Ute Lemper - The Thousand And One Lives Of Ute Lemper - A Trilingual Portrait DVD

The Thousand and One Lives of Ute Lemper, Valerie Esposito's 1998 documentary on the idiosyncratic singer and actress, is a fascinating study of an uncompromising performer who defies categorisation. Every facet of her career is represented here: the award-winning musical star of Chicago; the cabaret artist who sinks her teeth into Weill like nobody since Lenya; the avant-garde pop singer who has worked with modern composers from Elvis Costello to Philip Glass; and the muse who inspired Michael Nyman to write her a song cycle. But Lemper can be an acquired taste. She... works at show songs with an intensity and individuality that set her apart from mainstream musical actors. The result can be so stylised that the emotional truth she strives for becomes self-conscious and even disengaged. There are some unanswered questions here--why, for example, does she no longer have any contact with Nyman?--but elsewhere her frankness in discussing her influences and her approach to work combines with the glimpses of her family life to provide a useful portrait of this extremely modern, versatile show woman. On the DVD: The Thousand and One Lives of Ute Lemper is presented in 4:3 picture format and has the quality of a top-class television production. The PCM stereo sound reproduces the various textures of Lemper's live and recorded work to good effect. There are no extras but the booklet notes are comprehensive. The running time stated on the cover is misleading: 145 minutes is actually the combined total of the English, German and French versions of the documentary.--Piers Ford [show more]

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