Paolo Conte-Razmataz (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Notes-Introduction by the author Script Biographies-Character Notes-Soundtrack Notes-Lyrics Notes-Musicians Notes-Songs and Singers Notes-Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	143:37 (Case: 140)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (73:26)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Paolo Conte
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Paolo Conte
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$39.95	Music	Paolo Conte

    For once, instead of supplying my own synopsis, I am simply going to quote verbatim from Paolo Conte's notes, available from the web site as well as on the DVD:

    "Razamataz is an old project I've been dreaming of for thirty years, a child of those mortal sins of mine, painting and music. A child too, of my untiring fascination with the spirit of the beloved 1920s, cradle of the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century, the place where any idea of "modernity" is obliged to return in humble pilgrimage."

    "The Twentieth century had its moment of artistic splendour in its second decade, when it found a revolutionary fervour that it was never to find again: a ferment of cinema, jazz and atonal music, modern painting from cubism to da-da- to futurism ... a period of such continual innovation that later periods couldn't hope to compete with it."

    "It's a pet idea of mine, that the passing of time keeps confirming, without any denial."

    "Razmataz is a story about the meeting between old Europe and young black music. And the meeting takes place in the city best suited to bringing them successfully together: Paris."

    "Europe, perhaps a little tired of its tamed and twice-told myths, wakes up to the fact that something new is being invented in America. All over Europe there's vibrant interest in the exotic, a cult of Negritude, the discovery of primitive art and a desire to weigh European values on New York scales, to take American lessons."

    "The work offers the audience a mixture of the following techniques: narrative voice, dialogue and monologues of the characters, live music, background music, sound effects, and many illustrations. Namely:"

1. "live music: all the music that, in the story, comes from a visible source (musicians playing, café singers, street beggars, gramophones turning etc. etc.). The musical compositions here, in contrast to the conventions of the musical, are numerous (20 numbers) and various: American music, French chansons (from a bal-musette waltz to Vaudeville to demon Java tunes), Italian-style operatic airs, a symphonic suite in the American style from the turn of the century, Spanish dances etc. etc."
2. "background music: (i.e. music in the background or used as a comment) 10 musical compositions."
3. "narrative voice: in a mixture of five languages (French, Italian, English, German and Spanish) supplying brief indications of the sequence of events and occasionally commenting on the ambience of the scene."
4. "dialogues and monologues: the voices of the characters, used according to the following criterion: French for all the Europeans, including the Germans and English living in Paris (the latter both retaining a marked accent betraying their country of origin), English for all the artists just arrived from America. Translations are provided by subtitles."
5. "sound effects: inspired by the cinema, but used sparingly in order to give as much space as possible to the music."
6. "illustrations: about 1800 sheets in a variety of techniques (pencil, gouache, oil pastels, ink) carry the narrative line and also establish the atmosphere of each scene (there's no attempt to create a similarity between the faces in different sequences - line and colour have been given the freedom within each sheet to bring out ethnic characteristics or to express underlying stage emotions)."

    "The coexistence of these separate languages come quite naturally, almost friendly, right from the first rehearsals. Obviously, the images don't move (though there are cuts, pans, tracking shots and zooms) and should be viewed perhaps more like pictures at an exhibition."

    "The narrative voice comments on the images and occasionally adds a dash of literary quality, while the dialogues have a contrasting directness and realism. But it's the music that really carries everything else and absorbs (in melodies and lyrics) all the atmospheres that are created."

    "The project doesn't inspire to be highly finished, but is a voice trying to explain itself, the ghost of a cinema that doesn't yet exist but perhaps wishes to be born."

    "Cinema, then, is a distant echo - perhaps we're closer to literature, closer to the interpretation of the pillars supporting screen-play that allows the listener to go further in the imagination."

    I think Paolo's notes summarise the DVD rather well. It is the equivalent of the "concept album" of the 1960s and 1970s rendered using modern multimedia technology. If you were fascinated by the above notes, and particularly if you've collected quite a few concept albums over the years and enjoy listening to a wide variety of musical styles, I think you will really enjoy this disc. If, however, you found the above text condescending, pretentious, or if you're not quite sure what the "point" is, I suggest you skip this one.

    The disc itself contains the feature, or "film" if you like, divided into chapters - each corresponding to a day in the storyline. As described in the notes, what you see is essentially a sequence of illustrations and sketches which the camera pans and zooms around to give an illusion of movement and dynamicism. Accompanying the images are background and foreground music, dialogue, and narrative. The "plot" as such is pretty insubstantial. I think you will enjoy the feature more if you stop trying to figure out where the storyline is going and instead pretend that you are at an art exhibition with one of those audio commentaries (containing narration and music) playing into a set of headphones on your head.

