Joseph Bologne: Last News

Chevalier is a biopic about violin virtuoso Joseph Bolonge Chevalier de Saint George directed by Stephen Williams and written by Stefani Robinson.

When creating a biographical drama of a historic figure, there’s a delicate balance between striving for historical accuracy and focusing on crafting a compelling, human story. This awards season has seen its fair share of biopics, testing their costume designers in different ways.

Jon Burlingame “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” has one of the most complicated, and yet stylistically unified, scores of any series this year — Kris Bowers‘ original score, the 18th-century period music, and a surprising number of string-quartet covers of 21st-century hits. The Netflix series, a prequel to the 2021 hit “Bridgerton,” imagines a Black bride for England’s King George III in 1761, chronicling their initially rocky marriage and her gradual understanding of the monarch’s mental illness; flash-forwards to 1817 feature an older and wiser queen. Bowers, who earned two Emmy nominations for his work, returned for the prequel but took a different approach. “This show needed a level of intimacy that the score for ‘Bridgerton’ doesn’t necessarily have,” he says. “My initial instinct was to write for a smaller ensemble, and to mic and mix the music in a way that was more intimate and tactile, a sense of closeness to the instruments.”

The movie Chevalier is already playing in theaters in the U.S., but there are still areas of the world that don’t have it yet!

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor It took the combined talent of composers Kris Bowers and Michael Abels to help filmmaker Stephen Williams ensure Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ music lives on after his life story was erased from the history books. Williams’ new film, “Chevalier” tells the story of the illegitimate son of a plantation owner and slave. Played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chevalier is a promising young Black musician who excels at fencing, playing the violin and wooing the court of Marie Antoinette. In dividing their tasks, Abels wrote the music for the on-camera performances while Bowers composed the film’s score.

Cher makes a quick appearance on the red carpet at the premiere of Chevalier held at El Capitan Theatre on Sunday night (April 16) in Los Angeles.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, should have been as famous as Mozart — except he wasn’t. Stephen Williams‘ new film “Chevalier” starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. as the titular violinist explores why. From Searchlight Pictures, the film opens in theaters on April 21 and follows Chevalier, a name bestowed on him after he caught the attention of Marie Antoinette, the illegitimate son of an African slave and plantation owner. Before bursting onto the scene, he performed violin concertos while building his fencing skills, becoming known as the “Black Mozart.” In a clip from the film, Bologne takes on a challenge against Mozart (Joseph Prowen), accepting a violin duel.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Though his life and accomplishments were largely erased under Napoleon, the extraordinary figure at the center of Stephen Williams’ “Chevalier” really did exist. Born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, the son of a white plantation owner and his Black slave, Joseph Bologne went on to excel in spheres rarely accessible to people of color in 18th-century French society. Here was a champion swordsman and celebrated musician invited to play his violin at Versailles, where Marie Antoinette reportedly accompanied him on the harpsichord. So why has it taken so long for his story to be told? The time certainly seems right to rediscover the Chevalier — an honorary title that reveals how high Bologne rose under France’s overtly racist Code Noir, as well as a fitting name for the film. A compelling example of Black excellence dating back even before the French Revolution, the English-language “Chevalier” doesn’t feel nearly as fusty as its powdered wigs and period setting might suggest. Like “Chocolat” (not the Johnny Depp confection, but the 2016 Omar Sy vehicle about the circus clown who broke barriers on the Paris stage), this modern-minded if occasionally under-nuanced costume drama fills a historic gap, starting with its fanciful opening scene: a violin showdown between Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Joseph Prowen) choreographed like a rap battle.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Kelvin Harrison Jr. spent up to six hours a day playing the violin in preparation for his latest film “Chevalier.” The period drama, set before the French Revolution, follows the life of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, also known as Black Mozart. The Searchlight Pictures film also stars Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton, Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo, Marton Csokas, Alex Fitzalan and Minnie Driver. Speaking with Variety, Harrison Jr. said despite being raised in a musical family (his father was a classical musician and a music teacher) he didn’t know about Chevalier. “I had no clue who he was, but he was pretty bold, and I was blown away by him,” he says.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival marks its 40th edition, running March 3-12, with a full-blown return to the in-person festival experience with a sidebar of only 10 titles available online.  “We’re celebrating the human connection and getting back into cinemas again,” says programming head Lauren Cohen who in her first year flying solo at the helm, is putting her personal stamp on the festival with female-centric topics dominating the Master Classes.  “It’s our 40th anniversary, which is such a milestone for us, we want it to be bigger and better than ever,” she continues. 

As history lessons go, it’s a fascinating one: Joseph Bologne, born to a married plantation proprietor and a Creole woman his white father held as a slave in the French colony of Guadeloupe, would grow up to attain such repute as a violinist, composer, and conductor that he was granted the title of Chevalier de Saint-Georges then and “the Black Mozart” now. In the pitchy biopic “Chevalier,” he earns this sobriquet in a literal capacity by storming into a concert from Wolfgang himself, already in progress, challenging him to a violin battle, and owning him so hard that the crowd bursts into a rabid standing ovation.