Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8866 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-01-22
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Italian, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, English, Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The most phenomenal recording in rock & roll history is thoroughly examined in Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon. The Floyd's 1973 masterpiece remained on bestseller charts for nearly 14 years, and its enduring importance is honoured here by all four members of Pink Floyd and key personnel (engineer Alan Parsons, mixing supervisor Chris Thomas, sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson and others) who played essential roles in the landmark album's creation.

Produced for the Classic Albums series, this thorough and thought-provoking study highlights a track-by-track dissection of the LP's master tapes (including the spoken-word passages that bookend the album), superbly interlaced with archival footage, early demo tapes, concert animations and latter-day acoustic performances by David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright to demonstrate each track's contribution to the final mix--a sonic exploration that extends to the illuminating bonus features. Informative interviews abound (including Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke), and much-deserved credit is given to saxophonist Dick Parry, solo vocalist Clare Torry and former Columbia Records chairman Bhaskar Menon, who fostered the album's US commercial success. For Floyd fans, musicians and studio technicians alike, this is a must-have addition to any DVD library. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Description
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is both a masterpiece and a phenomenon. It is an iconic album with an instantly recognisable sleeve and music that has stood the test of time in the 30 years since its release. It is also one of the best selling albums in history. At the time of writing it has spent an astonishing 1380 weeks on the US Billboard Album Chart – that’s over 26 years! As usual the main programme includes interviews with all the members of the band: Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason, plus the engineer, Alan Parsons, the designer, Storm Thorgerson, and other people involved in the recording and release of the album. The programme combines archive footage of Pink Floyd in concert, in the studio and in rehearsal, with video clips, interviews and original demos.

Track Listing:

• 1) Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
  
• 2) Echoes
  
• 3) Breathe
  
• 4) On The Run
  
• 5) Time
  
• 6) The Great Gig In The Sky
  
• 7) Money
  
• 8) Us And Them
  
• 9) Brain Damage
  
• 10) Eclipse

Special Features
Over 40 minutes of bonus footage, including the following:

• Brain Damage. A complete solo acoustic performance by Roger Waters together with his thoughts on the song.
  
• Money. Roger Waters and Alan Parsons discuss the song, intercut with Dave Gilmour playing guitar and Roger Waters playing bass.
  
• Us And Them. Rick Wright talks about writing the song and plays solo piano, along with excerpts from the full album track.
  
• Roger Waters’ view of the world and the continuing relevance of Dark Side of the Moon.
  
• Breathe. A complete solo acoustic performance by Dave Gilmour.
  
• Time. Roger Waters discusses the track followed by an excerpt from the animated video used at Pink Floyd concerts and Roger Waters’ original demo recording.
  
• Roger Waters on Rock ‘n’ Roll.
  
• Alan Parsons, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright talk about Chris Thomas, who produced the final mix of the album.
  
• Gilmour’s Guitars. Dave Gilmour illustrates the guitar parts from three tracks on the album: Breathe, The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them.
  
• Gerry has the last word….

DVD Technical Information

• Screen Format: 16:9
  
• Sound Formats: Dolby Digital Stereo
  
• Running Time: 93 mins approx
  
• System: PAL
  
• Language: English
  
• Subtitles: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch

Customer Reviews

Awful third version -- but the original's hidden in here too
At the risk of being scorched by fanboy flames, I think this is a dreadful release. On the plus side, it's just a simple DVD in a pleasant pack with a cheap leaflet. In other words, they haven't gone to town on the presentation. This is actually a good thing, packaging fetishists -- if the band lighten up, they might actually decide to release all their live tapes and bootlegs like Grateful Dead, King Crimson, Tangerine Dream, Frank Zappa etc have done. Squeeze your eyes shut and mutter a few prayers. Might just happen.

But that's damning with REALLY faint praise. The "Director's Cut" of the movie is horrendous. Whatever possessed Maben to do it, he's plastered dumb computer graphics of the solar system all over the movie, completely botching up the famous slow-zoom beginning. For much of the time you have to pay attention to catch a glimpse of the original Pompeii amphitheatre footage. And then -- disbelievingly -- he throws in absurd lapses in judgement. For example, during the first part of "Echoes", the scene suddenly shifts to a tube train entering an empty station, complete with train noise which swamps what the Floyd are playing. I almost switched off at this point. The music is now overlayed by sound effects. Read it and weep.

