With all the talented people behind this project it should have been great. Granted, I have not seen it on the big screen as it was intended. But I did find a bootleg widescreen copy of it on DVD at my video store and I have just finished it.
Super actors (Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr.), excellent designers (Oliver Smith's sets and Irene Sharaff's costumes), George and Ira Gershwin's music and lyrics overseen by Andre Previn, a director who often knew what he was doing (Otto Preminger) and a producer who usually knew (Samuel Goldwyn). And, yet, the thing never really comes alive.
I think the problem is that they were scared of the wide, wide screen and the camera is kept at a distance, so you never experience any of the drama subjectively, only objectively. Everything is long or medium shots except for 2 or 3 brief moments where you can really see the actors' faces. Maybe it works better on a big screen. But even then, the camera seems to be face level the whole time, like the way a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance number was filmed: always tracking horizontal, as if filming a stage show. If Vincente Minnelli had directed it, that camera would have probably been all over the place.
Several of the scenes that are sung in the opera are spoken here. That's not so bad, but, if I remember correctly, one of the famous arias, "My Man's Gone Now," is missing. Of course it isn't meant to be sung by Bess, so maybe it made sense to delete it.
Still, I've wanted to see it for a long time and was excited to finally get the chance.
Super actors (Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr.), excellent designers (Oliver Smith's sets and Irene Sharaff's costumes), George and Ira Gershwin's music and lyrics overseen by Andre Previn, a director who often knew what he was doing (Otto Preminger) and a producer who usually knew (Samuel Goldwyn). And, yet, the thing never really comes alive.
I think the problem is that they were scared of the wide, wide screen and the camera is kept at a distance, so you never experience any of the drama subjectively, only objectively. Everything is long or medium shots except for 2 or 3 brief moments where you can really see the actors' faces. Maybe it works better on a big screen. But even then, the camera seems to be face level the whole time, like the way a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dance number was filmed: always tracking horizontal, as if filming a stage show. If Vincente Minnelli had directed it, that camera would have probably been all over the place.
Several of the scenes that are sung in the opera are spoken here. That's not so bad, but, if I remember correctly, one of the famous arias, "My Man's Gone Now," is missing. Of course it isn't meant to be sung by Bess, so maybe it made sense to delete it.
Still, I've wanted to see it for a long time and was excited to finally get the chance.