Customer Reviews:
Shostakovich via cinema verite.......2007-08-28
Anyone expecting a literal retelling of tales from Solomon Volkov's book "Testimony" is going to be disappointed and bewildered by Tony Palmer's cinematic account, for this is more a 150-minute metaphor and music video than narrative of the life and times of DSCH.
Make no mistake, this is a stunning piece of cinema verite, an art form described in one place as, "A form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement." The scenes in this film comprise all the important moments of Shostakovich's life -- his student years in academy with Glazunov, the success of his student Symphony No. 1, his fear after Stalin's denigration of Lady McBeth of Minsk, his friendships with Tukaschevsky and Meyerhold, the make-good symphony No. 5, "an artist's reply to just criticism", a funny scene about the wartime "Leningrad" symphony and his famous firehat episode that got him on the cover of Time, his 1948 denunciation by Zhdanov at the musical congress, his home life with Nina, Galya and Maxim and the adults ongoing paranoia that a nighttime knock on the door would take him away at any moment.
Yes, the sequences are all there. But to say they are comprehenisve or fleshed out, as they are in the book, would be a mistake. Like Ben Kingsley's portrayal of the composer, these scenes are riveting but superfluous; they tend to last only a few minutes and are often accompanied or followed by bleeding chunks of Shostakovich's music, which is really the star of the program. At other times, newsreel footage of the era is interspersed to accompany the music, much as it did in the oustanding 2005 DVD "Shostakovich Against Stalin: The War Symphonies" (ASIN: B000BLBZM0) with grainy black and white photography adding artistry and affect.
So it's better to think of this as a work of cinematic art than a movie. It's better yet to consider it a music video accompanied by real and acted scenes of Shostakovich's epoch. While Kingsley always comes off well as the composer and the other actors variably fulfill their requirements, I did not find the portrayal of Josef Stalin meaningful or dimensional. The best scene about him was one where Shostakovich was laughing aloud at home the day he died, joyful that he outlived the dictator as he considered attending Prokofiev's funeral instead of Stalin's since the two died on the same day in 1953.
Still, taken in its totality, this English production is a compelling document that lies somewhere between the documentary value of "Shostakovich Against Stalin" and the value of a fully-fledged Hollywood biopic of the composer such as "Amadeus". Anyone that has not read the book on which the film is loosely based, or anyone not familiar with the background of the Soviet composer, will be almost completely lost most of the time because there is never 5 minutes of uninterrupted narrative on which to understand the storyline. In fact, the concept of storyline is often unapparent.
Shostakovich's music is generously presented and well-produced throughout the film. The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai give bleeding chunks of Symphonies 1, 4, 7-9 and 11-14 with selections from the latter choral symphonies ably sung by John Shirley-Quirk and Felicity Palmer. Conductors Kyril Kondrashin and Karel Ancerl lead sections of the Symphonies 5 and 10, respectively, while luminaries and lesser known artists perform sections from Lady McBeth from Minsk, the Michaelangelo sonnets, Jazz Suites 1 and 2, Violin Concerto No. 1, Piano Concerto No. 2 and the String Quartets 8 and 10, one of which closes the program over credits. There is a selection from Mozart in there, too.
By far, the most unusual thing about this film is its timing. The box and Amazon promotion both suggest the film runs 1 hour 51 minutes. However, my DVD player said this film ran 2:26 with 4 minutes of credits. Never have I gotten a DVD with such a difference between the posted and actual timing, which I confirmed by looking at the clock in my house.
Poor Dimitri Dimitrievich.......2007-07-26
Beware! If you are a lover of the music of Shostakovich, do not watch this film as it has hijacked his name to make a crude grotesque anti-Communist, anti-Soviet, anti-Stalin propaganda rant.
A Hero of the 20th Century.......2006-07-17
This is an extraordinary film, unique in its conception, direction and theme. Ben Kingley is an extraordinary Shostakovitch on screen. The composer lived all his live under Lenin, Stalin and their sucessors and managed to laugh of them all through his music, but with a price - the fear, the constant fear, the threat of disapearing in a concentrating camp. All artists living good lives in democratic, capitalistic societies are invited to see this film and see what a great artist - in this case one of the great composers of the 20th century - has to endure to go on being a free and artistic mind.
Phantastic Biography.......2006-03-08
This is one of my favourite films. Anyone who is interested in the life of Shostakovich should see it. The film brilliantly captures the claustrophobic atmosphere during the era of Stalin and the "purges". Shostakovich, first praised as a socialist "wunderkind" but then deeply humiliated for his "revisionist music". But in the end the monster dies and Shostakovich prevails. An outstanding and moving performance by Ben Kingsley plus plenty of music by Shostakovich.
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UK DVD List
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