Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii (Director's Cut)

Rating:
Summary: If you're just a concert style fan, blow it!!
Review: This is the first rock video I had seen when I was 9. "Echoes" is amazing, still banging in my head until now. The expression of Rick Wright when sang it still visualized. When I visit Pompeii two years ago, this location was the first I look for.

Definitelly not for CONCERT STYLE / VIDEOCLIP fan. If you are, you'd better blow it and find Westlife video. Don't buy it.
It's a story, it needs emotion. It bring you 70 atmosphere perception of clips. If you open mind with this, BUY IT!!

Rating:
Summary: Great for the time, but by todays standards, not good.
Review: You have to appreciate that it was 1970. No surround sound 5.1 no big light show. The concert is actually filmed live in an empty old roman empire stadium. The highlight was echos. THe rest is just OK. The dog, singing the blues is cool. Most of the interviews are very difficult to hear. I have an old tape copy, maybe the new DVD release has address this.

In conclusion, its just OK, and probably only for serious floyd collectors. Pulse is the best. They need to release Delicate sound of thunder on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: I am a Pink Floyd fan. There are at least three phases to PF's evolution. This DVD focuses mostly on the earliest phase and my least favorite. I enjoy the latter two phases and the tail-end of the first phase. This DVD is not "live" in the sense of live music -- some of it is recorded outdoors and "live", but a real stretch of the term. If you are used to productions like PULSE, you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you are used to watching some poor VHS transfers of concerts, this is an improvement. To make it look better, though, many "modern day" items are mixed in. Having listened to PF albums hundreds of times, I was really disappointed with this.

Rating:
Summary: Uh, wot's the deal?
Review: Beware. This release is a double edged sword. Yes the extra interviews that are added and bonus features are great (Especially the original release). The problem is what we are missing by having the new footage added into the excellent original cut. And what is that? The band playing in Pompeii! The thing that the whole movie was originally about. The shots of dave and Nick doing their vocals in the studio could have been extra features. Or maybe, include the original cut as a bonus. Also, what's up with those 3rd rate computer graphics? Did the director do those at home? It's great to finally get this on DVD, but it's not what we've all been waiting for.

Rating:
Summary: Good...But not the Vhs version!
Review: Forgive me a brief, but possibly helpful personal history...
I was born in 1971, to a mother who enjoyed all things saccharine and banal artistically. I am a Christian, so I've forgiven this flaw long ago. My father, on the other hand, was a true appreciater of good art, and was an artist himself. One of my earliest memories was my Dad bombed out on hallucinagens, and playing Dark side..., I being 3, did not know what a "Pink Floyd" was. But that did'nt stop me from running for cover when the chimes blared out with a hellish zeal , signalling the beginning of "Time". My father, unable to speak, but quite happy nontheless would look at me quizzically, not understanding how I could not fully appreciate the "beauty" of what was taking place. Perhaps all I would have needed to do to affirm how grand this all was, would have been to look him soberly in the eyes and say..."WOW! Dad... I totally capiche!". But alas, I was only 3.
Anyway, my parents divorced when I was 9, and my father went with all his good music...and I was stuck with my mother and Barry Manilow.I do like the song "Mandy".
I rediscovered Pink Floyd one night when I was 16, and fell asleep listening to the radio. I was shaken awake by the chimes of "Time"...and I was subsequently drawn in love with floyd. From there on I got my greedy mitts on everything Floyd, and "Live at Pompeii", was my most cherished artifact. I was gleeful when I saw that it was finally being released on DVD. As the other reviews indicate, it's not quite the same as the vhs, a bit cheesy at the beginning as a matter of fact. This is not the band's fault. But it is worth every penny, if for nothing else, the joy and humor one gets watching Nick Mason beating the bloody stuffing out of his drums on "One of these days". Take careful note, how he keeps looking over at his high-hats and nods his head up and down, as if to say, "If all else fails...I'll know that I had kept good time!".

Rating:
Summary: Best Live Pink Floyd Available
Review: This is the best representation of Pink Floyd live you can buy. It isn't Pink Floyd's best live material ever. There are no official releases of the best Pink Floyd live music. But this DVD gives you an idea of how good they would be in following years.

This was originally a concert movie shown in theaters in 1972. The original movie consisted of Pink Floyd playing in ruins of Pompeii plus other sites in Rome. In was 60 minutes of music and featured the standard Pink Floyd "hits" of the time, like Careful With That Axe Eugene, and Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun. It also included the new song from the album Meddle called Echoes.

In 1974, the movie was re-issued with about 20 minutes of extra footage. The new footage consisted of interviews and showed some studio scenes of the group recording Dark Side of the Moon. The new scenes were added between the music tracks. I don't know if I liked the additional scenes. They broke up the flow of the music. Plus, when you went to see this at a midnight show, torched out of your mind, it was hard to keep awake through the extra footage.

This DVD contains the original 60 minute movie and the director's cut which includes the extra footage plus a few more extras. There is also a extra interviews with the band, and with the director. There is a history on Pompeii and footage of the band eating. Video and sound quality are both very good.

The nice thing about this DVD is that it really gives you a sense of the power of Pink Floyd in concert. You get a feel for the atmosphere of the concert, with the music blasting out of the wonderful surround sound system they used. And all the music is excellent. I saw Echoes being played on a big outdoor screen at Universal City's downtown and it was very impressive.

There are some hokey, dated parts to the way the concert was filmed and the special effects. Even in 1974, some of the effects seemed dated and cheap, like something you would see on your local TV station's dance party. The direct even admits that some of the scenes didn't really work. He wished he had the original film so he could redo them, but all the original tapes have been lost.

