Category Archives: Movies
Shostakovich’s First Film Score
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th September 2019Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 29 film scores. The first of these was composed when he was 23 years old. The New Babylon is an expressionistic depiction of the Paris Commune of 1871. It was released in 1929 and was a failure. It’s plot is summarized here. The music is brilliant and presages virtually everything Shostakovich was…
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Ella Brennan – Commanding the Table
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th April 2018This is not a film review, rather it’s a recommendation that you see the movie the title of which is above. Netflix has it. The movie tells the story of Ella Brennan who has been the Doyenne of New Orleans restaurateurs for more than 60 years. She first made Brennan’s into a eating powerhouse. She…
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Shostakovich – The Gadfly
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th January 2018Dmitri Shostakovich’s music seems to be in the process of eclipsing that of all other 20th century composers, again proving Verdi’s dictum that the only critic that counted, in the long run, was the audience. The Russian composer was a prolific composer of film music. His most famous piece from that ouvre is the Romance…
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Ich Ging zu Ihm – Korngold Das Wunder Der Heliane
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th November 2017The title of this piece is the 2nd act aria from Das Wunder Der Heliane by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957). The opera was completed before the composer reached his 30th birthday. His most popular opera, Die Tote Stadt, was written when he was only 23. Born in Moravia, but raised in Vienna, Krongold was the…
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John Wayne – A Biography
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th June 2014John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyman 672 pages Simon & Schuster – 2014 Why a new 574 page biography (this total does not include the notes and index) on a movie star who died in 1979 and who likely made more bad films than any other actor in the history of the business? Because…
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Metropolis Elektro at the LHUCA
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th March 2013Fritz Lang’s silent movie epic with an original soundtrack was performed live to two sold out audiences on March 22 and 23 at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. The music was written by Scott & Amy Faris. The film was the opening work of the 2013 Flatland Film Festival. Metropolis is a landmark in the history…
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When the Saints Go Marching In
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th November 2011Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye in a scene from The Five Pennies – 1959. Here’s an encore. Danny Kaye – Tchaikovsky (Weill/Gershwin) Here are the Russian composers mentioned in the song, in order: Witold Maliszewski, Anton Rubinstein, Anton Arensky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Wassily Sapellnikoff, Nikolay Dmitriev, Alexander Tcherepnin, Ivan Kryzhanovsky, Leopold Godowsky, Nikolai Artsibushev, Stanisław…
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Flatland Film Festival Opens
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th October 2009Lubbock’s 5th Annual Flatland Film Festival opened last night (Oct 15) at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts. The first half of the program offered four shorts films . The second presented a full length ( 85 minutes) feature, A Quiet Little Marriage. Spoiler alert! The plots of these films are discussed in…
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Fitzcaraldo and Opera
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th January 2009Somehow I didn’t get around to seeing Werner Herzog’s movie Fitzcaraldo, released in 1982, until now. I thought it was about a mad attempt to haul a steamboat over a small mountain. While moving the boat over the obstacle that separates one river from another is a central part of the story, the film is…
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