Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60187 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-10-23
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Classical, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 124 minutes

Special Features
4:3 Full Frame
DVD 5
German
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo English
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Libretto In German English French Spanish Italian
English\French\German

Synopsis
WINTERREISE presents a unique visual adaptation of Franz Schubert's composition. The release also includes OVER THE TOP WITH FRANZ, which chronicles the making of this unique film.

From the Back Cover
Winterreise
This unique and innovative performance of Winterreise has been shot entirely in studio, the sound recorded "live" to capture the emotional intensity of the performance. It brings together the distinguished young tenor Ian Bostridge and his celebrated accompanist Julius Drake, with opera director David Alden and designer Ian MacNeil. Schubert's masterpiece presents a stranger who lacks definition or social bond wandering through wintry nature. Alden dramatises the song cycle around two spaces: one a vacant and romantic room which perhaps houses the ghosts of the past; the other a white void, a landscape of isolation. Actors appear as the family who jilted the singer and who have perhaps set the protagonist on his life of endless wandering. Terrifyingly beautiful, Winterreise is an agonising portrayal of a man who wants to be dead - a nervous breakdown, a story without end.

Over The Top With Franz
This accompanying documentary is an exciting and revealing record of the anxieties, frustrations and triumphs experienced by collaborators, Bostridge, Drake, Alden and MacNeil, in recording Schubert's Winterreise for television. The film opens with Bostridge and Drake performing Winterreise in recital at the Royal Brighton Pavilion. Nothing, however, can prepare them for the experience they have with David Alden. This film is a record of that experience. We follow the ideas, lines of approach and often conflicting opinions of the artists as they rehearse and prepare for this dynamic new film version from the first day of rehearsal to the last day of filming.

Customer Reviews

A Poetic Masterpiece
Poetic cinema is a risky business: when the film is built entirely on intuitive (as opposed to the narrative) associations, the result can be confusion and bewilderment on the part of the audience. The blame for this is twofold: no artist's intuition is absolutely perfect, since we are all guilty to some extent of neglecting our spiritual development and secondly, the vast majority of the film audience refuses to put out even a modicum of inner effort to meet the artist half way, as they have become thoroughly accustomed to having everything spelled out to them in a way that insults not only their intelligence, but also their souls.

Therefore, it is little short of a miracle, when a film like "Winterreise" succeeds on all levels. The credit for this must first of all go to the musical genius of Schubert, whose song cycle of scorned love manages to penetrate to the souls of even today's audiences, combining contemporary notions like "goth" and "angst" with the eternal expressions of romanticism, idealism and just pure beauty. It is apparent from the start that the director, David Alden, stands squarely in the tradition of poetic, high-art cinema. The haunting opening of the slow tracking shot, the agonizingly slow movements of the camera into tight close-ups (matching the inner agony of the main character) are all reminiscent of the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, yet they appear totally fresh and "new" and unexpected in the context of the film. The inventiveness and, at the same time, the astonishing simplicity of the mise-en-scenes throughout the film continues to amaze even on repeated viewings. The middle part of the film in the white space is particularly striking: this White Light, with the main character (dressed in black) floating in and out, lends an air of eternity to this whole journey of the soul. The choreography of the camera angles, the gestures of the main character and the edits show incredible sensitivity and reverence for Schubert's score. The production has a touch of period detail, a touch of modernism - yet it all has a feeling of timelessness about it.

The end of the closing song - in itself, a heartbreaker - is given an ingeniously simple treatment (and greatness lies in such simplicity): with the main character backed up into a corner, the camera pulls back achingly slowly in complete silence, as the closing credits roll and the white specks fall, like snow. In the force of its impact, it is similar to the ending of Bergman's "Virgin Spring". When a beautiful young girl is raped and murdered - and then snow begins to fall, it triggers some indescribable reaction in the soul of the viewer. After all that youth and beauty is so brutalized and wasted, the snow falling from above is like a catharsis, a purification - something that one cannot quite put into words, because it is moving beyond words. The same effect is achieved here: the main character of the Wanderer has reached a breaking point, an inner death, and yet he has to go on living. The falling snow-specks are like a sign from Above:

"The many-sided indispensable value of everything that exists in Creation always proffers the possibility of ascent again in some way or other, even amid the greatest confusion caused by men. Whether or not the soul recognises and uses these possibilities is its affair alone. The lifebelts are there! The soul only needs to reach out for them with a good volition in order to swing itself up on them." ( Abd-ru-shin, 1875-1941, "IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE", original in German - "IM LICHTE DER WAHRHEIT: GRALSBOTSCHAFT").

In this type of poetic, personal filmmaking the choice of the right person for the lead is critical; otherwise, the whole thing runs the risk of falling flat on its face and appearing ridiculous rather than sublime. Mr. Alden could not have done better than choosing Ian Bostridge. Without Bostridge's total inner commitment, without his deep intuitive understanding of the music and its drama, it would all have been reduced to a pointless exercise in clever camera angles. It was the amazing spiritual depth of his gaze that allowed Alden to do those phenomenally effective (and affecting) slow tracking shots and zooms into tight close-ups, as well as the unforgettable close-ups dissolving into pure White Light. At the time of the making of this film, Mr. Bostridge was just about the same age as Schubert, which makes the whole experience all the more poignant. Here we also have a record of the matchless musical partnership of Bostridge and Julius Drake, which can be safely compared to the legendary partnership of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore. It sounds almost too good to be true, but here indeed we have the most enthralling performance of Schubert's "Winterreise" in a poetic masterpiece of a film!

Bostridge is superb, the production a near disaster
The director David Alden seems to view the song cycle as an opera in three acts, the first and last take place in a large dismal set based on an abandoned asylum for the insane, and the second shot entirely against a plain white background. During each act Alden seems to become stuck in a groove and one looses interest in the staging and concentrates (as one should) on the superb singing of Ian Bostridge.

From the direction point of view Act 1 merits three stars, Act 11 which is just plain boring except for the remarkable facial acting of Bostridge one star and Act 111 four stars. However the concept that Winterreise is the mental journal of a mentally disturbed man is valid, and if only Alden possessed a real creative imagination the elements of this production could have succeeded.

David Alden was a poor choice as director, his shortcomings are all too evident in the DVD of the 1995 Tannhauser from Bayerische Staatsoper.

Fortunately on subsequent viewings the staging becomes irrelevant as we concentrate on the performance by Bostridge beautifully accompanied by Julian Drake, recorded in excellent Dolby Digital sound, and for this reason only it gets four stars.

Great music but!
First off the music is great, the singing and piano are superb. The visuals are to say the least whacky and the producer seems to have fixed his mind that the subject is some sort of Germanic lunatic on the rampage.
Is the torment and desolation of a poor soul who has lost his love just a madman? No I suggest not, but this producer does and treats it like a gothic horror. I liked the white background which worked for me. I didnt like the bonkers bit with getting the twigs from behind the skirting board and dropping them on the floor or the knife, whats all that about, why a knife?
Its still very much worth watching for the musical performance alone thank goodness. Most of all thanks to Schubert.