Conceived by the French director Adrian Maben as "an anti-Woodstock film," Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii was shot in October 1971 in a vacant, 2,000-year-old amphitheater--a venue chosen to accentuate the grandeur and spaciousness of the band's

1 Echoes (Part 1) 2 Careful With That Axe . 3 A Saucerful Of Secrets 4 Us And Them 5 One Of These Days I'm . 6 Mademoiselle Nobs 7 Brain Damage 8 Set The Controls For T. 9 Echoes (Part 2) 10 Interview With Adrian . 11 Introduction 12 Echoes (Part 1) 13 Careful With That Axe . 14 A Saucerful Of Secrets 15 One Of These Days I'm . 16 Set The C

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Here's the deal:
The original version of the film, released in 1972, was 61 minutes long, and consisted only of performance footage from the Pompeii amphitheatre and a Paris studio, plus some extra footage of Pompeii. This was shot in full-screen 4:3 and is presented as such on the DVD.

Maben went back into the Abbey Road studios while the band was putting together DARK SIDE OF THE MOON in 1973 and shot some documentary footage of the band recording and talking. The new footage was spliced in between some of the original performances for the film and the result was released in 1974 in America; it was maybe 70-something minutes long. Unfortunately, this edit has not made it to the DVD.

Now, this new version uses more footage from Abbey Road, some B&W
footage of the band in a studio in Paris, new shots the director took of Pompeii, a whole bunch of archival footage of space exploration, and new titles that look made for a straight-to-video release instead of the Godard-esque ones we had with the original (Willy Kurant was one of the cinematographers.) This is about 91 minutes long, and has been inexplicably matted to a 16:9 format.

I must say the new footage seems extremely out of place. It doesn't match visually with the old footage, looking very straight-to-video. Much of the editing of the original is broken up with splices to new stuff the director just couldn't keep out ("Hey, Pink Floyd is "spacey"--- I'll put in computer-generated shots of planets!"); the result is more a series of thematically related music videos than a unified movie. What really gets me is that there's an interview on the DVD with the director where on multiple occasions he touches on why the original and almost-original versions of the film were so special, and then he proceeds to destroy that with his new version.

In the original, the ruined Pompeiian setting gave the movie a
palpable sense of silence and isolation; in the new version they're not much more than a pretty background. The original version held its shots long enough to give the viewer an opportunity to absorb the spacial setting for himself; now we're treated to the short attention span version of things. And why was this this thing masked to 16:9 for the new version? Having a dad who's worked on satellites and space probes my whole life has given me an appreciation for space footage on its own merits; but using simulated flyovers of Mars's surface to accompany Pink Floyd is worthy of a fan's website, not a feature film... please, let the spirit of "Laserium" rest in peace.

116 of 133 found the following review helpful:

A terrific relic for Pink Floyd enthusiastsJan 10, 2004
By Itamar Katz
Footage of classic period Pink Floyd is so rare and few, that Live in Pompeii is a real treat. It was filmed in 1971, at the peak of their musical genius and creativity (not to devalue the musical and conceptual brilliance of the masterworks Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, but musically they reached their peak in the period between Meddle and Dark Side Of The Moon), and shows the classic line-up - Roger Waters (bass), David Gilmour (guitar), Richard Wright (keyboards) and Nick Mason (drums) - young, energetic, creative and unpretentious. At this point in time, pre-Dark Side Of The Moon, they weren't yet settled in a niche; they haven't yet made it into the consensus, and they kept experimenting and trying new things, messing about with synthesizers and recording techniques. In this DVD we see them both in the studio and in performance, as they keep exchanging instruments and experimenting, and that's what makes it much more interesting and alive than the Dark Side and The Wall concerts, let alone anything made after the split from Waters in 1983, in which point they were just bleating out their old hits again and again in the same way. Only just managing to break free from the influence of their originator, Syd Barrett, the Pink Floyd are still, in Live In Pompeii, in a transition and struggling to find their voice, yet at the same time not certain of the relevance of their music. Nick comments in one of the many interviews thrown in between the songs - `We might have become a relic of the past... to many we represent that childhood of '67, the underground scene...' - and at this point, there's little in their music that signals of their great break into the mainstream in 1973. In between the performances, we get to see little bits of the Floyd in the studio, in the first stages of creating their masterpiece, Dark Side Of The Moon. It's a fascinating historic relic and an engrossing look at history in the making.

