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Elgar (1962)

#1437 Documentary Music     Main  IMDB

Directed by Ken Russell. With Huw Wheldon, Peter Brett, Rowena Gregory, George McGrath. A partly dramatised account of the life of Sir Edward Elgar classical composer. Huw Wheldon narrates the life story over backdrops of beautiful mountain scenery, especially memorable is the image of young Elgar riding his horse around Malvern Hills.

1 hour. BBC. The 100th edition of the arts television programme Monitor was broadcast on 11 November 1962. It was a special film dedicated to the life of Edward Elgar, made by Ken Russell. A straightforward documentary approach was abandoned, in favour of what is now known as docu-drama, with actors taking the parts of Elgar and his family. However, there was no dialogue and only a dry commentary from Huw Wheldon. Instead Russell filled the soundtrack with Elgar's music and created a serious yet expressive film that has become a classic of its type. Elgar was filmed in the composer's homes, and in and around Gloucester and the Malvern Hills, where he lived for much of his life. The cameraman was Ken Higgins. Edwardian archive footage completed the picture. The artifice of the dramatized scenes was emphasised by the closing credits, which showed stills of the film crew at work. The programme revealed the breadth of Elgar’s music and aided his rehabilitation following several decades of relative obscurity. Russell's success with Monitor led directly to feature films, though he also made more programmes for the BBC, on subjects including Debussy and Bartok. Russell died in 2011, but today it is standard practice for documentaries to contain the dramatizations of the sort that he pioneered.

From the same director: #605 The Planets (1983)

Disk #1437 also contains: 10 Best Elgar