If this travesty was all the DVD contained, it would be a no-star loser. I love the original 1972 "Live In Pompeii", it's a fabulous concert movie, slow, solemn, stately, exactly befitting the music. It's also the best toker's movie ever. To have lost all that for this pop-video new "Director's Cut" would have been a tragedy. But happily that original 1972 version is there, hidden away in the extras menu alongside all kinds of worthless "Odds and Sods" like the lyrics too small to read and pictures of the film's VHS covers. Trust me: you may play the third cut once, but from then on you'll stick with the original, and you'll curse the menu system you have to negotiate to get there. Incidentally, all sound is in stereo, and it looks to me like the 16:9 of the new cut is simply the old 4:3 picture with the top and bottom chopped off. You do, however, get the lengthy original "2001"-style settle-down introduction with sound effects over a blank screen.

What is not on this DVD -- and therefore does not officially exist anymore -- is the expanded 1973 cut, in which Maben added to the concert footage some interviews, chatter in the EMI canteen, and fake shots of them recording DSOTM in the studio. (Fake because they'd finished the album when Maben came in to shoot them, so they pretended to work on it for the cameras.) I'm pleased to have the original lay-back-and-drift-off film without all that frippery, but if that was the version you liked best (it was the only version available on VHS) you might just feel cheated.

HISTORICAL NOTE FOR FLOYD VIRGINS: "Live In Pompeii" was recorded in October 1971 just after the release of "Meddle" and was an attempt (like "Ummagumma" two years before) to play all their old material one final time. Sadly, they didn't get time to record "Fat Old Sun" and "Embryo", two concert favourites of the time, but at least they never got around to "Atom Heart Mother". For many fans, 1969-71 was the true golden age for Floyd, just before DSOTM lost them their dope-smoking student audience, replaced by kids screaming "Money!" They would never again sound this relaxed and DSOTM's girlie chorus, saxophone and film clips signalled the end of live improvisation. So this is a precious movie, recorded at exactly the right time. Curiously for Floyd, it shows them playing without any of their normal stage lights or effects. Classic moments abound, including Nick Mason losing his drumstick during "One Of These Days", and the movie itself, with its slow zooms and pans past stacks of black speakers, is now a much-imitated icon. At only an hour in length, director Adrian Maben thought more could be done with it and returned to the movie in 1973 to add inter-song snippets of interviews and pretend studio work. The film is very much of its age, with some horrendous camera tricks. Not everything was recorded in the amphitheatre -- some were recorded on a Paris soundstage later -- and there are a couple of glaring segues, most notably during the first half of "Echoes" (which is itself split in two to bookend the movie). On the whole, though, the Floyd give a truly great performance and this is, after all, the only official live document (video or audio) of the band from this entire period.

Old but good .... VERY GOOD!!!!
Floyd at their best. The now classic performance at the Pompeii amphitheater certainly is one of the highlights of Floyd's career. I have had the video for years (becoming pretty worn out) so I was really pleased with a DVD release. The 'directors cuts' is somewhat ... well, let's say surprising, but when listening to the interview it makes more sense.
And for the hard core purists, there's also the original movie included :-)

Very much recommended!!!!

A unique piece of early 70s culture
Looking at this film thirty years after it was made, the first thing that hits you is how much bolder film makers and musicians were then. Even with all the technical advances that have taken place since 1972, no-one would dare to make a film like this now, even if they could get the financial backing.

The original version of the film (which features as an extra on this DVD) is superb. The rather dated cinematography only adds to the period atmosphere and the audacious concept of playing a live concert in the empty amphitheatre at Pompeii with just the film crew there is just perfect for early Pink Floyd music and makes most other "performance" films seem pretty tame by comparison.

The director's cut is a disappointment. The newly created footage is incongruous and irrelevant. The clips of the Abbey Road studios during the recording of Dark Side of the Moon are interesting but only serve to break the flow of the Pompeii performance. They should be available separately.

Other extras are OK but it is the original film that makes this a crucial purchace for all Pink Floyd fans and fans of rock cinema.