Product description

Wagner [1984]

Price: £13.98
RRP: £39.99 This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery
You save: £26.01 (65 %)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Average customer rating: 3.0

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5055002551895
Label : Metrodome Distribution
Manufacturer : Metrodome Distribution
Publisher : Metrodome Distribution
Release date : 2005-05-09
Title : Wagner [1984]
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Suitable for 15 years and over
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 3
Original release date : 1984-01-01
Region code : 2
Running time : 469
Studio : Metrodome Distribution
Theatrical releaseDate : 1984
Number of discs : 3

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-11-06 rating:

a very fine drama on a poor transfer
THe image: Wagner waves his baton and it ghosts across the screen like a cheap 1970s Top of the Pops effect...someone turns his head and his face turns to mush...daylight streams through a window and bleaches the screen like a pissedup cleaning woman...
Sound: the reviewers are right, friends and neighbours, some of the dialogue is out of synch with the mouths, and if you like Wagner's music, get a cd.

Great character actors make Wagner well worth seeing. Arthur Lowe has a wonderful 5 minute scene with Burton. Vanessa Redgrave is a cherished British icon, or should be. Richard Burton is so accomplished that he could stroll through a role with his eyes closed and still turn in a good performance, and so he does. He doesn't speak his dialogue, mark you, he recites it. Gielgud is excellent and there are several scenes between Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. "He gets paid more than the three of us put together," Richardson complains about Burton on their behalf...in character, of course.
Burton is always compelling because he has looked down into the abyss: he's walked along the parapet without a safety net, blind drunk.
And the director has some interesting impressionistic and whimsical touches, and he isn't afraid to pause.
The script doesn't flinch from Wagner's gruesome politics, and associates his preposterous fascism with his wilful arrogance, the result of living under too many high ceilings.

My version is the 4 disc German European issue. It is videotape quality. There are no chapter stops - none at all: press 'skip' and you'll miss an entire episode.
Don't flatter yourself as a valued customer: the dvd producers who put this out are banal hucksters who couldn't give a toss about your viewing experience and care not one jot about the material: they are out to make a quick profit and they take you for a chump.
And yet...
Wagner travelled and lived a lot abroad, so there are splendid location exteriors and exteriors...Swiss alps...Bavarian lakes and castles... Venetian waterways...opulent palaces...grand theatres...interiors as epic as the landscapes...

AS for its nine hour length, well, I can see why the series lasts nine hours. It's because it's too long. But then, Wagner went on a bit, don't you think?
The film's gentle pace isn't Wagner, though, it's Satie.
I enjoyed it, despite everything, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd take the blows, though there were times when I had doubts, and I'd watch it again.

review by: date: 2006-08-25 rating:

Let down by sound quality
This was a great TV Epic, but this DVD version is let down by the poor quality 2 channel soundtrack. Could do with a digital makeover, including some softening of Burton's face in earlier scenes; you have to suspend belief in order to imagine Burton was playing 'young' 37 year-old Wagner.

Otherwise beautifully filmed, very 'arty', and close to history.

review by: date: 2006-06-11 rating:

very poor sound quality...
...makes this edition much less enjoyable than it could and should be (excessive overmodulations all the time), along with strangely unsynchronized dubbing of a considerable amount of lines. fine acting, though.

review by: michaelk3091 date: 2005-06-12 rating:

3 disks and not 4 - the reason
The US version (Kultur) has four disks of lenght 136 + 131 + 97 + 105 minutes = 469 minutes.

This edition suppoesedly has three disks of 153 + 161 + 154 = 468 minutes.

So would guess it's the same contents.

review by: date: 2005-06-06 rating:
The answer to our questions
I have had the opportunity to watch the US version and, as far as I remember for having watched the UK version some time ago, the US 4-DVD version has a couple of extended scenes here and there, nothing of great importance for the whole of the story. The US version is however of relatively poor image and sound quality, and has no language or subtitle options. I would like to find out if the UK version has language options (German).

Similar products

Mahler [1974]
Ludwig (2 Disc Set) [1972]
Testimony - The Story Of Shostakovich [1987]
O Thou Transcendent - The Life Of Ralph Vaughan Williams [2007]
Becket [1964]

Similar categories