Trimpin: The Sound of Invention

Title:              Trimpin: The Sound of Invention
Director:              Peter Esmonde
Producer:            Peter Esmonde
Cinema:                Peter Esmonde
Editor:                  Rick Tejada-Flores
Music:                   Trimpin, Concon Nancarrow
Sound:                  Matthew G. Monroe, Gabriel Miller
Year:                     2008 (89 minutes)

Synopsis: The music of Trimpin has to be seen to be believed – and that’s not a syntactical error because Trimpin doesn’t just make music. He composes the music, plays the music, and creates the instruments upon which the music is played. Starting out in his workshop – a cross between Frankenstein’s lab and Santa’s workshop – we are introduced to this (mad?) genius as he turns wooden clogs, toy pianos, and discarded guitars into brand new works of musical art. Director Peter Esmonde was granted more than two years access to Trimpin and his cameras take us everywhere – to the several stories tall interactive guitar exhibit in Seattle, to the glass blowers workshop where new instruments are crafted based on Trimpin’s specifications, to his experiments with the world-famous Kronos Quartet. It’s worth saying a second time. It must be seen to be believed.

Review: Director Peter Esmonde started with a disadvantage. The story of Trimpin is not a particularly interesting story. In a nutshell, Trimpin collects what others would consider junk, and he makes musical instruments out of it. I suppose there’s something there, but it’s not very interesting.

As I’ve said many times in other reviews, in order for a documentary to be a success, it has to start with an interesting story and the filmmaker then has to tell that story well. Regardless of the subject matter, if the documentary has these two elements, it’s probably going to be a success and I’m probably going to like it.

Trimpin: The Sound of Invention is just okay. I can’t imagine being the director of this film and following Trimpin around for two years to get the footage used in the documentary. Trimpin himself is eccentric (hence his name), but I will admit that he is creative, just not very interesting, at least to me.

I should say that Trimpin is about more than turning junk into musical instruments. He is also an inventor, an engineer, and a sculptor. He has received several awards and grants, including a Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur “Genius” award. He’s not simply an eccentric mad man toiling away in his garage. He’s a bonefide artist and composer. Again, he’s just not particularly interesting.

The culmination of the film is a performance by the Kronos Quartet on instruments created by Trimpin. I have to admit, I did enjoy that small part of the film, but for me, it was too little, too late.

(2.75 out of 5.0)