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Posted: |
Sep 1, 2003 - 10:01 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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The 4th and annual 70mm-festival in Oslo (a truly UNIQUE worldwide festival) has just finished. For those who are curious about what films they showed this year, view the programme at www.cinemateket.org/70mm/kalender.html
Unfortunately, I didn't get the time to see any of the other film except this one, and I picked PORGY AND BESS because - as you all know - it's a very rare film that has never been released on VHS or DVD (why not?!?!?!?), is not allowed a TV screening and is rarely shown in theatres as well. So I had to go.
First of all, I was amazed at the quality. Obviously, this is a restored item and I assume by some Germans seeing as it had German sub-titles and text plaques. Everything was crystal-clear and the colours were truly amazing - one really got to enjoy Preminger's "rugged" filters across the expanded celluloid screen. Sound was excellent too.
Second, I was particularly impressed with Poitier's dubbing capabilities. The soundtrack moved seamlessly from Poitier's talk to Robert McFerrin's dubbed singing voice. The other actors did a good job as well, but it was Poitier that REALLY impressed, IMO.
PORGY AND BESS is a delightful opera/operetta that excites, amuses and warms the heart. While it is mainly shot on the expansive Todd AO soundstage (except a couple of location shots in the opening and picnic sequence), it is loaded with visual details and a full exploitation of the set. The effects are pretty impressive too, such as the hurricane sequence.
It's a film about outcasts, but it's also a film about the power of communal strength and solidarity. One might argue that the rigid black (the humble negroe fisherman) vs. white (the arrogant white policeman) dicotomy is somewhat dated, but the themes of the film are much broader than that, as evidenced in DuBose Heyward's libretto.
It was great to see Sammy Davis Jr. do his stuff in his usual gracious manner, although his character is somewhat ambivalent. He has dubious motives, but remains a classy fellow (he was cast pretty much against type, was he not?).
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The adaptation of Gershwin's music is, of course, wonderful. It is located somewhere between high class opera, southern folk music and Gilbert & Sullivan-type melodrama. It is both visceral and harrowing (such as the storm sequence and other parts of the dramatic underscore) and soaring and beautiful (such as the various soliquies [sp.?]) - yet without ever really going overboard.
The only songs I knew beforehand were the comforting "Summertime", Porgy's catchy song and the Sammy Davis dance routine at the picnic ("it ain't necessarily so...").
Interesting also to notice orchestration stalwarts Alexander Courage and Conrad Salinger being involved with this thing - plus Alfred Newman's regular "chorus" collaborator Ken Darby, of course.
Even though the film has never been released, has there ever been any soundtracks? Or does one have to suffice with other recordings of this work?
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Posted: |
Sep 1, 2003 - 6:20 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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A Gershwin ace-in-the-whole first notified me of the 70mm restoration back in '98 and that it was to be presented at a Gershwin Centennial Conference in NYC that fall.
The film showed up frequently on TV when I was a kid. I even remember WPIX-TV in New York announcing it was going to show it for the last time prior to its removal from broadcast television. Imagine now, a confirmed Gershwinaholic like me with all those opportunities AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE DAMN THING, grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Anyway, I own various cast albums of stage productions and the LP of the film soundtrack, and I went to the world premiere in NYC sometime in the 70s when the entire opera was finally performed under George & Ira's original conception. Ira himself attended the opening night performance and acknowledged this was the way it was meant to be done i.e. recitatives sung with full George score intact.
Out of all those cast albums and various operatic recordings and PBS productions, the Andre Previn-supervised film soundtrack remains my personal fave. I'm not going to get into the merits/demerits of revisionism vs. orthodox Gershwinism; fact is, I'm not nearly qualified to do so. I just can't resist stating that the soundtrack on its own is a glorious piece of music. Glorious! I have never heard another instrumental arrangement of Bess, You Is My Woman Now as gorgeous as that which occurs in both the Overture and just prior to I Love You Porgy. The great Ken Darby cannot be praised enough, either, for the Gone, Gone, Gone... choral section leading into the My Man's Gone Now aria during the wake scene, nor for the Clara, Clara gospel elegy at the burial of Clara and Jake. The latter especially moves me, perhaps unlike anything else.
There is one lesser-renowned track, moreover, that has always fascinated me and for a totally different reason. This is the Cries Of The Strawberry Woman. When I hear the sustained orchestral chords, I am reminded of the emotional power generated by Herrmann, A. Newman, Barry and maybe Goldsmith (and lord knows there are probably others) through chord/whole note manipulation. I may not be explaining this right from a clinical standpoint and wish I could think of examples, but the best I can do is point out this track and let it go from there.
