August Rush 八月迷情

August Rush(声梦奇缘又称八月迷情) is a 2007 drama film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Paul Castro, Nick Castle, and James V. Hart, and produced by Richard Barton Lewis. It has been called an up-to-date reworking of the Oliver Twist story by Charles Dickens.

Directed by: Kirsten Sheridan

Produced by: Richard Barton Lewis

Written by: Nick Castle James V. Hart Paul Castro

Music by: Mark Mancina

Cinematography: John Mathieson

Editing by: William Steinkamp

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Release date: November 21, 2007

Running time: 113 min.

Country: United States

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Rated: PG(paternal guidance)

Freddie Highmore as Evan Taylor also called August Rush

Keri Russell as Lyla Novacek

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Louis Connelly

 

Robin Williams as Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace

Terrence Howard as Counselor Richard Jeffries

William Sadler as Thomas Novacek

Jamia Simone Nash as Hope

Kaki King as Evan Taylor's hands for close-in guitar work, soundtrack recording artist and guitar teacher.

A charismatic Irish guitarist named Louis (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and a reserved cellist named Lyla (Keri Russell) meet at the same party and spend a romantic night together. Then they are forced apart due to Lyla's strict father. Despite the fact that they do not remain together, however, their fleeting union has created something amazing that neither could have ever anticipated — a baby. However, her father does not approve of this, wanting instead for Lyla to have a successful career without the obstacle of a child. After an argument with her father, Lyla runs out of a restaurant and is hit by a car. While in the hospital, she gives birth to a son. The last thing she is aware of is the nurses telling her that the baby's heartbeat is falling. When she wakes, her father implies that the child has died. Both Louis and Lyla give up their performing careers after losing each other, and neither is aware of their son's existence.

After 11 years, the boy named Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) grows up an outcast in a home for boys, all the while believing that his parents are alive. He can hear music in everything: the light, the wind, rustling leaves. He believes that he can hear the music from his parents. He thinks that they always wanted him and would come and get him someday. He meets a social service worker, Richard Jeffries (Terrence Howard), of the New York Child Services Department. Evan tells him he does not want to be adopted. Mr. Jeffries likes Evan and gives him his card. He wants Evan to confide in him if the need should ever arise.

Evan has a very strong faith that if he could learn to play the music he will have a chance to be found by his parents. He believes that they will hear him. So he runs away to New York City, in the process losing Jeffries' card. He meets Arthur, a pre-teen street-corner guitarist, playing in Washington Square Park. He follows Arthur home and is taken in by Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace (Robin Williams), who houses various orphans and runaways, teaching and employing them to play music on the streets and taking a large cut of their tips. Evan immediately proves to be a musical child prodigy. Wizard enlists him and gives him the name "August Rush", convincing him he will be sent back to the orphanage if his real name is ever discovered.

Lyla only discovers that her son is alive when her father, on his deathbed, confesses what actually happened. Lyla immediately sets out to New York to look for her now 12-year-old son. Louis, meanwhile, is harassed by his brother and former bandmate at a party, causing him to re-examine his life. He ultimately discovers Lyla's full name and whereabouts in Chicago, and quits his job to go there, hoping to reconcile.

After a raid on Wizard's abandoned theater home by the police, triggered by Jeffries, Evan takes refuge in an inner-city church. He again impresses with his natural musical talent and is brought to the Juilliard School, where he is enrolled in classes as "August Rush." He excels at his studies, and a work he composes is chosen to be performed by the New York Philharmonic at a concert in Central Park. Unfortunately, Wizard barges into the dress rehearsal, and Evan, under threat of being revealed as Evan, reluctantly follows him back to his life of performing music on the streets.

Meanwhile, Lyla has discovered Evan's identity through Jeffries, and has decided to stay in New York while searching for her son. While there, she decides to resume her career as a cellist, and is invited to play in the same Central Park concert. Louis, being wrongly told by Lyla's former neighbor in Chicago that Lyla has since married, also returns to New York to resume playing with his former band. He has a chance meeting with Evan, who has returned to his corner at Washington Square Park, and they play an improvised piece together, although neither knows their blood relationship to the other. Louis encourages him not to give up in his music, and not to miss his concert.

