Amid injury, illness, and artistic and personal disagreements, Klemperer brought a notoriously exacting vision to every work he conducted, demanding long rehearsals in pursuit of perfection. Largely averse to being recorded, he nonetheless granted documentarian Philo Bergstein on- and offstage access to make this one-of-a-kind film, featuring insightful commentary by Klemperer himself, plus friends, family and colleagues like Ernst Bloch and Pierre Boulez. The documentary, says Bregstein, is “more than the portrait of a great conductor. The film evokes the musical, cultural and political history of the twentieth century through an exceptional musician, who lived at the center of the events.”