Certainly not 'a biopic', either of the composer or of his wife, who
narrates most of it, Huillet and Straub's film "Chronicle of Anna
Magdalena Bach" concentrates almost entirely on Bach's music, of which
we hear a great deal, and is told in what really amounts to a series of
tableaux of said music being performed, interspersed with stills of
journal pages, sheet music, drawings etc. It takes around forty minutes
for Bach himself to speak and for 'the actors' to appear. It is,
in other words, not so much a film as an illustrated album of some of
Bach's greatest hits and is either a source of great pleasure to lovers
of his work or the most boring film ever made, (you might prefer simply
to listen to the recordings). Of course, lacking in 'dramatic' structure
it may also be the greatest film 'about' a classical composer ever made
since the directors let nothing stand in the way of the music. In some
quarters, I have seen it described as a masterpiece.
Thursday, 9 May 2019
CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH **
Certainly not 'a biopic', either of the composer or of his wife, who
narrates most of it, Huillet and Straub's film "Chronicle of Anna
Magdalena Bach" concentrates almost entirely on Bach's music, of which
we hear a great deal, and is told in what really amounts to a series of
tableaux of said music being performed, interspersed with stills of
journal pages, sheet music, drawings etc. It takes around forty minutes
for Bach himself to speak and for 'the actors' to appear. It is,
in other words, not so much a film as an illustrated album of some of
Bach's greatest hits and is either a source of great pleasure to lovers
of his work or the most boring film ever made, (you might prefer simply
to listen to the recordings). Of course, lacking in 'dramatic' structure
it may also be the greatest film 'about' a classical composer ever made
since the directors let nothing stand in the way of the music. In some
quarters, I have seen it described as a masterpiece.
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