September Songs; The Music of Kurt Weill

 ((CANADIAN -- DOCU))

By DENNIS HARVEY

Read other reviews about this film

Powered By

A Rhombus Media Inc. production in association with ZDF German Television. Produced by Niv Fichman, Larry Weinstein. Directed by Larry Weinstein, Screenplay, Weinstein, David Morton.
 

German music-theater giant Kurt Weill is paid tribute in "September Songs," a performance omnibus that, despite elegant 35mm lensing, feels like a series of musicvid clips. Broadcast earlier this year on PBS' "Great Performances," pic is currently making fest rounds, and could score select theatrical engagements on the strength of its all-star performing roster despite previous TV exposure.

Though granted a sometimes inventive overall visual concept by helmer Larry Weinstein, feature seems more a vehicle for musical director Hal Willner's producing clout. (He's steered several stellar disc tributes to significant jazz/pop composers, including the highly regarded '85 Weill salute "Lost in the Stars.") Weill looks an ideal vessel for a variety-format homage: His work's pessimistic tenor (most famously in long-term collaboration with Bertolt Brecht) and its accessibility to idiosyncratic interpretation appeals to vocalists both with and without formal training.

Yet on purely musical grounds, "September Songs" frustrates. Performers are chosen for their diversity of styles, yet many fizzle here: Jazz legend Betty Carter pitch-wobbles through "Lonely House," Brodsky String Quartet's lovely "Lost" arrangement is wasted on a ragged-sounding Elvis Costello, and Lou Reed's version of the title ditty is, oddly, far inferior to the one he recorded on Willner's original album. The cool attitudinizing of alternative-rock icons like Nick Cave and PJ Harvey seems amateurish in this unfamiliar context.

Weinstein's staging gambits don't always pan out, either. "Aggie's Song" (with Kathy Dalton) pointlessly becomes a rote nod to Busby Berkeley, while the closing modern-dance bit for "Speak Low" (played by jazz bassist Charlie Haden, joined by the late Weill himself on an old vocal recording) falls flat.

Best sequences hew closest to spirit of original Weill shows like "The Threepenny Opera." David Johansen leads a quartet of drunken partiers on a flatbed truck in "Alabama Song," while opera star Teresa Stratas lends both sterling pipes and straightforward drama to two numbers. More eccentrically, writer William Burroughs' trademark parchment-dry voice sparks a reading of "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" The one real revisionist success is executed by Ghettoriginal Dance Company, whose radically altered "Mandalay B-Boy Parlay" deploys rap and hip hop moves to joltingly update Weill's urban-undercaste critique.

All sequences were shot in a turn-of-the-century warehouse, with resourceful art direction setting a distinct mood for each. Occasional entr'actes deliver (via loudspeaker voiceovers, newsreel footage and other devices) an impressionist overview of Weill's life/career/influence, including his flight from Nazi persecution and marriage to Lotte Lenya. Tech aspects are very sleek. Taken as a whole, however, this enterprise is all too often disappointing and dull.

Camera (color), Horst Zeilder; editor, David New; musical director, Hal Willner, production design, Michael Levine. Reviewed on videocassette, San Francisco, June 26, 1995. (In S.F. Jewish Film Festival Running time: 89 MIN.
 

With: Elvie Costello, Brodsky Sting Quartet, Lou Reed, Teresa Stratas, Betty Carter, Charlie Haden, The Persuasions, David Johansen, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Stan Ridgeway, PJ Harvey, Kathy Dalton, Ghettoriginal Dance Company, William S. Burroughs, O Vertigo Dance, Nick Cave, Esprit Orchestra, Ellen Shipley, Ralph Schuckett, Bob Dorough.