405 The Threepenny Opera

Message

#51 Post by **domino harvey** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:01 am

the Testament of Dr Mabuse is 1.19, or close to that

HerrSchreck · #52 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:19 pm

J M Powell wrote:I've been right here, and I've been paying attention. As far as I know, this is the first disc Criterion has released on DVD with an aspect ratio narrower than 1.33:1. .

Not true: M & TESTAMENT MABUSE have both been released in the same aspect ratio as 3PENNY. All it means is the obvious: that instead of a picturboxed 1.33 image, you have a pictureboxed 1.19 image. So yes, if you have no incremental zoom on your player, or anamorphic controls on your screen, you will have slightly wider bars on the sides of your diplayed image vs academy ratio releases, and with the same thin line running along the top.

What A Disgrace · Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:05 am

In any case, Threepenny Opera is definitely not windowboxed in addition to the thin aspect ratio.

CSM126 · #54 Post by **CSM126** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 12:31 pm

Got this yesterday and I'm excruciatingly happy. The transfer is a revelation after watching the LD so many times. The picture quality is about a million times better, as has been stated already in this thread, and the sound is way less tinny (though the loudest sounds still come through sounding a bit harsh. I can live with it though, because this is an improvement over all).

I love this movie a lot and to finally see it in such fine quality is a pleasure. I can't wait to get into all those extras. So far I've only seen that weird little intro by Rasp and Busch (the two of them in a theater, watching Threepenny, and Busch starts singing a deleted song from the film in Rasp's ear), and the German vs. French comparison, which has greatly interested me in seeing the French version. It seriously looks to be a different movie in several ways (and I'm not sure if that's going to be a good thing). I did find it weird that the subtitles are forced on the French cut (According to the menu) instead of optional. Definitely out of the ordinary for Criterion, but maybe it was out of their hands?

Again, this set is a Threepenny fan's dream come true just for the restoration. The extras are gravy. A must-have set, easily.

GringoTex · #55 Post by **GringoTex** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:03 pm

Watched this for the first time. Great image. Very fascinating film. But there seems to be two main points of tension that threaten to tear the movie apart. First is silent v. sound film aesthetic. Amazing passages of silent film are interrupted by incredibly awakward moments where Pabst brings mise-en-scene to a shuddering halt so that a character can say something. The "simple" act of shooting two people talking is something many directors struggled with during the sound transition.

The second point of tension is Pabst v. Brecht. Simply put- Pabst takes his characters' psychological condition seriously and thinks it's a worthy artistic subject while Brecht doesn't. This lent the film a disconcerting bipolar quality that was more "brechtian" for me in a way probably not intended by Brecht or Pabst.

CAn't wait to watch the French version.

Ashirg · #56 Post by **Ashirg** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:01 am

DVD Savant review

denti alligator · #57 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:45 am

What A Disgrace wrote:In any case, Threepenny Opera is definitely not windowboxed in addition to the thin aspect ratio.

I can confirm that this is, indeed, NOT windowboxed, which is surprising.

kinjitsu · #58 Post by **kinjitsu** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:24 pm

Dave Kehr in The New York Times:

Here again is proof of what a fragile medium the movies are, and of how foolish it is for us to condescend to the perceived primitivism of a past that is largely a creation of our own neglect.

HerrSchreck · #59 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 1:18 am

GringoTex wrote:Watched this for the first time. Great image. Very fascinating film. But there seems to be two main points of tension that threaten to tear the movie apart. First is silent v. sound film aesthetic. Amazing passages of silent film are interrupted by incredibly awakward moments where Pabst brings mise-en-scene to a shuddering halt so that a character can say something. The "simple" act of shooting two people talking is something many directors struggled with during the sound transition.

The second point of tension is Pabst v. Brecht. Simply put- Pabst takes his characters' psychological condition seriously and thinks it's a worthy artistic subject while Brecht doesn't. This lent the film a disconcerting bipolar quality that was more "brechtian" for me in a way probably not intended by Brecht or Pabst.

CAn't wait to watch the French version.

