The Death of Klinghoffer

It is easy to see why 'The Death of Klinghoffer' will be riveting and powerful to viewers. It is also easy to see why others will be alienated by it. With me, it's somewhere in the middle.

The good things here are numerous and undeniable but it wasn't quite my cup of tea, there are better opera films out there that are more accessibly done and of operas that are much more familiar. Let's start with the good things, shall we? The orchestra have much beauty, fire, dramatic intensity and nuance in their playing, the chorus transports one to heaven with their music and singing (which for me the choral parts are the highlights of the score) and none other than John Adams conducts and does so with authority yet sincerity.

'The Death of Klinghoffer' is beautifully and cleverly filmed too, and with strikingly atmospheric use of locations and lighting. There are some dramatically gripping and poignant moments here, and that there were some cuts did help making the storytelling slightly tighter and less rambling and without being too incoherent (which has happened several times from experience in opera performance with cuts). The performances are uniformly good, with wonderful all round singing and the ability to bring layers to even the least interesting of roles. Really also have to take issue with the criticism of the acting being bad and that's what to be expected in opera, generally actually- speaking as somebody who listens to opera, watches opera and has performed in opera for well over a decade- acting in opera has come on a long way so I consider the statement completely untrue on the whole. It was schlocky at times when opera started getting filmed for television and film but there is generally more individuality and more direction of the singers, even the admittedly many badly done concept/non-traditional productions have moments of these.

Particularly good are Christopher Maltman whose performance is poignantly conflicted and mellifluously sung, Leigh Melrose who is menacing but never stock, Tom Randle who brings many layers to his role and a sonorous voice and Kirsten Blase's passionately engaged soprano. Sanford Sylvan is devastatingly moving and dignified also in the title role, and he sings beautifully and sensitively. Yvonne Howard sings with a lot of warmth and appropriate sympathy but also bitterness, the confrontation with the captain is hair-raising. Susan Bickley is dependably very good too.

For all those great things too, for me 'The Death of Klinghoffer' doesn't come off completely successfully and as an overall film is quite difficult to rate. A lot of the problem is that the opera itself is not quite to my taste (much prefer 'Doctor Atomic' and 'Nixon in China' as far as John Adams operas go), there are some undeniably beautiful parts in the music, especially in the choral sections, and the story does grip and move in the right places and generally is handled tastefully, but even for minimalist music (where continuous obbligato and repetition is a chief characteristic) the music too often feels too repetitive and pedestrian, parts did start to feel like a dirge. With the story, these dramatically gripping and emotional moments don't come over completely consistently, there are a lot of points of view and the story is never sure what is the most valid one while the characters, despite the very good acting, are handled one-dimensionally (both in the opera and the film).

While there is some bold use of archived footage, pictures and such that gives the story more context to anybody unfamiliar to the story, it does get too much and in places where they weren't needed and only there to bloat the running time. It also makes the storytelling not as easy to follow as it should have been, there are parts where it is very easy to lose concentration and find that there's too much to absorb. Some of the images are genuinely harrowing, in other parts and too frequently it feels overdone with the shock value and it over-complicates the story.

All in all, intriguing but also challenging. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I finished this movie feeling I had just watched a fine, if not exhilarating production. I expected an overall IMDb score in the range of 7.5-8.0, and found instead a score of 6.7. I then checked out the breakdown of the reviews, and found that a whopping 12.4% of reviewers gave this movie a rating of 1.0. Anyone familiar the history of Klinghoffer the opera will know that every time it premiers for a new season, it is met with fanatical protests, and epithets such as "anti-semite" and "terrorist sympathizer" are attached to the creators. It is this group that keeps the rating down.

I can tell you two things that aren't in this film: an anti-semitic agenda, and terrorist sympathizing. The hijackers are indeed "humanized" in the sense that they are given the complexity that a good story requires. Villains too are allowed to have some sophistication, and having a killer that isn't a ruthless barbarian from cradle to grave is not the same as sympathizing with his actions. The Palestinian terrorists are not the heroes of the story.