I call this a bluesy down-and-out sound. Damned if Jackie Gleason didn't corner it, too, at one time. But it is a sound that comes to the mind's ear when I think Gershwin, perhaps further exemplified by the slow sections of Rhapsody In Blue, An American Paris and his Second Rhapsody. Whatever. It hit me young and has stayed ever since.
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Not to mention the single greatest rendition of "Summertime", ever recorded. Who is that singing in the film, anyway?
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SoundScope wrote:
And by the way, I can't imagine what those real film tracks sound like without the album reverb! Todd-AO always had the best sound recording for the time. It must truly have been (is) spectacular!!!!!!
The music and vocal recordings for "PORGY AND BESS" were recorded on Stage Seven at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood, a fabulously sounding scoring stage and a favorite of many of the golden age composers. The final stereo dubbing was done at TODD-AO on Seward/Romaine in Hollywood.
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Posted: |
Sep 14, 2003 - 5:51 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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Not to mention the single greatest rendition of "Summertime", ever recorded.
I think I was a high school soph the first time I heard Summertime; it was sung by a classmate at a recital. There was something about the melody and the piano accompaniment that really put the who in me. And around the same time there was something equally mesmerizing within the excerpt of Rhapsody In Blue's slow section as heard on the "classics" commercial hawked by the actor John Williams.
Thus the hazy origins of my love affair with the music of George Gershwin.
Anyway, this past New Year's Eve there was a "Live From Lincoln Center" broadcast on PBS of the NY Philharmonic all-Gershwin concert. I taped it. Last night, over 8 months later, I finally watched the tape after finding it in the proverbial dusty drawer. The second half of the concert was extended excerpts from the opera and the Philharmonic was joined by 3 guest soloists and a massive black chorus. Would you believe they performed what amounted to the entire soundtrack LP?! It was fantastic, I had goosebumps.
John, what has especially wowed me through the years and last night about Summertime is the wordless choral background. I mean that chorus provides for me as close to a definitive Gershwin "sound" as I've tried to figure. And it is a sound, I swear, that Herrmann captured instrumentally as well as chorally in film music terms, which, of course, probably helps explain my lifelong infatuation with Herrmann's music. And why I lose myself in Oklahoma!'s Out Of My Dreams, for that matter.
Does this make any sense? Do you know what I'm saying? Anything you might be able to relate to? Just curious since you pointed out the song.
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Posted: |
Sep 17, 2003 - 4:05 PM
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By: |
SoundScope
(Member)
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Couldn't say it better myself, Howard. There just is something about all you mentioned that hooks, drives, lifts and then sends me over the edge. I have the same reaction to the way Alfred Newman handled the SOUTH PACIFIC scoring,
as well as the Bennett (et.al.) arrangements for the ballet sequence in OKLAHOMA! An undefinable sound and style that makes the film different. Mood, tonal colors, and choral arrangements, all fabulous! I don't just hear it, I feel it.
God, to have PORGY AND BESS available on CD and DVD!
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Couldn't say it better myself, Howard. There just is something about all you mentioned that hooks, drives, lifts and then sends me over the edge. I have the same reaction to the way Alfred Newman handled the SOUTH PACIFIC scoring,
as well as the Bennett (et.al.) arrangements for the ballet sequence in OKLAHOMA! An undefinable sound and style that makes the film different. Mood, tonal colors, and choral arrangements, all fabulous! I don't just hear it, I feel it.
God, to have PORGY AND BESS available on CD and DVD!.........PORGY AND BESS the soundtrack has been released by JAPAN AND GERMANY . the GERMAN ISSUE is the better of the two and is often on ebay.
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I've been longing for an expanded "South Pacific" CD for years with all of Alfred Newman's underscoring. My favorite underscoring is the scene between Emile De Becque and Lt. Cable right after the song "This Nearly Was Mine" and Lt. Cable is throwing out to him the idea of going to the Marie Louise Islands with him. If you hadn't noticed it, play this scene on your DVD player and absorb all of DeBecque's confusion being musically conveyed by Newman. I wish Varese would release it. Do they have access to the tracks? The film is 20th Century Fox but I think it was originally released by Magna (the Company that released the "Oklahoma" film). Who can fill us in on this?
NP: Duck, You Sucker (Ennio Morricone)
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