I actually think Thom Zimny might have digitally added in a bit of “film damage” and gone out of his way to show sprocket holes and lens flares and whatnot for that touch of faux cinema verite he seems to love. He always keeps, or even adds, things like the hand over the lens, the clapper-type synch shots, the dropped-camera shots, the film elements that look blown out and processed poorly, etc. — and this film has numerous, gratuitous examples of all that. (He definitely added obvious “damaged-film artifacts” to at least one of his previous Bruce docs, along with maddening overuse of monkeycam, in which the shaky camera bounces around indiscriminately and frames the subject way, way off to one side as if Zimny couldn’t be bothered with tripods and viewfinders and other quaint tools used by “conventional” filmmakers. I know some people love his style of editing and shooting, but I find it so affected, like something a first-year film school student would turn in after watching some obscure German art house films from the ‘30s. It’s a form of carefully scripted spontaneity — with Zimny going out of his way to make it appear he didn’t go out of his way to do anything. Of course, Bruce must like this bogus “raw, guerrilla” style of filmmaking or Zimny wouldn’t be doing it again and again and again, but I find it insufferable and phony. Now, in Zimny’s defense, I absolutely love a few Bruce releases he has worked on, such as “Born In The USA Live: London 2013.” But he’s listed as the producer and editor of that film, with Chris Hilson directing. Zimny is also the producer, with Hilson directing, of the “London Calling: Live at Hyde Park” film, which is a fantastic concert film. Anyway, it’s not that I think Zimny is a hack. He’s an award winning filmmaker. I, personally, just can’t stand his style.
I'm with you. Mostly the faux-aged and black-and-white thing on Letter To You was awful. Like, we have all the technology available to watch one of the greatest bands on earth cut a record in the studio in vivid, beautiful high definition, and it looks like it's a staged scene from A Hard Days Night. Don't understand at all.
Yeah, I completely forgot about that one. I couldn't even sit through it once, and I'm a guy who has been to 76 Bruce concerts over the years. What bugs me about Zimny's style as applied to Bruce's music is that musically Bruce has always been about stripping away layers of artifice. Zimny takes the exact opposite approach in his filmmaking. It's just so affected -- and at this stage of the game, it's also very tired and predictable.
For some strange reason Zimny was obsessed with the digital clock above the stage. We got more shots of the clock than of Danny Federici.
Well, I'm noy sure he's entirely to blame for that since all he had to work with was whatever the original cameramen shot back in 1979. So we don't know what footage he had to choose from at any given point. The deliberate, repeated use of the very poor, blown-out footage shot near the rear of the stage is more perplexing since ANY footage from any of the other camera would likely have been much better quality. I could be wrong, but I sense he used that lousy footage because he thought it captured some sort of "raw energy" the other available shots didn't have.
There was plenty of raw energy on that stage. Multiple shots of a digital clock doesn’t add to it. Weird.
I like some of his work such as on the Darkness album performance recreation on the Darknesss bluray boxset. Except what we see executed was actually Bruce's idea and vision. Juat not a fan of his editing, in general, as it pertains to the timing between what I see happening and what I hear happening. General comment only. Anyway, I have the 2LP set and the 1st LP in particular, to me, is top shelf Bruce. Someday soon hope to watch this particular concert.
I'm going to throw some film-maker ideas out there. I'm only the messenger! The clock is representative of the urgency to action, or lack thereof, of time to take action regarding nuclear energy and human and planetary safety. It's like the doomsday clock. After all, its the topic that creates the concerts to begin with. Bruce wanted to be shown that it was he who beat Van Morrison to the stage clock. Zimmy has watched too many bootleg videos with running time codes or time stamps and they have left an 'indelible' inpression on him. It is a metaphor for Bruce's 'ticker' which almost gives out during that night's performance.
This just goes to show that almost everyone is more insightful than me. Well done. I tend to think a cigar is just a cigar.
Finally got around to playing my vinyl, all four sides. Over the top great. Wife loved it too. Booklet and poster included ( although the poster is folded at least six times ). Buy this, its worth it.
I I had DVDAE, a hi res extractor Windows for DVD, then my Windows tablet failed, and I cant get similar for the new Android tablet my daughter bought me. Software and external BluRay drives seem to be harder to come by, though DVDAE has apparently been upgraded to extract from BluRay.
13 songs are available with 24 bit 96 kHz as download: Album The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, Bruce Springsteen | Qobuz: download and streaming in high quality
I blame all of you as I just caved and ordered this as vinyl , I don’t have the means to play a blue ray and assume they aren’t hybrid like sacd so won’t play on my dvd player ?