The musical parts of the video concentrate on Pink Floyd's most experimental instrumental numbers - in fact, only two vocal numbers were included, excluding old stage favorites like Fat Old Sun, Remember A Day and Astronomy Domine and recent numbers like Fearless and San Tropez - which allows it to give us a real look at how they were experimenting with their sound at the time, and to see them live, undubbed, is priceless. Take the epic instrumental A Saucerful Of Secrets from 1968; as Mason keeps the savage and steady beat, Gilmour is sitting on the ground with his Fender in his lap, gently running a slide up and down it, barely touching the strings. Wright pounds chaotic and nearly random notes on his piano, while Mr. Waters, his bass laid aside, plays percussionist and strikes the cymbals fierce and hard. He then walks off to the gong, and starts beating the hell out of it. Wright moves over to his organ and Waters picks up his bass, and they pick up the rhythm. Not synths involved. On Roger's own Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, he doesn't play bass at all; he just barely struggles with the lead vocals, and occasionally beats the gong.

The instrumental classics Careful With That Axe Eugene and One Of These Days we get to see the full ability of the Floyds' instrumental prowess, as they settle into hard and driving grooves with persistent drums and deep, powerful basslines. Careful With That Axe Eugene is shot by night, with images of bursting volcanoes juxtaposed with an ecstatic Roger Waters shrieking out the song's only vocals. The effects and editing may be dated, but the atmosphere is still mesmerizing. Synthesizers, whatever Floyd's criticizers may have been saying at the time, are used subtly and tastefully. In one of the interviews David and Roger discuss the suggestion that the synthesizers may have taken over their music, claiming rightfully that they're in total control of their music, and that electronic devices can ever only be means and equipment and never a replacement for the artist's creativity. Furthermore, they say, it's immensely important for a musician who wants to be in control of his music, to know all about the equipment, recording and editing. The film really does show Floyd to be a group of very conscious creators, who need to know and understand the final outcome of their efforts - it especially shows in the studio segments. This is and important trait that contributed a lot to Floyd's greatness.

A surprising and wonderful touch is the short number Mademoiselle Nobbs, a classic 12-bar blues. As Roger strums an acoustic guitar and David plays a soulful harmonica, Richard helps by holding the microphone for the lead vocalist - a lovely dog, who sings her bit in the finest blues tradition, in a soulful and heartfelt duet with Dave's harmonica. It sounds to me like the talented mutt is the same one who contributed her voice to the number Seamus from the 1971 Meddle album, and if you thought the dog's voice on that track was overdubbed, seeing Mademoiselle Nobbs live will change your mind. The concert is bracketed by the epic classic Echoes, which was split in half - a technique adapted on record only in 1975 on Wish You Were Here. Echoes remain, whether on record or live, one of Floyd's most wonderful and impressive numbers, and show their instrumental skill and creativity to the fullest. Strangely enough, this is the only song in the films that allows Dave and Rick to have their voices heard, while on their albums at the time they sang on most of the tracks.

Incredibly rewarding for Floyd fans, even those who are not as enthusiastic about the early material, is the extra footage added in 1973, which shows Floyd working on their upcoming masterpiece Dark Side Of The Moon. We get a chance to see David laying down the final layer of Brain Damage, dubbing the lead guitar part over the nearly complete song; we also get a glimpse of Waters messing about with the synthesizers while working on the classic electronic piece of musical paranoia On The Run, as well as Richard recording the vocals for Us And Them.

One final question - what's the matter with Rick's beard, and why is it fading in and out of existence throughout the movie? Because other than that, the illusion of a live concert is maintained most of the time, albeit one where the crowd is either centuries dead or carved in stone. The conception of the video, as well as the music, shows Floyd as what they were - one of the most original and creative (some might say pretentious, maybe) bands of their time, just one step before entering the pantheon of timeless music forever.

22 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Wonderful original filmNov 09, 2003
By Bernardo Quiroga Gomez
I just received my copy of this DVD from Amazon, and it's a wonderful DVD. Any film footage from the Floyd during the 60's/70's is virtually non-existent, so this original film, shot in 1971 at this ancient Roman Amphitheatre, finds the band at their pinnacle, enjoying a momentum that would last, at least, until their 1977 "In The Flesh" tour. The tracks are wonderful, and the sound, despite only stereo, has been beautifully remastered.
Then, why did I give it only 4 out of 5 stars? Because the new "Director's cut" is kitschy at best. Full of computer generated "space footage" (awful), plus DSoTM era interviews (some of them truly revelatory, and wonderful to watch), director Adrian Maben put in everything he could, despite the fact that most of that material was totally unrelated to the Pompeii concert. Thankfully, on the "bonus features" section, Maben had the good taste to leave the original theatrical film -unedited and uncut-, where the band performs their music, warts and all, as nature intended, and as millions of fans all over the world watched it originally. In my humble opinion, I think that the DSoTM interviews should have been included as bonus features, having the original film under the spotlight.
But, rest assured that if you like the early Gilmour era Pink Floyd, you'll absolutely love this DVD. The music is incredible, and the band are in top form. This is, probably, the definitive Pink Floyd live film we'll have from the classic years (at least, until something is unearthed from the 1970/1977 period).