The night of the concert, Evan finally chooses to run from Wizard, helped by Arthur, in favor of performing at his concert. After his own concert with his band at a local nightclub, Louis sees Evan's pseudonym along with Lyla's name on a sign billing the concert, and races on foot to Central Park. Meanwhile, Jeffries connects Evan to his alias after discovering a misplaced CPS flyer for August Rush, posted after his disappearance from Juilliard, and also heads to the concert. Evan conducts his rhapsody, attracting both Lyla and Louis to the front of the crowd, where they meet and reconcile, Lyla also realizing that Evan is her son. Finally, when Evan turns around to see Lyla and Louis standing hand in hand, he knows that he is reunited with his mother and father at last.

James Morrison was offered the part of Louis Connelly and turned it down to concentrate on his music. Liv Tyler and Claire Danes were each considered for the role of "Lyla Novacek" before Keri Russell was cast. Robin Williams' performance as "Wizard" was reportedly inspired by rock star Bono. Freddie Highmore actually learned how to conduct for the movie. Susan Deaver, an adjunct Professor at C.W. Post, taught him.

Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, Central Park, Manhattan, Columbia University - Broadway & 116th Street, Muscoot Farm, Somers, San Francisco, California, Sony Music Studios - 460 W. 54th Street, Union Square, Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, Wollman Ice Skating Rink.

A policeman chases August out of the former Fillmore East and up the stairs of an elevated subway station, but there are no elevated subway stations in lower Manhattan, where the Fillmore East was located.

During Louis' unsuccessful trip to Chicago to try to locate Lyla, he's briefly questioned by two police officers in a squad car outside her apartment. Chicago police cars have blue roof lights, but this one has a red light bar on top, and appears to be a New York squad car, filmed from a tight angle to obscure its actual markings.

After 12 years, Lyla and Louis do not look a single day older.

When the hospital is calling to inform Lyla about her father, her phone rings and then you start hearing the message being left with no time for the other person to hear the outgoing message that we hear later in the movie.

In the scene where August teaches an orchestra member how to perform his music on the rim of a wine glass, he grips the bowl instead of the stem, which would render it impossible to play. 

For the soundtrack to the 2007 drama August Rush, the filmmakers enlisted an impressive array of talent to enhance the story of a musical prodigy and his long-lost parents.

"Main Title"
By Mark Mancina

"Bach Break"
Written by Steve Erdody, Performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers

"Moondance"
Written by Van Morrison, Performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers

"This Time"
Written by Chris Trapper, Performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers

"Bari Improv"
Written by Mark Mancina and Kaki King, Performed by Kaki King

"Ritual Dance"
Written by Michael Hedges, Performed by Kaki King

"Raise It Up"
Written by Impact Repertory Theatre, Performed by Jamia Simone Nash and Impact Repertory Theatre
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song

"Dueling Guitars"
Written by Heitor Pereira, Performed by Heitor Pereira and Doug Smith

"Elgar/Something Inside"
Performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers

"August's Rhapsody"
Written by Mark Mancina incorporating elements by Van Morrison

"Someday"
Written and Performed by John Legend

"King Of The Earth"
By John Ondrasik

"God Bless The Child"
By Chris Botti

"La Bamba"
By Leon G. Thomas III

"Moondance"
Written by Van Morrison, Performed by Chris Botti

This Time

Tonight the sky above
Reminds me of you, love
Walking through wintertime
Where the stars all shine
The angel on the stairs
Will tell you I was there
Under the front porch light
On a mystery night

I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines
Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind
Would the wind be at my back ? Could I get you off my mind
This time

The neon lights in bars
And headlights from the cars
Have started a symphony
Inside of me
The things I left behind
Have melted in my mind
And now there's a purity
Inside of me

I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines
Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind
Would the wind be at my back ? Could I get you off my mind
This time

I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines
Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind
Would the wind be at my back ? Could I get you off my mind
This time

"August Rush will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry."

