Q:Build a movie plot around this: What does the Shanghai merchant remove from the violin? removes a jewel set in the scroll work
A:
The film frames the history of the "Red Violin" around a Canadian auction in 1997, where the violin is at the centre of multiple bids by interested parties, and a tarot card reading in 1681, where a violinmaker's wife has her future read for herself (and, by extension, that of the violin).Cremona, 1681[edit](Language of dialogue: Italian)The Moon tarot cardNicolo Bussotti (Cecchi) is a violinmaker whose wife, Anna Rudolfi (Grazioli), is pregnant with their first child. Anna is worried that her age may complicate her pregnancy or childbirth. Despite Nicolo's confident assurances that he will have the best people available when she goes into labor, Anna asks her servant Cesca (Laurenzi) to foretell her unborn child's future. Cesca cannot determine the future of someone not born, but she does offer to read Anna's future using tarot cards. Anna chooses five cards, with the first (The Moon) signifying that Anna will live a long life.In the meantime, Nicolo has fashioned a new violin that he believes will be his masterpiece, with the hope that their child will become a musician. He is about to varnish it when he is summoned to the bedside of his wife, only to find that both she and the child have died. Distraught, Nicolo carries Anna's body back to his shop and varnishes the violin, mixing in Anna's blood to give the violin its trademark red coloring (it is later revealed that this violin is the last one Nicolo made). The violin is donated to an orphanage in Austria, where a succession of choirboys play it for over 100 years.Vienna, 1793[edit](Language of dialogue: German and French)The Hanged Man tarot cardCesca turns over the second card, The Hanged Man, which means disease and suffering for those around Anna.At the orphanage, the violin comes into the possession of Kaspar Weiss (Koncz), a young but brilliant violin prodigy. A violin instructor, Poussin (Bideau), is called to assess the boy's talents and is asked by the monks at the orphanage to adopt the boy to further his development....