Bergman's The Magic Flute

@mcrowl (1050)
New Zealand
September 20, 2009 3:22am CST
I came across Bergman's 1975 made-for-tv movie, of Mozart's The Magic Flute on DVD the other day. I hadn't seen it since it first came out. It's a clever piece, cleverer than it first seems. At first we think we're going to see a filmed stage-production, but very quickly we realise that this is a movie of an apparent stage production: the scenery, though it looks like normal theatre scenery, is far more extensive than would be possible in a stage version, and there are times when we go behind the scenes: at the intermission, for instance, or even part way through the opera, when Papageno first appears. He's still offstage at that point, and there's this ambiguous mix of backstage and onstage. And then, we're frequently shown members of the audience (most notably during the overture), particularly a young girl who is totally absorbed in the opera. http://mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2009/09/magic-flute.html
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