Everybody Digs Bill Evans – Film Review
by Hugh Maguire

Director – Grant Gee
Writers – Grant Gee, Owen Martell, Mark O’Halloran
Stars – Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman, Barry Ward

An unassuming but nonetheless towering figure of the 1960s New York jazz scene, Bill Evans’s name is considered up there with greats such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  Dying prematurely in 1980 aged 51, his legacy and influence live on, and this film expertly captures something of his troubled quiet genius. Not so much a biographical film as a slice of a biography – an insight into a brief period in time – we are left in no doubt as to Evans’s stature, the creative tensions which inspired him, and the impact he had on others.  Through evocative camera work and superlative acting, we share the experience with an intimacy akin to sitting in some smoke-filled bar on 52nd Street (Swing Street), the epicentre of New York Jazz, back in the day.

Evans formed a trio, the Bill Evans Trio, with bassist Scott LaFaro (1936-61) and drummer Paul Motian (1931-2011). Recording two studio albums and two live recordings, we embark on our insight and mood-setting performance at the celebrated Village Vanguard (still operating since 1935). The music, camerawork and smoke set the scene. Having established the intimacy between the performers, we are left in no doubt how traumatic the death of Scott La Faro must have felt, just days afterwards.  The emotional upheaval and the collapse of Evans, physically and emotionally, form the core of our viewing. There are occasional flash-forwards to remind us that we are just eavesdropping on a narrative flow.  They don’t add much to our understanding, although they do remind us of a moment in time.  Addicted to heroin and aided and abetted in his decline by his girlfriend, Ellaine Schultz (Valene Kane), Evans nonetheless has the emotional support of an older brother and a sympathetic sister-in-law. They encourage him to get away for a stretch to his elderly parents, retired in Florida. These all-too-credible scenes, with all the tensions of a grown-up New York-based son coming home to parents living their lives at their own pace, are perhaps the viewing highlight.  The steady click of knitting needles and the reluctant gardening afford us further insights into Evans’s background.  It is all low-key and slow-paced.  We learn of the father’s hard-working background in New Jersey – Evans’s childhood home – and how he has slaved to fulfil the American dream.  It doesn’t seem much of a dream to us – a small, cramped house, cheap furniture, a small backyard and an outside temperature that everyone finds uncomfortable and compounds the petty bickering between mum and dad.  It would all tend to encourage anyone to be emotionally withdrawn.  There is no huge, intense drama, but through the deft camerawork and acting, we can get a clear sense of Evans’s cultural milieu, his sensitivity to retreat into himself while understanding something of the process, tensions and the culture that fostered his creative flourishing.