The Soloist Analysis

“The Soloist” is a movie about the real-life relationship between a journalist and a homeless schizophrenic street musician. The journalist– Steve Lopez a columnist for the LA Times, comes across Nathaniel Ayers on the street and decides to write about him. Between playing bursts of music on a violin with only two working strings, Nathaniel gives a mostly incoherent discourse on the benefits of being homeless and on his efforts to bring music to the city. Steve, in need of a subject for his column, researches Nathaniel’s background. From there, Lopez and Ayers develop a struggling friendship, which leads Lopez to try to help Ayers by organizing an apartment for him, music lessons and even a concert performance. However, Lopez’s attempt to
Lopez took out his hand to shake his, Ayers however, tend to keep his hand to his side and not touch Lopez’s hand saying, ‘I apologize for my appearance, I had a few step backs’, Lopez looked at him and said ‘me too’, pointing to his head injury. This is a significant remark of their relationship which starts to develop by discussing their similarities and nature of life. By visually viewing flashbacks of Ayers’ past, it emphasises his personality, character and his hopes and dreams. An image of young Ayers auditioning to a teacher showing his skills in playing the cello. The teacher was observing him well saying, he definitely had the talent. ‘If he made a full commitment to music, if he really, really gave it all he had, the whole world would open up to him. And he did, he really did.’ His commitment to his playing was shown in a scene at his mother’s salon. The salon was full of customers, extremely noise, Ayers however was in his room, playing and practicing on his cello, ignoring the noise. This showed that he is able to dedicate and make a dedication to his talent and to music just to show how great he is at it. According to his sister, all he did was play with his cello, ‘No more football, no more baseball, just music’. He practiced day and night. ‘The whole world was changing around him, and that’s all he did, music’. This reveals the enthusiasm he has towards playing the