Monday, December 17, 2007

DVD Savant, best DVD's of the year

DVD SAVANT


picks

The Most Impressive DVDs of 2007

As usual, an interesting end of the year list from DVD Savant. Guess I'll have to pick up that old movie version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera at some not too distant point in the future. His review of the disc can be found here - based on the clips on youtube the staging of the songs DOES seem somewhat static and not particularly cinematic, but the songs are some of the best ever written, and these 1931 versions are most likely very, very close to the original 1928 stage production. And they DO sound great.


The immortal Lotte Lenya singing the immortal SeeraĆ¼ber Jenny/Pirate Jenny - this harrowing song inspired the plot for a recent movie set in the 1930s, Lars Von Trier's "Dogville", including the... ahem.. 'killer' ending. Too bad the youtube clips ends a bit early. that look in her eyes towards the end of the scene. Holy fuck! :




Also, another Threepenny Opera classic : Mackie Messer, Mack the Knife:


(well, thse clips dont look like they're from the restored Criterion disk, lots of scratches and stuff, but they're still some of the best songs of the 20th century no matter what.

And a later absolutely sensational recording of Pirate Jenny... sung by Anne Kerry Ford:





And the famous later version of Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin. It rocks!.. or swings!... or whatever:



And a flawed and not particularly subtle version from Nick Cave:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I guess you know the version of Mack the Knife that Ella Fitzgerald sang in Berlin in 1962. There's a wonderful live recording of her. Great fun. :)

Will have to check out your blog in a bit more detail when I have more time.

Cheers from Switzerland - Thirith