Marianne Faithfull-Dreaming My Dreams (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Sessions At West 54th Featurette-Photo Montage DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	89:00
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Michael Collins
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Marianne Faithfull John Dunbar Anita Pallenberg Keith Richards
Case	Click
RPI	$29.95	Music	Marianne Faithfull

    Why is it that those with angelic and sweet faces and voices lead the most controversial lives? Marianne Faithfull is a case in point: even now after years of cigarettes, alcohol and drug abuse, she still looks striking - when she was young she looked like a fresh-faced and innocent English flower complete with a well-bred accent and a voice that could probably compete with Charlotte Church in terms of sweetness. And yet her lifestyle seems to be the personification of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

    This is a combination of an in-depth documentary of Marianne and some excerpts from a Sessions at West 54th performance. It is a combination of historical stills, excepts from an early interview by Brian Epstein (filmed by the BBC in 1964 - the year she became famous), excepts from various songs, stage performances and music videos, plus a number of retrospective interviews of Marianne and people who knew her.

    The documentary takes us through the events in her life and career chronologically, with the years captioned as the documentary progresses. We start off with early childhood including backgrounds of her parents - father Glynn Faithfull was an MI6 spy and mother Eva Von Sacher-Masoch was an aristocratic dancer. With that kind of an exotic ancestry, maybe it's no surprise that her life has turned out to be so interesting.

    The documentary then progresses through her schooldays at a Catholic convent, meeting her first husband John Dunbar, being "discovered" and suddenly becoming famous, her controversial relationship with Mick Jagger, her addiction to LSD and heroin, sinking into depression (culminating with a near fatal sleeping pill overdose during a visit to Sydney), breaking up with Mick, living on the streets, her shock over the death of Brian Jones and finally her rehabilitation and the re-emergence of Marianne the survivor.

    Contemporary interviews include not only Marianne (with a voice coarsened and deepened through years of abuse) but also:

• Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)
• David Dalton (biographer)
• Sally Oldfield (friend)
• John Dunbar (ex-husband, artist)
• Pamela Mayall (friend)
• Anita Pallenberg (actress and friend)
• Frank McGuiness (writer)
• Barry Reynolds (writer, producer)
• Kate Hyman (V2 Records)

    We also get to watch excerpts from the following TV performances and music videos of the following of her songs:

• Vagabond Ways
• As Tears Go By (in about three versions, shot in 1964, 1987 and 1989)
• This Little Bird
• Come and Stay with Me
• Sister Morphine
• Three Sisters
• Dreaming my Dreams
• Broken English
• Why'd Ya Do it
• Truth, Bitter Truth
• Times Square
• Strange Weather
• Incarceration of a Flower Child
• One Foot in the Past

    I was quite fascinated by the short excerpts from her stage appearances in Hamlet, Chekhov's Three Sisters as well as her recent fascination with the music of Kurt Weill. Although I was not familiar with her songs I was struck by her intensely personal performances - she seems to turn everything she sings into a commentary about her life.

    The last half an hour features a selection of performances of Marianne's most well-known songs recorded in a Sessions at West 54th performance.

Video

    This documentary is presented in full frame 1.33:1 as it is intended for TV broadcast.

    I found the transfer fairly soft. Obviously, the historical footage is full of various artefacts (film and video), and either faded or garish colours depending on the material, but the contemporary interviews and Sessions at West 54th performances are more presentable in terms of clarity and colour saturation.

    Detail levels are fairly mediocre due to minor pixelization which persists throughout the entire transfer.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

    The audio track for the first hour during the documentary is pretty much broadcast TV in quality and I did not really notice any use of the rear channels.

    The audio track for the Sessions at West 54th section seems to be mixed at an extremely low level - I had to turn up the volume at least 12 dB above normal. Most Dolby Digital decoders, especially those based on fixed point rather than floating point processing, are not going to handle this very well (such as the one built in to my DVD player) and the audio track will sound fairly flat and front focused.

    Using the Dolby Digital decoder in my receiver and turning up the volume however revealed a fairly immersive multi-channel mix and reasonable usage of the subwoofer.

    I did not notice any dialogue synchronisation issues either during the documentary or in the studio performances.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This is a pretty minimalist disc.

Menu

    Full frame, but includes simple animation and background audio.

Featurette-Sessions At West 54th

    This is not really a separate featurette at all but simply jumps into the last half an hour of the main feature.

Featurette-Photo Montage (1:41)

    This is a video sequence panning in and out of various stills accompanied by an excerpt from Vagabond Ways. Presented in full frame, Dolby Digital 2.0.

DVD Credits

    This is a single still crediting those involved in the DVD authoring that is displayed at the conclusion of playing the main feature.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track (surround encoded?)

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Photo montage video

    I don't see any significant differences between the two versions.

    Marianne Faithfull - Dreaming My Dreams is a combination of an hour long documentary that comprehensively covers her life and career, including both historical footage and contemporary interviews, plus an half an hour excerpt from the Sessions at West 54th performance by Marianne. The video and audio transfers are fairly mediocre, and extras are very limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall