Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii

Movie
German title	Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Original title	Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
Country of production	France , Italy
original language	English
Publishing year	1972
length	85 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Adrian Maben
music	Pink Floyd
camera	Willy Kurant , Gábor Pogány
cut	José Pinheiro Nino DiFonzo
occupation
Pink Floyd
chronology
Successor  → Pink Floyd - The Wall

Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii is a 1972 musical film by Adrian Maben showing the British band Pink Floyd performing six of their songs at the Amphitheater in Pompeii , Italy.

The performance of the songs Echoes , A Saucerful of Secrets and One of These Days was recorded between October 4, 1971 and October 7, 1971. The remaining songs in the film were recorded in a studio in Paris between 1971 and early 1972. This version of the film was released in theaters in September 1972 and is also featured as bonus material on the DVD version of the film. Another version of the film was released in August 1974, supplementing the previous film with studio recordings at Abbey Road Studios . The recordings showed the musicians creating the album The Dark Side of the Moon . The film recordings were re-enacted because the band had finished the recordings for the album at this point and was already doing the mixing.

Tracks

1972 original tracks

View of the 20,000-seat amphitheater where the music film was recorded. Position: ( 40 ° 45 ′ 5 ″  N , 14 ° 29 ′ 43 ″  E )

1. Intro song
2. Echoes, Part 1
3. Careful with That Ax, Eugene
4. A Saucerful of Secrets
5. One of these days
6. Set the controls for the heart of the sun
7. Mademoiselle Nobs
8. Echoes, Part 2

1974 version

1. Intro song
2. Echoes, Part I.
3. On the Run (Studio Footage)
4. Careful with That Ax, Eugene
5. A Saucerful of Secrets
6. Us and Them (Studio Footage)
7. One of these days
8. Set the controls for the heart of the sun
9. Brain Damage (Studio Footage)
10. Mademoiselle Nobs
11. Echoes, Part II

2003 Director's Cut

1. Echoes, Part 1 / On the Run (studio film recording) (Uncredited) (von Meddle / The Dark Side of the Moon , 1971/1973)
2. Careful with That Ax, Eugene (B-side of Point Me at the Sky single, 1968)
3. A Saucerful of Secrets (from A Saucerful of Secrets , 1968)
4. Us and Them (studio film recording) (from The Dark Side of the Moon , 1973)
5. One of These Days I'm Going to Cut You into Little Pieces (also known as One of These Days , by Meddle , 1971)
6. Mademoiselle Nobs (from the album Meddle , previously known as Seamus in 1971 )
7. Brain Damage (studio film recording) (from The Dark Side of the Moon , 1973)
8. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (from A Saucerful of Secrets , 1968)
9. Echoes, Part 2 (from Meddle , 1971)

backgrounds

Interior of the amphitheater

Pink Floyd had already experimented with filming outside the context of a normal rock concert in April 1970, including a one-hour performance in the KQED TV studios. Maben wanted to embed Pink Floyd's music in an artistic context, and in 1971 tried to contact the manager of the band Steve O'Rourke to discuss the possibilities of a corresponding film production. The original idea of ​​incorporating the band into various paintings was rejected. Thereupon Maben set out for Naples in early summer.

During a visit to Pompeii, Maben lost his passport and therefore went back to the amphitheater he had visited earlier in the day as he suspected it was there. As he wandered through the abandoned ruins, it occurred to him that the silence and natural ambient noise would make a good backdrop for the music. In addition, recording the band without an audience would be a good match, a response to films like Woodstock and Gimme Shelter , in which a lot of attention was paid to the performers and viewers alike.

Maben approached his friend, Professor Carputi at the University of Naples, who was a Pink Floyd fan with this idea, and he managed to convince the local authorities to close the amphitheater for six days for filming in October, for which the band paid a "fairly high" entry fee.

reception

Maben used recordings of several mosaics and paintings from the archives of the National Archaeological Museum in Naples in Set The Controls , like this portrait of Paquius Proculo and his wife.

Maben was particularly pleased with the positive reviews after the film was presented at the Edinburgh International Film Festival , but was disappointed when a New York reviewer described him as "an ant crawling around the great treasures of Pompeii".

Audience magazine considered the film "a handsome visual production". The Hollywood Reporter called it a "fully structured concept that, on its own, goes well beyond its function of recording a live rock concert," while Billboard Magazine was not enthusiastic about the 1974 release. It took the view that the film made an outdated impression and was "a boring, mindless hocus-pocus that does not do justice to the Pink Floyd vision". Recent reviews were far more positive: Faye Zuckermandie reviewed the 1984 video release in Billboard magazine and said that although she was "not particularly keen" on the footage in the Abbey Road canteen, the film was "far superior to most other concert films." Richie Unterberger, on the Director's Cut DVD review, said the film was "first class cinematography" and "undeniably impressive," while Peter Marsh, who reviewed the BBC, said it was his "all-time favorite concert film," despite his Opinion about the new computer-generated imagery is mixed.

Outtakes

Due to the time pressure during filming, no additional tracks were filmed that were not also released. So there is no classic bonus material. Although several outtakes and shots from different perspectives were kept in the Archives du Film du Bois D'Arcy near Paris, an employee of the owner, MHF Productions, decided that this material was worthless and destroyed all 548 film rolls from the 35mm negatives .

Maben was also particularly frustrated that he couldn't make additional recordings for "One of These Days," which in the released version is mostly a Mason solo piece. According to Mason, this was due to the fact that the film roll with the recordings of the other musicians was lost during editing. The audio recording of an alternate version of "Careful with That Ax, Eugene" was released in the box set The Early Years 1965-1972 (2016).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Glenn Povey: Echoes: The Complete History of Pink Floyd. Chesham: Mind Head Publishing, 2007, p. 131
2. ^ Toby Manning: The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (1st ed.) New York City: Rough Guides, 2006, p. 68
3. ↑ ^{a b} Mark Blake: Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd. Arum Press, 2011, p. 167
4. ↑ ^{a b} Powell Jr, Paul & Matt Johns. Interview. Interview with Adrian Maben . 2003. June 27, 2017.
5. ↑ ^{a b} In Depth Analysis and interview with Adrian Maben . In: Brain Damage . Retrieved September 10, 2012.
6. ↑ DeWitt Robbeloth: "Optical Allusions: Pink Floyd" (p. 10) . Audience, October 1974 (Retrieved March 14, 2018).
7. ↑ Old British Pink Floyd Flick - Not One Of Season's Best . Billboard Magazine , August 31, 1974 (Retrieved September 10, 2012).
8. ↑ DVD review at Allmusic (English). Retrieved September 10, 2012.
9. ↑ Peter Marsh: BBC Review . In: BBC Music . Retrieved September 10, 2012.
10. ↑ Nick Mason : Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004, p. 177

Web links

• Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii in the Internet Movie Database (English)