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:

this is the REAL Pink FloydJul 27, 2006
By E. J. Ryan "Eamonn Ryan"
I just have one question. What planet do these guys come from? This is one of my most listened to DVDs - all the more so after buying Roger Waters In the Flesh and PF's Pulse, both of which I find sanitised overly-lush productions, and unfortunately highly over-rated and disappointing. I love the minimalist sound of early Pink Floyd - and this film captures them at their psychedelic best.

Unlike Pulse, there's no fancy light shows or distracting films to underscore how boring the performance is. A lot of reviews express disappointment at The Director's Cut - I've owned this feature 18 months and never watched the main film. I just watch the original movie - it's more than captivating enough.

It was a work of genius to film this in Pompeii, it emphasises the spacy nature of the music, the other-worldliness of their productions. It's hypnotic.

What I like about it best is the lack of extra musicians and backing singers - its just Pink. I listen only to live music, primarily to see musicians play. In South Africa, the major - or minor bands for that matter - never seem to make it this far, so seeing them live on DVD is the next best.

I wish a whole lot more Sixties music would be brought out on DVD - and I'm not even a flower child of the Sixties, though I sometimes wish I was!

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:

Echoes of Pompeii...Sep 05, 2006
By Paul Fogarty "Hopeless film addict!"
Now THIS brings back fond memories... of midnight showings, wall-to-wall hippies, "exotic" tobaccos, and... well, I can't remember much else! LOL! But seriously, as soon as this was released, in a "Directors Cut" no less, I raced out and bought it... and you can't imagine how crushed I was by what the director, Adrian Maben, had managed to do to his original film.

I've made it a rule of sorts not to write negative revues, I'd much rather tell you why I liked something than why I thought something sucked; my first exception to that rule was for the totally execrable "AvP," and this, I'm afraid, is my second. Thankfully the "Original" film IS included in the "Special Features," and it's for this that I gave the 5 Stars.

The production, such as it is, is incredibly simple by todays standards, we're talking 1971 after all, so, there're no lasers, no circular screen, no Varilights, no "Floyd droids," no mirror-ball, no wall, no pigs, no uber-show. What you do have are the four remaining members of the band, recently Sid-less, playing direct to camera in the Roman Amphitheater in Pompeii. Stretching themselves artistically in new directions, experimenting with new sounds and musical structures; in a number of the tracks presented here, you can hear the genesis of what they were to become, especially in the superb "Echoes."

Visually you get a mixture of static shots of the band playing, with the occasional tracking shot front and back of them. There's some footage of them walking on what appear to be the slopes of Vesuvius, looking at bubbling mud pools and clouds of steam. There're some over-dubs and front projection work done in a studio in France, but the most visually interesting numbers are "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun," "Careful with that Axe Eugene," and "One of these days," which are all performed at night... VERY atmospheric! "One of these days" is actually quite bizarre as practically ALL of the footage is of Nick Mason playing up a storm, the rest of the footage of the band, with the exception of a couple of blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cut-aways, was lost!

So, what IS the problem with the "Directors Cut?" Simple. The performance of the band has been butchered; interview footage, some of it unintentionally hilarious such as an obviously stoned David Gilmour telling the director that they're NOT a "drug orientated" band, "You can trust us," he says, has been edited into the breaks between the tracks. There's also footage of Gilmour, Waters, and Wright, in the Abbey Road studios trying out alternate versions of numbers from "Dark Side." All of this additional footage is well worth having, but, IMHO, it should have been edited into a separate documentary, or used to illustrate the obligatory interview with Maben, not shoe-horned in between the tracks themselves!

And then, as if to add insult to injury, Maben completely loses the plot and cuts in a bunch of grungy old stock NASA footage, y'know, Saturn 5 rockets taking off, a horribly pixilated 20 year old CGI'd planetary fly-by that looks as if it was produced on an Atari console, solar flares etc etc etc. This is embarrassing, I mean, the title sequence of "Star Trek Voyager" has better looking "space" footage than this old tat!!! Hell, if you want "trippy" visuals with your Floyd you'd be better off ripping the audio from the disc, converting it to mp3 and then playing it through iTunes with the Visualizer turned on!!! And if you're going to do that, edit the two halves of "Echoes" together via a 30-second cross-fade... I'm actually starting to like this version better than the studio one! Maben's justification for this travesty in his interview is completely bonkers, something about aliens in another galaxy picking up a faint broadcast of the Floyd's performance, then jumping in a ship and tracking the signal back to it's source!!! Oh, and did I mention the fake "Letterbox" format? (sigh)

My advice to any self respecting Floyd fan is to buy this and watch the "Original" film FIRST; just soak up the performances and marvel at how young and scruffy they all once were! LOL! Then, grit your teeth and watch the "Directors Cut" for the additional interviews and Abbey Road footage. So, in summing up... Pink Floyd: 5 Stars, Adrian Maben: 0 Stars!!!

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