Glenn Gould has an almost mythical status in Canada. There was a highly influential film made about him, a lot of stuff is named after him and he has a statue on a bench in front of the CBC, all hunched over facing into the wind on Front Street. All this has given the man a kind of mythical status not many musicians know outside of maybe Mozart or The Beatles, but through it all, Gould was still just a man, warts and all. It’s probably what also continues to make him such a captivating subject for biography and documentary as evidence by the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Genius Within.

First, it’s clear that filmmakers Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont had extraordinary access to archival material and persons of interest in Gould’s life. The first half is by and large about the pianist’s early professional triumphs, making a splash in Toronto, then New York and the internationally when given a recording contract by Columbia and the release of his first album Goldberg Variations. The second half is focused predominately on his personal struggles, his growing reclusion and his ill-fated relationship with Cornelia Foss. This set up gives good balance in examining the totality of the man’s life because while certainly Gould struggled with his hypochondria throughout his life, did it overshadow his triumphs at the time on stage and vinyl? Did it disable him from achieving like it did later? Hardly.

Another thing I liked was that a lot of archival interviews were used in the first half of the film, making it at times seem as if Gould were narrating his own life story. It definitely adds another whole personal level to the film, and makes what turns out to be a rather thorough examination of the man’s life, feel less clinical. And that material does feel exhaustive as evidenced by the laundry list of sources listed in the end credits; one can’t help but admire the diligence of Hozer and Raymont in getting it all together and making sense of it. Still, this is a biography film, and while it manages to go deeper and I think more personal than similar movies of the genre, it’s still somewhat hampered by its limitations.

It’s an impressive work, but I can’t say for certain if there’s anything here, aside for the intrinsic, that sets Genius Within apart from other projects about Gould. I can’t really call myself an expert on these matters, but there’s really nothing here screaming at me saying, “If you only ever see one movie about Glenn Gould, make it this one.” This is too bad, because I really did appreciate the work done on this movie, and one really does sense the appreciation of Gould between the frames, not just by the filmmakers, but by the ethereal Canadian spirit as well. There is something haunting in the end, but this movie tries to walk a very fine line between adulation and examination; legend and mortal. A technically brilliant work and a great intro into the deeper examination of the importance of Gould, but Genius Within is just another biography reel.