Directed by Alison Chernick (2017)
by Sandy DeVito

I've said this before in other reviews, but the litmus test by which one gauges documentaries should always be slightly different from the one used for fictional narratives. Reality is not like fiction; it has no arc or final moral, it just is, rising and falling, an oxymoronic, chaotic rhythm of days,  a series of events that do not have a mythic structure. For a character study in fiction, we examine the ways in which we relate or do not relate to their theoretical experience; for the character study documentary, we are a more passive witness to the person we are learning about. Are we necessarily here to see how we relate to Itzhak Perlman? Yes and no. The subject of Itzhak is a real person, astoundingly real. Both an Israeli-American, disabled Jew, and a wunderkind violinist, existing in the same body, two sides of the same soul. His brightness exceeds all fiction. He is inherently human. Director Alison Chernick makes the right decision in focusing her camera, therefore, on his intense humanity - his intimate conversations with family and friends, the difficulty of riding his electric wheelchair over icy New York streets, a rehearsal with Billy Joel, teaching students at his school, buying cauliflower. Chernick's documentary is not about what people think of Itzhak Perlman. It's Itzhak Perlman, preserved on film.