I became more aware of Glass's music one Halloween afternoon as I was driving north in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. Up to then, I knew him as a minimalist favored by certain intellectual circles. The college station played the music written for the original Dracula movie for a reissue that I don't think ever came off; at least I haven't seen it. I was astonished by its gorgeous emotional power. It was as great in its own way as was the movie starring Bela Lugosi. The score told you how even evil can long. The documentary unfolds like a well written novel and you see the 60s hippie who knowingly or unknowingly kept company with the loathsome Alan Ginsberg, beatnik poet and founder of the pedophile NAMBLA, mature from a young composer who tortured his early audiences with six-hour performances of sterile music to an artist who discovered melody and the need to write music that spoke to the soul. A driven workaholic consumed by his work, he is shown in charming family scenes making meals and playing with his children. But the documentary is honest and we see all is not well. The final scenes include his stunning opera based on a novel by Coetzee about the dangers of becoming the very barbarians who threaten our world. One of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
