Testimony - The Story Of Shostakovich (Full Film) | Tony Palmer Films скачать в хорошем качестве

Testimony - The Story Of Shostakovich (Full Film) | Tony Palmer Films

SUBSCRIBE:    / @tonypalmerfilms3262   Testimony bears witness to an unconquerable human spirit. The story of Dmitri Shostakovich, great Russian patriot and musician, confront us all by its heroism, its courage and its dignity. The most decorated Soviet civilian ever, and the only composer to appear on the front cover of Time magazine, Shostakovich lived through Stalin’s terror while most, if not all, of his friends were shot. His music is an eloquent and passionate description of his time; but it is his life, with its drama and its bravery, which remains his true testimony. Shostakovich was born in 1906 in St.Petersburg. He survived the Russian Revolution, and soon became, before he was 20, wildly successful and popular. He began working with all the famous Russian artists of his day: Meyerhold, Mayakovsky and Eisenstein. His symphonies and his operas were performed throughout the land, to great acclaim. Then, the fall. Stalin disliked the opera Lady Macbeth; the Russian newspaper, Pravda, wrote that Shostakovich’s music was chaos. He was denounced and humiliated, and he apologised. But at least he was not shot, and he lived on, writing music to inspire a besieged Leningrad in the Second World War. No composer before him can have been held in such high public esteem. Yet, once again, after the War, Stalin chose to denigrate him, even to the extent of sending Shostakovich to an International Peace Congress in New York and forcing him to castigate those of his fellow musicians who had fled Russia. Shostakovich never forgave himself for this betrayal of his friends. Stalin died, but Shostakovich survived, now pouring out his agony and his frustration in a series of heart-rending works. But his public humiliation continued. The KGB provided him with a permanent guard, so terrified was the Politburo that their most famous son would defect. Shostakovich’s heart failed in August 1975. But, even today, his music is regarded with suspicion, as if there were something dangerous about the notes themselves, which offended the State and unleashed emotions undermining its authority. Paradoxically, to the end he regarded himself as a good Russian and a good Communist, whose primary function as a musician was to serve the people. Testimony, based on Shostakovich’s own memoirs as related to and edited by his colleague, Solomon Volkov, is not just the story of a composer. In fact, the musical aspect of his life is only the sub-plot to a far greater drama, the relationship between Shostakovich and Stalin. Testimony is about Russia during the reign of Stalin. While politicians, generals, peasants, poets, Church leaders were being purged and destroyed - in all, some 31 million of them - Shostakovich somehow survived. How? Why? At what cost, personal as well as public? It is an amazing and awesome tale. It is also true. When the film opened the 1987 London Film Festival at the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square. the Russian Embassy in London took out an injunction against the film being shown. Hardly surprising, perhaps. Fortunately the injunction was thrown out. And it is arguable (as one journalist reporting the incident wrote) that the film awoke an entire audience to the importance of Shostakovich, the man and his music. A Masterpiece...Exceptional; an undoubted hit. - The Sunday Times Gold Medal winner, New York BEN KINGSLEY as Dmitri Shostakovich TERRENCE RIGBY as Stalin RONALD PICKUP as Tukhachevsky JOHN SHRAPNEL as Zhdanov SHERRY BAINES as Nina Shostakovich Directed & edited by TONY PALMER Screenplay by DAVID RUDKIN From the memoirs of DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Music by THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Incl. extracts from Symphonies 1,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 & 14 Violin Concerto No.1 ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ Michelangelo Sonnets Jazz Suites 1 & 2 Piano Concerto No.2 String Quartets Nos. 8 & 10 “Testimony is one of those comparatively rare events nowadays - a real piece of cinema. Palmer’s prowess as an editor, his knack of juxtaposing image and music - something which has remained his forte since he first caused a stir back in the Sixties with Buddhist monks burning to the Beatles - has a field day in Testimony. Most importantly for a movie about a composer, there is always the feeling that Palmer understands the music. For a start he puts to rest the hoary old cliché that the private Shostakovich is only to be found in his chamber music - try listening to the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Fourteenth symphonies - but he also brings vividly alive musical details (like the composer’s use of unison scoring) in colour sequences showing the orchestra, as in the climax of the Fifth….. a truly remarkable film” - Derek Elley ‘Films & Filming’ FIND OUT MORE: Tony Palmer: http://www.tonypalmer.org/