Ivory pure? Er, hardly

IN 1970, when Jack Nicholson gave life to the conflicted dropout Robert Eroica Dupea in Bob Rafelson's "Five Easy Pieces," it was rare for a classical pianist to be depicted onscreen as anything other than an eccentric genius, an obsessive or a dandy. The avalanche of gritty, character-driven indie films that was about to rock the studio system was just a trickle, and in popular culture, it was still considered rebellious to glorify the domestic lives of Mafiosi.

So a few years later, when young filmmaker and frustrated amateur musician James Toback persuaded George Barrie of the Faberge perfume company to finance his directorial debut, "Fingers," about a turmoil-ridden young pianist, Toback -- and all movie lovers receptive to the connections between "high" and "low" culture -- had a lot to be thankful for.

In a richly detailed portrayal of a character torn between life as a thuggish debt collector for his gangster father and as a musician who just might vicariously resurrect the concert career of his mentally ill mother, star Harvey Keitel created a moving portrait of a new-to-the-screen but surprisingly realistic archetype: the deviant pianist.

Ask anyone who has toiled for years at a conservatory about the dark, volatile personalities lurking in the cracks of such ivory towers, and that term is unlikely to raise any eyebrows. In her recent, overtly cinematic book, "Mozart in the Jungle," for example, author Blair Tindall, a freelance oboist, writes of classical musicians snorting cocaine, having orgies and committing sexual abuse in 1980s Manhattan. As the violinist son of Juilliard-trained pianists, I myself am all too familiar with tales of morally corrupt, aberrant and violence-prone classical musicians.

"Only a few 'make it,' " my parents told me as I practiced. "Among all of the winners and losers, there are many characters you don't want to know."

But for better or worse -- and without even a hint of reference to my terribly upstanding colleagues and family members -- it's pianists, in particular, who seem the most narratively and pathologically appropriate musicians to be depicted on celluloid as twisted personalities. Look for signs not only in "Five Easy Pieces" and "Fingers" but in Michael Haneke's 2001 S&M romp, "The Piano Teacher," and in Jacques Audiard's new remake of "Fingers," "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" -- an electric film introducing even more people to the mad-pianist type while also, according to Netflix, prompting a sharp spike in "Fingers" DVD-renting.