England,
2003, 120 min
Shown in 2003
CREDITS
- dir
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Penny Woolcock
- prod
-
Madonna Baptiste
- scr
-
Penny Woolcock
- cam
-
Graham Smith
- editor
-
Brand Thumim
- mus
-
John Adams
- cast
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Christopher Maltman, Dean Robinson, Vivian Tierney, Tom Randle, Kamel Boutros
- source
-
Blast Films, 2 Imperial Works, Peppen St., London, NW5 3ED, United Kingdom. EMAIL: mbaptiste@blastfilms.co.uk.
-
COMMENTS
Penny Woolcock, John Adams in person.
OTHER
Based on the infamous 1985 Achille Lauro incident, in which four Palestinians hijacked an Italian cruise ship and killed a wheelchair-bound Jewish passenger before finally surrendering, John Adams’ controversial 1991 opera’s even-handed, humanizing treatment of both Israeli and Palestinian suffering now seems even more necessary in today’s climate of hostility and paranoia. Penny Woolcock’s adaptation highlights its humanist sympathies by surprisingly merging its avant-garde, stage-driven music with an almost documentary-like approach, filmed at actual locations across the Middle East and with handheld camerawork lending a startling, raw immediacy. All music and singing was recorded live, with Adams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra to great affect to highlight each actor’s—all actual opera singers—librettos and choral passages. Woolcock uses the cinematic medium to flesh out the stories of each protagonist with flashbacks, fictional narratives, archival footage and added dramatizations, creating a world as immediate as any documentary, yet as theatrical as the greatest operas. While fascinating for anyone interested in opera or in the adventurous new ways that cinema and stage are brought together, The Death of Klinghoffer is a work that proves that a creative piece—whether film, opera or song—can still stimulate dialogue over a political situation as chaotic and controversial now as then.
FACTOID #361
John Huston, director of classics The Maltese Falcon and The Misfits, was honored with a Festival tribute in 1968. His daughter Anjelica received the Peter J. Owens Award in 1991; The Dead, one of the father-daughter duo’s collaborations, screened at her onstage interview.