But, for the most part, the camera work and editing are excellent. The correct member of the group is shown at the right time (except during One Of These Days). It is certainly better than the filming and editing of many of the new DVD's like the ones from Gov't Mule or Roxie Music. Those DVD's just jump all over the place and you never get the feel that you are at the concert.

Pink Floyd was a very exciting band to see in concert in the seventies. They were always experimenting with the music. They would try out songs before they recorded them in the studio. Atom Heart Mother and Echoes were once combined. Dark Side of the Moon originally started out as a piece called Eclipsed. Sheep and Dogs were originally called Raving and Drooling and You've Got to Be Crazy and they were quite a bit different than what ended up on Animals.

In concert, Pink Floyd would also continually modify old material to keep it interesting. When they went on tour to promote Dark Side of the Moon, they stretched it out to 60 minutes with wonderful solos. They were so much more interesting in the seventies when compared to their reunion tours from 1987 and 1994. In 1994, they played all of Dark Side of the Moon in concert, but is was pretty close to the studio version and had none of the energy or sponteniety of when they played in the seventies.

This is the best of Pink Floyd's live albums because it is the only one from the seventies. The second best is the live version of the Wall called Is There Anybody Out There. I think the live version of the wall is even better than the studio version (it works better as a live show). Next comes Ummagumma from 1969 (which has many of the same songs as this DVD) and Roger Water's live release In The Flesh. The live releases from the 1987 and 1994 tours, Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pulse are merely good. There was also a TV show
done by San Francisco's KQED that is rarely shown. But the video of that is not great and I think it was recorded in mono.

Rating:
Summary: this dvd is awesome
Review: this is a stellar live dvd one of the greatest rock bands ever.very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Pink Floyd the masters of Psychedelics
Review: Pink Floyd created a new stly of music that we can all thank for creation of bands like Tool, and Nine Inch Nails. Thank You Pink Floyd

Rating:
Summary: Perspective from an average fan
Review: As someone fast approaching his fourth decade on this planet, I'm familiar with Pink Floyd and consider myself a fan, but not a big one. I'm relatively familiar with the bands history from beginning to end, but much of my familiarity with their music centers around their middle period. I hadn't ever seen this film prior to it's release on dvd, and I was only somewhat familiar with the music period featured on it.

So, from this perspective, I want to tell you that I think the Directors Cut is the better film to see for someone like myself, or especially someone new to Pink Floyd. I watched the straight concert film (non-directors cut) first, and while I did enjoy it, there wasn't always a whole lot going on to hold my attention throughout. When I watched the Directors Cut later on, I found that I enjoyed it more as there was more to see.

For the average person, seeing the unadulterated opening pan shot from the beginning isn't absolutely necessary. Maybe if you're stoned, as some reviewers seem to suggest here, slower passages where not much is going on such as this could be fascinating for you. I, on the other hand, drugless and with most faculties intact, found the "punched up" Directors Cut more involving with the inclusion of the space graphics & footage. Even with that, we still get a decent amount of the pan shot anyway.

I, contrary to some here, really liked the shots of artwork throughout the film too. These were some GREAT images to contemplate as the music was playing in the backround. I feel more connected to our shared human history when I see such great works of art and it was an enhancement to see them featured here on film. A wonderful marriage of sound and image, I thought. I also enjoyed the computer graphical representation of how Pompeii looked prior to the cities destruction. (I just wish there was a little more direct, one-to-one matching of graphics to actual scenic shots).

For those who have complained about the Directors Cut, I think the point to remember is that this film wouldn't have been made without his original idea and his drive to get it accomplished. If you think his new version is less compelling or isn't as well executed, fine. But,he deserves some slack here. I say we owe him some leeway to indulge in any way he sees fit, especially with the inclusion of the original film to salve any offended sensibilities.

Rating:
Summary: 'Original concert film' misleading, but it's still great!
Review: I saw a pristine print of this movie with a full house at the George Eastman House here in Rochester several years ago. With its glorious opening zoom shot, great music (mostly from Meddle), insightful (albeit brief and scattered) interviews with the band members, and fleeting glimpses of them at work crafting Dark Side of the Moon, it instantly became a must-have. But all that was available was a VHS copy, and I knew that this format couldn't do justice to the material.

I was elated when it was finally released on DVD, but also a bit hesitant when I saw that it was a "director's cut" - the original cut that I'd seen was just fine, thank you. However, seeing that one of the extras was the "original concert film," I figured that I couldn't lose, and went ahead and ordered it.

The bad news: Neither copy is the same one that I saw at the Eastman - the "original" cut does not include any of the interview or recording session material ... just the music. And the "director's" cut adds a lot of unnecessary outer space F/X and Pompeii art frills that sometimes distract from more than they enhance the core material. (The continuity of the aforementioned opening zoom shot is destroyed, for instance.)

The good news: At the very least, everything I saw previously IS on the DVD, even if I can't watch the movie in exactly the same way that I did originally. And hey ... this IS Pink Floyd! I've watched the film in its entirety five times since acquiring it and my fascination shows no signs of abating. This is no self-congratulatory vanity 70's "rockumentary" (e.g., Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same") -- it's a true time capsule that yields innumerable insights (some unintentional) into a landmark rock group on the cusp of superstardom. It captures the members at what would seem in hindsight to have been the apex of their camaraderie and collaborative music realization, and this makes it a must-see for any true Floyd fan.