And the Oscar for Best Performance By a Left Hand Goes To…

…cellist David Bakamjian, longtime ACMP supporter and director of chamber music workshops for adult amateurs, who played Christopher Walken’s left hand in the film A Late Quartet. 

David got the part because his hands looked sufficiently like Walken’s, and because he could finger the notes to Beethoven’s Op. 131 while crouched behind Walken, face pressed against Walken’s back! At one point, Walken turned and said “Hey, I’m starting to like this guy!”

One day, I went to visit him on the set and he came out of one of those little street-side trailers dressed fully in the same outfit Christopher Walken would be wearing that day–a sleeveless vest, tie, professorial look–but on the next day he had only his left sleeve of the same suit that Walken would wear in that scene; I guess the whole suit would have been too expensive or bothersome to make.

David enjoyed meeting the lovely Catherine Keener, helping her become more comfortable with the viola; and the kindness of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was serious about learning the rudiments of violin playing. Look for the special close-up of David’s thumb when Walken’s character pulls an LP off the shelf (they had forgotten to film that segment when Walken was still on set), and David’s misspelled name in the end credits!

ACMP is hosting its first ever Film Club event this Saturday, December 9 at 2pm Eastern on Zoom.

Watch (or re-watch) Yaron Zilberman’s film A Late Quartet on your own first, and then join us for the discussion with former Attacca Quartet members Keiko Tokunaga and Luke Fleming who coached the actors on how to play violin and viola and had a couple brief cameos in the film as quartet-mates of the glamorous Imogen Poots.

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