—Claudia Puig of USA Today

"the story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale."

—The Hollywood Reporter

"an inane musical melodrama." and "the entire story is ridiculous" and "Coincidences pile on, behavior and motivations defy logic, and the characters are so thinly drawn that most of the cast is at a loss." and "the ending of the movie certainly did not impress me at all. They worked so hard on the rest of it but it came to a sudden end that left the movie unfinished."

—Pam Grady of the San Francisco Chronicle

August Rush is the best movie I've seen these days. It touches my heart deeply because of the music, the story, the everything in this film. I love music very much even if I can't play.

Maybe the lives are rife with violence, hopelessness, but we have music. Just like the movie says, "The music is everywhere. All you have to do is listen."

Oscar

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

Saturn Award

Best Music

Critics Choice Award

Best Family Film
Best Young Actor

Golden Trailer

Best Animation/Family Poster

Grammy

Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media

Teen Choice Award

Choice Movie Actress, Keri Russell
Choice Movie

Young Artist Award

Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor, Freddie Highmore
Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress, Jamia Simone Nash

Young Artist Award

Best Family Feature Film 
Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor - Fantasy or Drama (Leon Thomas III) 

Saturn Award

Best Performance by a Younger Actor,  Freddie Highmore

August Rush

August Rush: It's like someone's calling out to me, only some of us can hear it.
　　Wizard: Only some of us are listening.
　　奥古斯特•拉什：就好像有人在大声呼唤我，可是却只有我们能够听到那个声音。
　　巫师：那是因为只有我们在认真听。
　　Wizard: You got to love music more than you love food. More than life. More than yourself.
　　巫师：你喜欢音乐的程度甚于食物，更甚于生命和你自己。
　　Richard Jeffries: How long have you been here?
　　August Rush: Eleven years and sixteen days. I've been counting.
　　理查德•杰弗里斯：你在这里多长时间了？
　　奥古斯特•拉什：11年零16天，我一直记着呢。
　　August Rush: [about his parents] The music. I thought if I could play it, they would know I was alive. And find me.
　　奥古斯特•拉什（谈论他的父母）：音乐，我觉得我要是能够演奏它，他们就会知道我还活着，然后找到我。
　　August Rush: I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales. But I hear it came from my mother and father. Once upon a time, they fell in love.
　　奥古斯特•拉什：我相信音乐，就好像有些人相信童话故事一样。我是从我的爸爸和妈妈那里听到的，很久之前，他们坠入爱河。
　　Wizard: You know what music is? Harmonic connection between all living beings.
　　巫师：你知道音乐是什么吗？就是所有活着的人之间存在着的那种和谐的电波关系。
　　Lyla Novacek: I know it sounds crazy, but I can hear him! I swear I can hear him!
　　莱拉•诺瓦切克：我知道这听起来很疯狂，但是我能听到他！我发誓我听到他了！
　　Lyla Novacek: I'm trying to find my son.
　　Woman at Desk: Name?
　　Lyla Novacek: I don't know.
　　莱拉•诺瓦切克：我在找我的儿子。
　　坐在办公桌后面的女人：名字？
　　莱拉•诺瓦切克：我不知道。
　　Lyla Novacek: What are you looking at?
　　Louis Connelly: You.
　　莱拉•诺瓦切克：你看什么呢？
　　路易斯•康纳利：看你啊。
　　Richard Jeffries: Why is it so important that you want him now?
　　Lyla Novacek: I've ALWAYS wanted him!
　　理查德•杰弗里斯：为什么你现在需要他，变得这么重要？
　　莱拉•诺瓦切克：我一直都需要他！
　　August Rush：The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen！

    奥古斯特•拉什:音乐无处不在，而你只需去聆听 。

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