Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was / Tony Palmer
by Tony Palmer
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Tony PalmerDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kultur Video
Movie Reviews of Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was / Tony Palmer
Movie Review: A loving, detailed homage to a master craftsman of music
Summary: 5 Stars
The steady, deliberate pace of this revelatory documentary is clear from the first images and with the addition of Leonard Bernstein's equally careful, caring and deliberate opinions of Britten and his extraordinary output, the viewer is taken on a veritable ocean voyage through Britten's life. Most astonishing to me were the extended excerpts from the operas, all of them in previously unreleased and still unavailable footage. There are BBC video recordings of many of Britten's operas (a Peter Grimes with mostly the entire original cast) that remain archived somewhere. It is to Palmer's credit that he was able to secure access to these excerpts.
Britten's life was a rich and productive one. Others have commented here that there is much that is omitted. This cannot be argued and yet, the documentary stands up very well. There is room for a second documentary, easily, one that would include, before it is too late, interviews with those artists who were close collaborators with Britten.
Most powerful were the final minutes of the film as Peter Pears, Britten's longtime companion, speaks frankly of their life together and of their relationship as two men who devoted their lives to each other. Pears' words and demeanor as he talks about life in another time as homosexuals and now as a gay man (he is unsure if 'gay' is a word he would approve to describe himself but admits that there is little hope of changing it now) are all the more moving, coming, as they do, towards the end of the documentary and with this viewer's knowledge that Pears died not too long afterwards.
The film carries with it an intense beauty and a heartbreaking melancholy. Aschenbach's final aria from 'Death in Venice' is included (again, with amazing footage of a performance of Pears in the title role). Performances by Janet Baker and Heather Harper also convey more of this piercing sadness and vulnerability.
As a young man I was fortunate to see Pears in the Metropolitan Opera's premiere (1974) of 'Death in Venice.' It was revived only once, twenty years later, in a stunning re-staging. I hope it isn't another twenty years before it returns.
Summary of Benjamin Britten: A Time There Was / Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer's Film About Benjamin Britten - A Time There Was..."Palmer is a master of the medium - he takes us into the minds of men of music and explains why they accomplished what they did. This is the most absorbing ? lm ever made about a composer, how he worked, what he thought and what made him what he was. It is as important as any book written on the man and his music."
- John Ardoin, The New York Times
"Tony Palmer proves once again he is a deeply intuitive, caring and thoughtful ?lm maker, second to none. This was a loving portrait of a most remark- able and gifted man."
- Martin Jackson, the Daily Mail
With Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Britten, Barbara Britten, Beth Welford (Sister), Sviatoslav Richter, Janet Baker, Julian Bream, Heather Harper, John Shirley-Quirk, Imogen Holst, Rosamund Strode, Rudolf Bing, Henry Moore , Paul Rotha, Beata Sauerlander, David Rothman, Elsie Hockey (Cousin), Miss Hudson (Housekeeper), Rita Thomson (Nurse), The English Chamber Orchestra, Conducted By Steuart Bedford
Extracts From :'Peter Grimes', 'The Rape Of Lucretia', 'Billy Budd', 'Turn Of The Screw', 'Noye's Fludde', 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Curlew River', 'The Burning Fiery Furnace', 'Phaedra', 'Death In Venice', 'War Requiem', 'Nocturne', 'Prince Of The Pagodas', 'Les Illuminations', 'Building Of The House Nocturnal', 'The Way To The Sea', 'Night Mail', 'Sinfonia Da Requiem', 'Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra'
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