    Briefly, the storyline revolves around a group of American black musicians and dancers who have arrived in Paris to perform in a variety show called "Hot Jamboree" at the "Le Soir" theatre. Marius Le Rideau (Regis Ander) is the owner of the "Le Soir" and Michel (Bernard Tixier) works for him. The members of the group include the leader Supercharleston (Pierre Saint Ons), the dresser Scat (Marianne Halsey), musicians Eddy (Charles Rolando), Sidney (Richard Greenslade), Jab, Slam, Uppercut, Slim, Low down, Tam-tam, Swamp, plus a number of chorus girls and dancers. One of the dancers, Razmataz, seems to have disappeared upon arrival and Zeus Dupoint (Daniel Russo), who goes by the nickname of "Aigrette", is an ex-policeman who has been hired to look for her. Along the way, we also get to meet a few other interesting characters:

• Lou Zéphir (Philippe Dumond), the "King of Mustard"
• Ines da Costa (Christine Delaroche), Lou's wife originally from Cuba
• Flirt (Laurent Kupferman), a male fashion designer
• Atelier and Ezra, who works for Flirt
• Zarah (Pauline Larrieu), an German expressionist singer recently arrived from Berlin
• Jessica Elliot, an English author of mystery novels
• Yellow Book, Jessica's Chinese secretary
• Pastrone (Raffaele Fallica), an Italian tourist
• Vive La Nuit (Daniel Colas), head of the gypsies
• Doctor Jazz (Richard Greenslade), a black busker

    The disc is highly multilingual. You are allowed to choose between Italian, French, English, German and Spanish for the menu language, narration and subtitles. However, I suspect to fully appreciate the voices you probably need at least a basic understanding of French and English. Incidentally, Paolo breaks the "criterion" (sic) of the voices of the characters - on the notes he says all the European characters will speak French, and yet Pastrone (Raffaele Fallica) seems to be speaking Italian.

    Paolo Conte is an Italian singer-songwriter with an eclectic range of musical styles ranging from cabaret, vaudeville, to jazz. He does not seem to be well-known in this country and I found it difficult to find any of the albums that he has released in local music stores. After my encounter with this disc, I think I will be on the lookout for some of his other works.

Video

    This is a full frame transfer (not 16x9 enhanced) and presumably the original aspect ratio is 1.33:1.

    Because the film mainly consists of a number of still illustrations which the camera then pans and zooms across, the transfer doesn't really require a high encoding bitrate to achieve high quality images. Therefore I was not surprised by the general sharpness and detail of the images, and the near-perfect colour saturation.

    The only issue I have with this transfer is the tendency towards aliasing in diagonal lines. There seems to be a glitch in the transfer around 54:10 where all we get is "static" - almost as if I was watching a TV that had lost the signal for a second or two. I am not sure whether this is a fault in the film source or a problem with the transfer. There are also other minor instances of video tape glitches in various places, betraying the analogue origin of the video source.

    As mentioned before, the disc comes with a number of subtitle tracks, which are turned on by default depending on the language option you choose for the narration. Because I selected English for the narration language, I was provided with the English subtitle track. I was interested to discover that the subtitle track even subtitled English voice as well as French voice, though it does not do the English dialogue consistently (it sometimes skips providing subtitles if the English dialogue is quite clear and easy to understand and prefers to subtitle dialogue that may be spoken quickly or sung).

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL) and the layer change occurs at 73.26 in between chapters. As there is a natural pause between chapters where the screen is blank and the audio track is silent, this change is not noticeable at all (unless you go hunting for it which I did).

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on this disc, all in Dolby Digital 2.0 (448 Kb/s), corresponding to the following languages: Italian, French, English, German and Spanish, consistent with the choices available for menu language and subtitles. All audio tracks contain identical material apart from the narration. The dialogue and voices are not translated. As mentioned before, I listened to the English audio track.

    I am quite impressed with the high quality of the audio track. It comes across as being very close to CD quality apart from a slight boominess in the dialogue and narration which is characteristic of the Dolby Digital compression process. The soundstage is very solid and immersive. The audio track is mastered at a relatively high level (probably about 4 dB higher than average).

    The rear surround channels are very subtly used for ambience only, and we get almost no panning of Foley effects to the rear channels. Quite surprisingly, the audio track has rather aggressive and strong use of low frequencies, which are directed both to the front speakers as well as to the subwoofer (LFE) track. Indeed, I am almost over-powered by the strong and continual presence of the subwoofer and the deep bass and I'm almost suspecting that perhaps the LFE track has not been balanced well with respect to the main channels.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is full frame and is completely textual (eg. no graphics, animation or music).

Booklet

    This is a four page booklet (ie. a sheet of paper folded in half). The inner pages provide a black and white photo of Paolo Conte together with some words describing what Razmataz is all about. The back page contains a list of cast and crew credits.

Notes-Introduction by the author

    This is a set of stills containing the text quoted verbatim in the plot synopsis.

Script

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills containing a transcription of all the lines of dialogue and narration spoken during the feature. The language of the script is the same as the menu language (i.e. all French, English and Italian voices have been translated to the language of choice).

Notes-Cast

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing an illustration and a brief description of each of the characters in the feature.

Notes-Instrumental pieces

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing a track listing of the musical pieces embedded in the feature.

Notes-Lyrics

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing the lyrics to the songs which contain singing.

Notes-Musicians

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing a listing crediting the musicians who have performed in the musical pieces.

Notes-Songs and Singers

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing a listing crediting the singers who have performed in the songs.

Notes-Credits

    This is a set of sub-menus/stills providing a listing crediting the cast and crew involved in the production of the feature.

    I cannot find any evidence of this disc being available in Region 1.

    Razmataz is an interesting mixture of pans and zooms of still images accompanied by dialogue, narration and music (of a variety of genres). It reminds me of "concept albums" of the 1960s and 1970s but rendered with a European multi-lingual approach. It is presented on a DVD with excellent audio and video transfers (apart from a brief video glitch). The extras are mainly stills containing textual information.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall