Shostakovich Against Stalin - The War Symphonies (DVD)

Advantages: Stunning visuals
Disadvantages: Lacklustre throughout

...Filmed in and around the stunning setting of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, Murphy's War is a 1971 film starring Peter O'Toole as Irishman Murphy, the only survivor of a German U-Boat attack on a merchant ship. It is set towards the end of World War 2. Murphy is rescued by Louis Brezon (Philippe Noiret) and attended to by the lovely Dr Hayden (Sian Phillips), a Quaker who opposes the war and is working in a mission. Revenge is on Murphy's mind, and when he discovers an old abandoned seaplane, he sets about finding the whereabouts of the nearby U-Boat, and plans ways to destroy it, revenging the rest of his crew. I find that war films either hit or miss, and it generally depends on the plot and how it is attacked. A good war film will have a lot of tension, I find, and this film, for me, was too much like going through the motions... Read review

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Advantages: A powerful experience to make you think
Disadvantages: Too much thinking makes the brain ache

..., percussive sections. *** *** *** The Background *** *** *** Few, if any, of you will have lived in fear of the midnight knock on the door by secret police, the fear that you will be taken away to some terrible interrogation centre and subjected to unspeakable tortures. We can only guess at the effect it must have on the human spirit. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), an intensely shy and private man, the leading composer of the Soviet Union, lived with this fear for much of his life. It?s against this background that he wrote his Eleventh Symphony, subtitled ?The Year 1905.? Bear with me while I pad the picture out a little: it makes a difference to one?s appreciation of this remarkable work. Shostakovich found early success with his music and, as a good communist, tried hard to reconcile his creative spirit with the need to satisfy... Read review

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Advantages: Some hugely effective underscore cues that bring a lot of dramatic gravitas the music needs
Disadvantages: As a final Star Wars score by Williams it misses it's mark in the end

...culmination that the Star Wars saga deserves. As an accompaniment to the soundtrack album, Sony Classical also offers a special DVD free of charge. On this DVD, a somewhat tired-looking Ian McDiarmad (Palpatine) introduces 16 music videos using the concert arrangements and famous action setpieces from all six films. These music videos also include some amount of dialogue and sound effects but not in a way that is intrusive. Of course the new music video for Revenge of the Sith is also included and it offers a sneak peak of the film itself, while most of the other videos often edit together footage from all over the sextology that makes the plot jump a little too much around to make much cohesion for those not familiar with Star Wars. Still it is quite an extensive bonus (worthy of 70 minutes of music) and should prove to be quite enticing... Read review

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