As the Fugue String quartet approaches its 25th anniversary, the onset of a debilitating illness to cellist Peter Mitchell, forces its members to reevaluate their relationships. After being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Peter announces his decision to play one final concert before he retires. Meanwhile, the second violinist, Robert, voices his desire to alternate the first violinist role, long held by Daniel. Robert is married to Juliette, the viola player of the group. Upon discovering Juliette does not support him in this matter, Robert has a one-night stand. Further complicating matters, their daughter, Alexandra, begins an affair with Daniel, whom her mother once pined for. Yet bound together by their years of collaboration, the quartet will search for a fitting farewell to their shared passion of music and perhaps even a new beginning.
To learn how to play the string instruments, the actors had individual coaches who specialized in their respective instruments. Zilberman filmed the Brentano String Quartet perform Op. 131 with five cameras capturing five separate angles, which he then edited into "video-boards" that the actors studied. The aide helped them simulate their individual shots during production.
Casting
The film features members of the Brooklyn Parkinson's Group in the scene where Peter is in a physical therapy class. For the scenes where Peter's Parkinson's becomes apparent, there were two coaches on set, Pamela Quinn and Joy Esterberg. Nina Lee, cellist of the Brentano String Quartet, plays herself in the film. David Redden, legendary auctioneer and Vice-Chairman of Sotheby's, also plays himself in the film. Members of the Attacca String Quartet play student musicians in the Juilliard class scenes.
Filming
The film's stage performances were filmed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, the same stage where the Guarneri Quartet gave its farewell concert in 2009. A Late Quartet was the first production to be granted permission to shoot inside the Frick Collection.
Writing
The scene in which Peter Mitchell tells his music class an anecdote about meeting Pablo Casals is adapted from an anecdote found in Cellist, the autobiography of cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; the circumstances of the encounter and the pieces played are changed in the film, but Casals's words are essentially identical to those recounted by Piatigorsky. The subway poetry the Little Girl reads from when Juliette visits Peter is from Ogden Nash's poem "Old Men". T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, which Peter reads from at the beginning of the film, itself was inspired by Beethoven's late quartets.
Soundtrack
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, performed by the Brentano String Quartet
Joseph Haydn: String Quartet No. 5 in F minor, 3rd movement, performed by the Brentano String Quartet
Cristian Puig: "Bulerias Del Encuentro", performed by Cristian Puig and Rebeca Tomas
Pablo de Sarasate: "Zigeunerweisen", Op. 20, performed by Mark Steinberg
Jonathan Dagan: "Salty Air", performed by j.viewz
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010, performed by Nina Lee
Erich Korngold: "Marietta's Song" from Die tote Stadt, performed by Anne Sofie von Otter, Bengt Forsberg, Kjell Lysell and Ulf Forsberg, , Mats Lidström
Reception
A Late Quartet received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 76% based on reviews from 113 critics. On Metacritic the film has a score of 67 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics. It was a New York Times Critics' Pick which Stephen Holden called a magnificently acted, "deeply felt, musically savvy film". Rolling Stones Peter Travers called it "a shining gem of a movie". Roger Ebert said "it does one of the most interesting things any film can do. It shows how skilled professionals work." On Walken's performance, Lou Lumenick of the New York Post said "you won't see a better piece of acting this year than his final speech."