You're right essentially on both points-- what is even more throwing to 1st time viewers is, especially in the first 1/2 of the film, is, after all that beautiful exposition of Germanic stimmung.. all that smoky atmosphere and shadowy desolation, he'll break the mood to have the characters say something: oftentimes, what they say is virtually insignificant or even nonsense. Meanwhile, key areas of plot/character identification are left unsaid. It's very hard for a first time viewer to know what it is they're supposed to be thinking about while staring at these images. What they're watching, who they're watching, why they're watching it.

Part of it is the tension between silent vs sound (this film is very early in the sound cycle for Germany) conventions-- intertitles might have explained certain markers for the viewer early on, whereas these were not used in this film owing to sonorization (although using them sparingly was not totally discarded by early sound filmmakers... see Sternberg in EMPRESS, some of the early WB gangster pics, hell even Dwain Esper's MANIAC!).

But I think another issue is the fact that the play & it's score were such a smash in Germany that it was assumed that most folks knew the general story or at least the names of the characters, and a hint of each's backstory.. at least they weren't the absolute blank slates they are for a first time viewer say, in America today.

And yes, some of those tensions definitely serve to kick the viewer out of the immersion process, often considered to be a Brechtian shtick... although definitely not in the service of a larger message or chaotic pastiche, and definitely not in the service of the drilling in of an activistic, leftist message in near-blatant terms, ie political-rally/party terms.. so in that sense the film is very unique. I love it for its strangeness, it's tour de force by Wagner, the gorgeous sets, the beautiful rendition of PIRATE JENNY by the sublime Lenya, and the pantspissing humor of Mackies crosseyed dopey stooges during the wedding.

eez28 · #60 Post by **eez28** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:52 pm

Beaver

denti alligator · #61 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:51 pm

I found this to be a solid package. Image is stunning, and the new documentary was well done. I have to disagree with Schreck on the commentary, which I found to be very good. I'm totally biased, though, because I'm an academic, and I know both scholars who do the track, one of them very well. The track consists in an academic discussion that balances film analysis with meaty digressions into Brechtian aesthetics. It's not consistently excellent--I felt it slowed down around the 2/3 mark--but is well worth spending time with.

I was a bit annoyed by the Chalres O'Brien presentation on the differences between the German and French versions, and not just because his German and French pronunciation is abominable. He repeatedly made note of the lighting on the French version, which he felt was much lighter, emphasizing whites, so that Mackie does not seem to come out of the shadows like in the German version. But isn't this difference simply a result of the print? Surely a version of the French film restored with as much care as The German one received would look nearly identical, in terms of overall lighting.

A great package. Tony Rayns' essay was also very good.

Tommaso · #62 Post by **Tommaso** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 9:57 am

I know I'm pretty late in chiming in here, but I only managed to watch it yesterday and my God, this disc deserves all the praise one could possibly bestow on a transfer. I've seen a lot of early 30s movies lately, but nothing, not even the incredible WB disc of Reinhardt/Dieterle's "Midsummer Nights Dream" comes anywhere near to this. Schreck has already pointed out how GOOD it looks, and I can only think of the "Metropolis" resto which came up with similar results for a film of that age. Practically no scratches, dirt etc., and unbelievably clear sound.
And the film itself: this is one of the Pabsts I hadn't seen before, and it immediately made it into my list of very favourite Weimar films ( I had almost written 'German silents', because it actually looks like one). Not just the camera work, but especially the mise en scene is breathtaking, the incredible ornamental richness, the 'stuffedness' with objects all having a meaning, especially in the wedding sequence (as is pointed out to great and illuminating detail in the commentary, which I actually find rather excellent). And of course the pure STYLE of this film, which with the eyes of today rather looks like a celebration of a lost era although (as in "Pandora") the excess and glamour at Pabst's time would perhaps have had a more critical impulse to it. And I better stop writing before I start raving about Carola Neher...

