Amazon.com: Conceived by the French director Adrian Maben as "an anti-Woodstock film," Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii was shot in October 1971 in a vacant, 2,000-year-old amphitheater--a venue chosen to accentuate the grandeur and spaciousness of the band's Meddle-era music. This disc contains a new, 90-minute director's cut as well as the original 60-minute concert film, whose production and effects feel inescapably dated. Maben's cut goes to great lengths to lend the film a more contemporary feel, but it's the earlier version that makes this disc such a gem, being more focused on the music and more wholistic in vision. The anamorphic, 16:9 director's cut interweaves the Pompeii performances with fascinating but distracting interviews and music snippets filmed later (mostly during the recording of Dark Side of the Moon). The movie was originally prepared in a 4:3 aspect ratio, however, and the widescreen version crops perfectly framed images like the nine-square mosaic of drummer Nick Mason in "One of These Days." The original offers plenty of closeups of fingers on frets and keys, with shots that are often luxuriously long in duration. And the picture quality from Pompeii is revelatory: outstandingly sharp and clear, rich in subtle grades of light and color.
Generous extras include everything from original posters, reviews, bootleg album covers, and song lyrics to a 24-minute interview with Maben. But for all the director's talk of the glorious acoustics in Pompeii's amphitheater, there's little natural ambience to be heard. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is clear, dry, and two-dimensional, though notably better than any previous video release. --Michael Mikesell
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - floyd fans light up!
The first time I saw this I was excited and found when viewing this film that not only do you get to see pink floyd displaying how extremely talented and creative they are, but get to see them as individuals struggling with the world around them, their relationships with each other and themselves. very cool rare footage of pink floyd during the recording of dark side the moon! They play live and oh man is it swweet!
Rating: - Same good show, with a little bit more
Since I lost my VHS version of this film, I had missed the occasional nostalgic viewing. This DVD version brings it all back. It's as good as ever, and includes some new enhancement to the setting at Pompeii. Worth replacing your old version.
Rating: - See Gilmour Play
Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii - Great, great, great, great!!!! This DVD contains the "Director's Cut" as well as the original concert film. Basically the Director's cut features lots of extra visuals, including computer graphic recreations of Pompeii, the exploding Vesuvius, and other things like NASA shots of rockets going up into space, space walks, images of suns and stars and moons and planets, all the usual things you'd expect of someone depicting a "space rock" band. It also has some extra bits from the studio in Paris when they were recording "Dark Side of the Moon." The Directors Cut starts ... Read More
Rating: - Can Pink Floyd be any less than fantastic?
Compared to the original version of "Live at Pompeii" this one has more material in it, without anything dropped. There are some more interviews, where Roger makes fun of the interviewer, that's so much fun! And some Odyssey like video parts have been added to the songs that looks pretty cool.
Rating: - Too much tampering with a good thing
"Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii - The Director's Cut" could have been a better film than it is, even with the extra and new footage, if Adrien Maben hadn't tried to run the gamut here. It's total overkill. The audio is now more clear sounding, and the picture is now sharper than it was, and some alternate footage from the time is included to enhance the experience, but there is some serious inconsistency in the bigger picture.
In its original form, the viewer gets an opening sequence made up of some eerie music the band recorded for the film, some shots of the Roman ruins, and the preliminary ... Read More
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