pamela Gray, this is the type of emotionally-conflicted intramural interaction that precious few American films, dramatic or otherwise, make time for anymore, and Streep and her pint-sized costar foreground the truth of the matter by tempering their own performances, opting for tender yet dry-eyed vulnerability when most actors (and directors) might insist on tears and fireworks. There’s a similarly honest if somewhat louder scene not long after in which Nick accuses Roberta of driving his dad away that summons up all the gnawing resentment both mother and son have been suppressing. As Roberta finally comes clean with the ugly details of her husband’s selfish abandonment, Streep invites pity but she also grounds the film by speaking to these kids like she would any other person, without condescension, mirroring her own repartee with her many students.
I wouldn’t count Music of the Heart among Streep’s most understated efforts, but there’s a tactful delicacy to her work here, especially around the children, who keep drawing Streep outside of herself, whether she’s corralling the wandering attentions of a new class or comforting a single student (Jean-Luke Figueroa) over the drive-by death of a classmate. In that latter scenario, Streep steers clear of sentimentalizing her students’ plights by maintaining the sense of candor that suffuses the entire performance. She may be working in a genre that’s eager to mythologize its central subjects, but Streep is overwhelmingly interested in the quotidian. Roberta isn’t a magician or even a virtuoso, and so the actress, like the film, wholly absorbs herself within an educational process and all its quirks and intricacies, while sometimes suggesting a lack of fulfillment that prevents the film from feeling too snug or complacent in its triumphs. The character doesn’t regard her students as blank slates to fill up with her wisdom, but as specific and fully-formed personalities who pass in and out of her life. Like all of them, she’s just trying to make it day-by-day, and her conversations with them feel as authentically casual as the moment in which Roberta’s eldest son jokingly thwacks her youngest one, causing her to toss off the perfect reprimand, “Don’t hit him again or I’ll smack you,” a line that definitely made its way around my childhood home.
Do I ever forget I’m watching Meryl Streep in Music of the Heart? No, of course not. At this particular stage in her career, I’m not sure there’s a chance anyone could. Yet the joy and insight of Streep’s Roberta Guaspari comes not from forgetfulness but recognition. We detect Streep’s immutable star presence but it never stands as a barrier between perceiving and appreciating the very real person she has been tasked with inhabiting. The actress’ preparation — again, she learned the violin in just two months — is formidable, but the final interpretation isn’t concerned with uncanny chameleonism or any of the other forms of character-creating wizardry that have become hallmarks of Streep’s definitive turns. Music of the Heart may not be top-tier Streep, but her craftsmanship and concern endure no matter the comparative modesty of the project. It’s a performance whose simple pleasures emanate from Streep’s singular ability to illuminate what’s familiar and true about a life that feels at once more ordinary and extraordinary than those that regularly brighten our screens.
a promo shot with her co-stars Gloria Estefan and Angela Bassett