There has already been a lot of commentary about Brecht vs Pabst here, but just let me say that, if anything, Pabst actually highlights the political/social comment, though in a way Brecht indeed would have been averse to. I find the film deeply nihilistic, especially in the end. It not so much shows how the bourgeoisie are actually criminals, but rather how the leaders of the poor are actually betraying the poor and exploit them in a similar way to those in power ("Those that are in the light, and those that are in the dark", as the final song and shot so strongly point out). That might be a reading against the grain, but the thrust of it somehow reminded me even of what happens in "Animal Farm", how those leading the poor actually rise and follow their own selfish interests (and which of course is reflected in the history of so-called socialist societies in the 20th century). Just have a look at the size of the lettering on the wall of Peachum's home/business house. He is a capitalist as bad as all the others in the film. In this respect I would disagree with the guys in the audio commentary who see the end as similar to that of "Metropolis", as a potentially positive coming together of opposing social forces. It indeed references the Lang film, but in a deeply sardonic way, and Pabst's moving of the "Cannon" song from the beginning to the end of the play is not made just for dramatic effect, but is a device of highlighting the corruption of those only apparently working against the bourgeoisie or the state system generally.

denti alligator wrote:I was a bit annoyed by the Chalres O'Brien presentation on the differences between the German and French versions, and not just because his German and French pronunciation is abominable. He repeatedly made note of the lighting on the French version, which he felt was much lighter, emphasizing whites, so that Mackie does not seem to come out of the shadows like in the German version. But isn't this difference simply a result of the print? Surely a version of the French film restored with as much care as The German one received would look nearly identical, in terms of overall lighting.

Yes, I thought so as well. Still, the difference in tone seems to be enormous between these two versions, and the French seems to be almost a travesty of all that Pabst achieved in the German version (judging from the comparison alone, I was too sleepy to watch the French version after moling my way through the rest of the set). A good reminder to myself that I should stop commenting on the weakness of Pabst's "L'Atlantide" until someone manages to release the German version of it. I suppose the differences will be equally striking.

As to the extras: I especially liked that 1972 interview with Fritz Rasp. What a friendly, charming and charismatic actor, and as he talks about a great range of subjects, we get nice background info on some of those silents ("Jeanne Ney" and "Schatten") that are not graced with extras in their current dvd state.

So, all in all, a package that makes me pretty speechless. A strong competitor for Bernard as the most important CC release this year.

colinr0380 · #63 Post by **colinr0380** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:31 pm

DVD Verdict review

skuhn8 · #64 Post by **skuhn8** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:55 pm

colinr0380 wrote:DVD Verdict review

Ok, can someone clarify what he means with this?

G. W. Pabst's adaptation of Weill and Brecht's 3 Penny Opera is an astounding cinematic experienceâ€”like watching M the musical as filtered through a neo-realistic view of silent-film German Expressionism.

Belmondo · #65 Post by **Belmondo** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:37 pm

skuhn8 wrote:Ok, can someone clarify what he means with this?

G. W. Pabst's adaptation of Weill and Brecht's 3 Penny Opera is an astounding cinematic experienceâ€”like watching M the musical as filtered through a neo-realistic view of silent-film German Expressionism.

Perhaps an issue of typos and poor phrasing which should read something like -
... like watching "M"; this musical is typical of the neo-realism previously found in German Expressionism from the silent film era.

... or not.

jbeall · #66 Post by **jbeall** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:40 pm

skuhn8 wrote:
colinr0380 wrote:DVD Verdict review
Ok, can someone clarify what he means with this?

G. W. Pabst's adaptation of Weill and Brecht's 3 Penny Opera is an astounding cinematic experienceâ€”like watching M the musical as filtered through a neo-realistic view of silent-film German Expressionism.

I haven't run it through babelfish, but here are two guesses:

"I've seen a few black and white German films and know some jargon; gee, aren't I smart?"
or
"I'd like to review the film on its own terms, but I can't, so I'll just quickly compare it to the handful of other German films I've seen and move on."

#67 Post by **zedz** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:55 am

skuhn8 wrote:Ok, can someone clarify what he means with this?

G. W. Pabst's adaptation of Weill and Brecht's 3 Penny Opera is an astounding cinematic experienceâ€”like watching M the musical as filtered through a neo-realistic view of silent-film German Expressionism.

