The story of the The Red Violin is the story of a 17th century violin, a perfect violin, that was varnished red after its maker’s - master violin maker Nicolo Bussotti - wife dies and he used her blood to turn the varnish red. Then varnished his masterpiece with the blood tinted varnish. To its owners, the violin causes anger, betrayal, love, and sacrifice. It is a really nice film, worth the rental.
My question is: Would blood actually turn varnish red? I would think that the actual blood would coagulate or somehow change to black after a certain period of time. Isn’t that what blood does anyway? I’m just wondering if this is actually possible, for blood to turn varnish permanently red, or what this simply literary license for a movie?
Do you realize that you have blown the doors off the biggest spoiler this wonderful movie has? Granted it isn’t at all a complex spoiler, but I do know very intelligent people that didn’t pick up on it during their first viewing.
Nevertheless, I’m adding a spoiler warning to the title. I thought about adding spoilerboxes to the OP, but subsequent posts have made that a moot point. We can’t have a whole thread made up of spoiler boxes.
Well, the title essentially gives it away. But if you didn’t figure it out long before the “big reveal” in the movie then you really ought to have your “very intelligent people” card revoked.
Agreed. Hell, I figured it out in the first ten minutes.
To the OP: the flat denial given in the goofs section of IMDb notwithstanding, blood can be used to make a poor-quality brownish-red pigment.
OK, since we have a possible answer I don’t feel bad about inserting an anecdote here.
I’ve never seen the film, nor has my husband. His elderly parents told us last year that they’d like to find a copy of the film to send to friends of theirs who live in another state; they have a daughter who is a violinist and they thought it would be a nice gift for them. But every store they’ve gone to has not carried the film and won’t/can’t/can’t be bothered to order it.
Ah hah, we say, we have a computer and the magic of Amazon.com. We order a copy on DVD and show it to his parents, and they confirm that is the film, and send it off to their friends.
Weeks later, my husband’s parents say, “What did you order?!” We ask what’s up, and they say their (conservative) friends called them asking why they sent a “smutty” movie. My inlaws do not remember anything smutty in the film when they saw it. Yet we confirmed the cast and everything with them from the DVD, and there was no similarly-titled porn version or anything for sale through Amazon.
Then it hits us. They haven’t been to the movie theater in well over a decade. They don’t have movie channels, just very basic cable.
“How did you watch this movie?”
“On TV.”
Yup. They saw an edited-for-primetime-TV version, and judging by the Wiki summary, part of the film has a couple whose lovemaking inspires his music. :smack:
I didn’t mean to do that!