The fascination with the mad musician is endless and intense, and people will go to great lengths to satisfy it.
This was published in the Baltimore Sun on May 24, 1998.

Putting a Spotlight of Truth on "Shine"
by Judith Schlesinger, Ph.D.

All that shines is not gold, and the movie "Shine" is composed of far baser elements: lies and greed. This is Margaret Helfgott's claim in "Out of Tune: David Helfgott and the Myth of Shine" (Warner Books, 1998, with Tom Gross), and she makes a good case for it.

"Shine" is the 1996 blockbuster film about Margaret's younger brother David, a young pianist headed for greatness but derailed by the mental illness "caused" by his tyrannical father, himself scarred by the Holocaust. Onscreen at least, David collapses after performing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 - the fearsome "Rach 3" - and is rescued by his astrologer wife, Gillian, who "resurrects"his career and takes it to heights unreachable without her.

The movie's hype included Gillian's own book, billed as "the true story that inspired Shine," and a CD of David playing the Rach 3, both best-sellers. There was also a frenzied concert tour that appalled the critics and delighted the public for the same reason: its focus on David's psychiatric problems, rather than his musicianship. (The promoters claimed the critics were just suffering from"pianist envy.")

"Out of Tune" methodically rebuts each distortion of David's life, quoting numerous friends and teachers who were shocked and angered by "Shine" and never consulted in its preparation, despite being portrayed in it. The family was excluded and lied to for the decade it took to make the film. According to Margaret, the story was concocted by director Scott Hicks, together withthe self-serving Gillian and a manipulable, increasingly-fragile David. Margaret couldn't publish David's letters because Gillian got him to sign over the copyright, but she offers convincing testimony that their late father, who was actually in Australia during the Holocaust, was a good man whose relationship with David was mutually loving, rather than the cauldron of insanity depicted on the screen. She demonstrates that the more cinematic the moment, the less truth there is in it. The Helfgotts finally secured a small disclaimer, but it appears after 279 credits where few will ever see it.

To buttress the fantasy of David's virginal, romantic redemption, the film omits the two women in David's life before Gillian, including a first wife. The psychiatric issue is also distorted, this time on both sides: Margaret, fighting the accusation that her father alone caused David's schizophrenia, goes to theother extreme, claiming it's purely genetic because an aunt was also afflicted. In fact, both environment and inheritance are implicated in the disorder, but since Margaret had no legal recourse for exonerating her father, her dogmatism is understandable. She also fears that Gillian is currently manipulating David's medication to keep him marketable, positioned somewhere between The Elephant Man and Forrest Gump.

While the book reads like it was hastily written (it was), the story's poignancy makes it worthwhile. But the film's archetypal myths about ominipotent fathers and redemptive lovers will always be more compelling than the written truth. "Out of Tune" may bring the family some peace, but "Shine" has the greater power -not just artistically, but because it satisfies a universal need: to witness, once again, the irresistible spectacle of genius driven mad.

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NOTE: Subsequent TV interviews have reinforced my opinions about this whole sorry mess. Clips of David before and after Gillian show his definite decline, and the statements of his psychiatrist about his medication were suspect, if not reprehensible.David and Margaret still keep in touch, but their meetings and correspondence are monitored by Gillian. When Margaret's book first came out, Inside Edition saw my review and called her for an interview, but they wouldn't do it without David and Gillian refused to allow his participation.