My guess is that he's clumsily trying to say that the film is a unique amalgam of elements from M, musicals, neo-realism, and Expressionism. The problem is that the idea is far less original or insightful than the smarty-pants expression suggests the writer thinks it is. In fact, it's pretty trite (the M and Expressionism comments fall into the "well, duh" category, it is a musical, and lazy critics always describe any film that deals with "the underclass" as 'neo-realist', regardless of its formal attributes).

HerrSchreck · #68 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:06 pm

Damn. And all along I was revved up with a fresh sack of drugs to kick my naked feet up and watch "M-- THE MUSICAL"... now it turns out it doesn't exist outside of the Garbled Syntax Films catalog.

Ah DVDVerdict. The place where the words--nay, entire languages-- go to die.

"Elsie, Elsie where are you?
Elsie my darling child!
Beware of whistling creeps
adorned in balloons & smiles!

It remains for Herr Hofmeister--
With his low-angle crotch-bulge-blob--
to zoom into the fateful fensterwhatever
and save Peter Lorre from the mob!"
(fadeout to "THIS WONT BRING OUR CHILDREN BACK" kickline finale).

tryavna · #69 Post by **tryavna** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:11 pm

Schreck, your new goal in life must be to write this musical! Stop denying the world this work of art any longer!

(And if you need further insipiration, just turn to Springtime for Hitler.)

Jonny Pasadena · #70 Post by **Jonny Pasadena** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 7:31 pm

Pardon my stupidity, but: the accompanying booklet, in the acknowledgments, makes references to an excerpt from a Lotte Lenya radio interview, but I don't know where the audio footage would be on the set. Any pointers?

CSM126 · #71 Post by **CSM126** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:48 pm

^The Brecht vs. Pabst documentary.

dr. calamari · #72 Post by **dr. calamari** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:36 am

I just viewed Threepenny Opera last night, and was totally floored...it had everything I love about early German cinema, plus the Kurt Weill music I've been hearing bits and pieces of (always out of context, too...like as background music on the Ernie Kovacs show) for pretty much my entire life. What a fanatstic film, and the restoration was so good it was as though it had been filmed much more recently than the early '30's. I even recognized one of the actors as also having been in M; unfortunately, it wasn't Otto Wernicke but, still...it was like recognizing an old friend you haven't seen in a long time.

I also had the crazy idea, while watching, that this could have been adapted sucessfully for the American market by hiring the Three Stooges for the male leads; Moe would of course have been ideal as Mackie Messer, Larry would have been Tiger Brown, Shemp would have been Peachum, and Curly (with his fine singing voice) would have been the Street Singer. I haven't got any ideas who would have been cast in the female leads, but my wife suggested Barbara Stanwyck as Polly...anybody else have any suggestions?

JAP · #73 Post by **JAP** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:47 pm

Just to point out that the Criterion edition was recently awarded in the 'Best DVD - Sound' category at the Cinema Ritrovato 2008 DVD Awards.

You can find a complete list of winners and special mentions here.

Also a brief review of this year's festival.

Tootletron · #74 Post by **Tootletron** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:56 am

I watched this last night and just want to chime in on how terrible the commentary is. Having never really heard of Brecht or Pabst before, I thoroughly enjoyed the film but the commentary was worthless. Shreck got it right. One mindlessly jabbers on about how "Brecht-ian" something MIGHT be and ends in the form of a question in which the lispey guy answers. I would've preferred something that dealt more with the film itself rather than what was on there.

The majority of the print looks absolutely fantastic, though.

knives · #75 Post by **knives** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 4:57 am

Just saw this and I loved every non-Pabst aspect, and even one involving the man. The music is great, well duh, and the performances couldn't be better. The direction is mostly good; the way individual shots work is usually fantastic, but I've got to say the editing is absolutely terrible. Little transition shots just feel clunky and Pabst always seems to be killing the performances. The worst of these sorts of things happen in the beginning, why oh why cut from Polly's closeup during her song,and until the very ending the last thirty minutes is completely void of these things. I enjoyed the movie well enough to watch it again, but I don't think I'll ever be a fan of Pabst.

Site Menu