Interviewed on this new documentary (NVC Arts DVD), Itzhak Perlman says the violin is much harder to master than the piano. A pianist has only to hit the keys to play in tune; a violinist has to worry about where to place the finger; how much pressure to put on it, and on the bow; how much of the bow to use, and how fast to move it. Given all these technical complications, Perlman says, no two violinists make the same sound.

Of course, you can also say that about pianists, or singers. For me, these technical demands explain why more violinists seem to be virtuosos, athletes of the fiddle, rather than probing musicians who happen to play the violin. Near the end of the documentary, the late Yehudi Menuhin says that as much as he applauds virtuosity, "when musicianship doesn’t feed virtuosity, virtuosity destroys itself."

The film raises a number of engaging musical and historical issues: the art of playing out of tune; the difference between instruments; why so many violinists are Jewish. But the joy of it lies in the archival footage director Bruno Monsaingeon has assembled, from Hollywood clips to rare home movies made even before sound film. We can see legendary performers like Eugène Ysaÿe, who was born in 1838, and hear their recordings on the soundtrack, in some cases frighteningly well-synchronized.

One moving segment is about young virtuosos whose careers — and lives — were tragically cut short. Joseph Hassid, from Poland, became schizophrenic in his teens and died after being lobotomized at 26. Michael Rabin died at 36 of a drug overdose. He’s seen on a clip from The Milton Berle Show, in 1951, when he was 15, playing Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin chinois — mostly with his eyes closed.

The most serious musicians get the shortest shrift. Some outstanding artists were never filmed at all. But there are splendid selections by Ida Haendel, and the great French violinist Jacques Thibaud, one of Pablo Casals’s favorite partners (his slicked hair and gigolo moustache are not at all what I expected). The most profound 20th-century violinist, Joseph Szigeti, is seen only in the minor but characterful The Bee, a little encore piece that still manages to speak. It’s from the 1944 movie Hollywood Canteen (he’s introduced by Bette Davis). In the movie, Szigeti also plays a hilarious duet with America’s most famously bad violinist, Jack Benny. I wish it were also included.

Of course, we get the big virtuosos: Menuhin, Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrakh, Nathan Milstein, Isaac Stern, and the legendary Mischa Elman (surprisingly tiny — and twinkling). Maybe the most remarkable clip is of the French violinist Ginette Neveu, who was killed in a plane crash in 1949, when she was only 30. In Chausson’s Poème, her huge eyes are riveted on the conductor like a lioness about to pounce. I’ve never seen anyone with such an intense expression of concentration — a look that combines selflessness with something like ferocious ecstasy.