O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams
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DVD details
Actor: Barbara Dickson, Brian Kay, English Chamber Orchestra, Jill Balcon, Thomas AllenConductor: Sian Edwards
Conductor: Andrew Nethsingha
Conductor: Tamas Vasary
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 148 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Tony Palmer Films
DVD Reviews of O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams
DVD Review: Better than his biography
Summary: 4 Stars
I read the biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, RVW, written by his widow, Ursula, to present to a book club to which I belong. The book was long, full of musical minutia, and if I hadn't been obligated to discuss it, I would not have finished the book. After slogging through 400 pages of details that made my eyes cross, but compeletly skipped over the main story, I was left with not much interesting information to discuss with my group so I began researching more about the man.
I found this film to be very helpful. It includes footage of Ralph Vaughan Williams himself, Ursula, and several people who knew them well and revealed more of their fascinating story than Ursula was willing to tell.
The music is breathtaking, the English landscapes are beautiful, and this film gives more insight into this giant of 20th century music than any other single source that I found during the course of my research.
DVD Review: Marred by the director's stupidity
Summary: 3 Stars
I love the music of Sir Ralph and was looking forward to seeing this long "documentary". Surely the 2 hours 28 minute duration could have been much shorter and make the same impact, if not moreso.
Perhaps Mr Palmer is getting old and this forms part of the stupid elithist political left that usually comes from the UK, but to show recent images of burned children (and twice!) was totally unnecessary.
Such manipulation has made me lost respect for Mr Palmer and will make sure that next time I buy anything with his name on it I will inform myself carefully. There was absolutely no need to put such incendiary material (especially considering its recent origin) in a documentary. I wonder what sir Raplh's would have thought.
DVD Review: Interesting take on RVW but far less than it should have, could have been in being the first film bio on such a great composer
Summary: 3 Stars
A great fan of RVW's music, and excitedly looked forward to viewing this piece......sadly disappointed in the result.
Tony Palmer does an interesting take on RVW's creative motivation....namely that it was to express in his music the various sufferings and tragedies of his own life and of his times. That may be so, it may not be. After all it was RVW himself who responded (I paraphrase): "....a man wants to write a piece of music for the sake of the music itself" when critics and reviewers wanted to interpret first his 4th, then his 6th symphony as about WWII and the turmoils of that era. Undoubtedly every artist in any media is of his times and influenced by the pleasures and pains of his own experience, but that does not necessarily mean that he is writing programmatic music to literally depict those times or events.
As another reviewer here has said, for Tony Palmer to repeatedly show brutal, horrible and tragic images from recent times (now 50 years after RVW's death) as a means to illustrate his own interpretation of the great motivational force in RVW's output, was a mistake. That did ruin this film.
And on a technical note, the repeated footage of mostly only two orchestras playing chopped up and mixed up excerpts from the several symphonies got to be confusing (and I do know the music) and uninteresting visually. For example, there is only one second symphony, yet it was identified in three separate ways as if there were three separate symphonies in question.
Also this film would have greatly benefited from sub-titles, remaining visible always in my opinion, but at least with the option to turn them on. Many of the interviews were unintelligible due to poor diction or fast speaking or the age of the person being interviewed.
And finally, the RVW voiceover is not identified as to source. When and why was this recorded, if it was actually RVW telling his life story? If not, who?
In the end, if you are a fan of RVW, you will want to see and probably own this DVD for your own reference collection, but it certainly was more of a disappointment to this RVW devotee than it should have been.
DVD Review: Five Stars, if not for graphic Footage
Summary: 3 Stars
This is really a well-made and important piece on one of my favorite composers. I was going to have my eight-year old son watch it with me. I'm glad I didn't. The film maker included very graphic and disturbing film images of dead and dying children to emphasize the horrors of war. I really believe this hurt the film. The horrors of war could have been depicted in a way that did not draw us too far away from the subject matter, which is a great composer and his music. At the end, it was the gruesome images of tragedy and destruction that stayed with me, not the man and his transcendent music. I'm not against powerful images and shaking things up when necessary, but the film maker, for all of his good work, crossed the line to the point where his creation left me angry and disturbed, not enlightened and inspired. A few substituted scenes could have made the point and still kept the focus on the composer and his work. I would have given it 5 stars otherwise.DVD Review: O Thou Transcendent
Summary: 5 Stars
A fascinating look at the life of a great composer. Be warned that there are some disturbing war images in the video that may not be suitable for young children.
Description of O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams
Produced by the multi-award winning director Tony Palmer, this is the first ever full-length film biography on Ralph Vaughan Williams. This film features interviews with many of those who knew and worked with him, including the Gloucester Cathedral Choir conducted by Andrew Nethsingha, archive performances by Boult and Barbirolli, newly discovered interviews with Vaughan Williams himself, specially recorded extracts from "The Symphonies," "Job," "The Lark Ascending" and "The Tallis Fantasia" as well as contributions from Harrison Birtwistle, John Adams, Richard Thompson, Mark Anthony Turnage, Barbara Dickson, Michael Tippett & Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys.General DVDs
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