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Reviews (2)
14 February 2008
DVD RICHTER-THE ENIGMA
This double-sided DVD lasts for well over two hours and is enthralling throughout. Richter was notoriously loath to be interviewed. His manner is world-weary, laconic.. yet what he has to say is invariably fascinating; about the tribulations of life in Stalinist Russia; his performing practice; his likes and (especially) dislikes-he hated planning... and particularly his concert tours in the’ too standardised’ USA-great adulation: ‘bunches of wrong notes’. He is entertaining and often acerbic about the composers he knew;-Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten-and about his fellow performers. Richter’s impersonation of Liszt in a film about the life of Mikhail Glinka provides an unexpected (and amusing) ‘intermezzo’. There are over 50 extracts from archive film of Richter in performance .These are sometimes very brief yet invariably thrilling. It is a pity that more performances of entire pieces could not be included;however the interweaving of music and interviews is very sensitively handled .Highly recommended.
26 September 2011
Entertaining mythological film
I bought this dvd after attending an exhibition of paintings by the 19th century artist John Martin. 'Clash of the Titans' was being shown in the exhibition as an example of the influence on the cinema of Martin's apocalyptic vision . I found the film very entertaining and informative about mythology. There were many fine actors.The apocolyptic scenes were impressive but inevitably sometimes now seem a bit 'dated' (in itself fascinating) and some of the special effects appear rather 'clunky'...but the film is well worth watching.