The film had the vibe of an indie flick. The production was not as technically elite as a higher- budget film would be, but it nevertheless kept a level of suspense and intrigue for the entirety of the film, thanks in large part to Adams' music and to additional location scenes in the West Bank depicting life in 1948, 1985, 2001, and 2003, news reports on the hijacking, shots of worried loved ones in America, and footage of the Nazi Holocaust and of Jewish refugees from post-war Europe.

It has come up in the user reviews that the Nazi treatment of European Jews is placed as an equal to Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Again, this is a fabrication, and there was no such suggestion in the film. For many, the achilles heel for this film will be that it simply cannot be removed from the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and conversation and criticism about it is doomed to repeat the same slogans of the real-life conflict.

Some may find that it is too broad in scope. I appreciated the historical context, but I would understand if others thought that it bloated the story. I think this criticism would be fair. But then, the film does not purport to be a documentary. Flashbacks, histories, and fictional elements of the character's personal lives are fair game, and in the end they probably give the film more depth than if all two hours had taken place on the Achille Lauro.

It seemed that the lead actors/singers were not film actors, but they do a good job anyway. The leading hijacker is particularly compelling. Leon Klinghoffer was also great. I felt heart- wrenching pity in many of his appearances. His character is done justice.

There were moments that were cinematically intriguing, but I wouldn't laud it for cinematography. Ultimately I would describe Klinghoffer as a political, suspenseful, thought- provoking, musical, and ultimately a unique move-watching experience.

Bad script, bad music and really bad acting. I could not stop watching this movie, because it was so bad. A movie adaptation of an opera about the terrorist take-over of the Achille Lauro was a really stupid idea in the first place. This movie rates in my all-time worst movies ever made. 1. The Thing With Two Heads 2. The Death of Klinghoffer 3. Showgirls 4. Mailman etc. What really amazes me, is that this movie was ever made. What were the producers thinking? The sequence of the murdered man sinking was comical, at best. I will put this on my Net Flix list so that I can have some friends over to watch this awful movie and relish it's absolute stupidity.

Channel 4 in the UK does some gutsy stuff and this certainly qualifies, inflaming Jews, Palestinians and Americans all in one film. It is a powerful document but I don't think it contributes anything musically. The lyrics are ponderous and pretentious. The music is banal and without emotion. But the story is well told and the film creatively, expansively (and expensively) done. But as an opera... Well, Puccinni would have done much better...

I just saw the premiere at Sundance 1/23/2003. This film is an adaptation of Adams' wonderful opera of the same name about the 1985 takeover of the Achille Lauro cruise ship and the death of one of the passengers. The film's music is exceptional as conducted by the composer with the London Symphony Orchestra. The singers are more than adequate in this difficult score and the character of the singing is revelatory as most of it was recorded live on a cruise ship. The choruses were particularly moving.

The action was not filmed on stage, but on a real cruise ship and the suspension of disbelief is remarkable. The acting is in large part astounding as events and arias pass and the interactions between characters are completely believable, despite that they are singing--it's as if this is a view into an alternate world, where music and song are ubiquitous and this is a document--a profound documentary at that--of those few days aboard the ship. Beyond that, director Woolcock uses flashbacks, flashforwards, and archival footage of Palestinian and Zionist history in the years after World War II to create a truly epic and humane account of the tragic events that could lead two peoples to initiate such acts of hatred and violence against each other.

The film is an amazing adaptation of an opera that everyone should see if they are a lover of music and life--Adams and Woolcock have done a beautiful thing in making this work (hopefully) more accessible to everyone. In the program for the film it said something like, 'the film is sure to stir up heated discussion'--I believe the film will do something far more important: it will put to rest some of the questions and misunderstandings most of us have of the world and her peoples.