New Adrien Maben Floyd documentary at Montreal Film Festival

Posted by: Jan-Erik Nordoen on 09 October 2013

"There will be a free outdoor screening of the restored 1974 version of Pink Floyd at Pompeii at the Festival de Nouveau Cinema in Montreal on October 10th at 7pm. This version comes from Adrian Maben's personal 35mm copy of the film, which was transferred to HDCAM SR and restored using the ArchAngel Ph.C HD at Vectracom in Paris.

The more exciting news is that Adrian has prepared a new Pink Floyd documentary called Chit Chat With Oysters, which will screen for the first time at the same festival, on Oct 11th at 9pm and again on the 14th at 1pm. This documentary is culled from black and white footage shot in December 1971 at the Europa-Sonor studio in Paris, when the band was mixing and overdubbing the Pompeii multitrack. You will have seen about 8 minutes of this footage in the Director's Cut DVD ofPompeii, but this new documentary runs almost 60 minutes long."

Source:

p://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/restored-pink-floyd-at-pompeii-and-new-adrian-maben-floyd-documentary-at-montreal-film-festival.330776/

Posted on: 10 October 2013 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Last call for any Montreal Pink Floyd fans. The screening is tonight at 7 PM.

Pink Floyd : Live at Pompeii, de Adrian Maben

Director Adrian Maben will be presenting the restored documentary. The film is "a kind of anti-woodstock" (Adrian Maben), where the goal is to focus on the music, and nothing but the music, ignoring "the reactions of the public."

Posted on: 10 October 2013 by m0omo0

Sure I'd love to, Jan.

First, Pink Floyd at Pompeii was quite a shocker when I first saw it in my teens. Second, I thoroughly enjoyed Montréal the couple of times I was there.

Have a great time (and report back) !

Maurice

Posted on: 11 October 2013 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

It was a meaningful evening (no pictures, sorry!). My son joined me for a pre-concert meal at a Korean restaurant close to the concert site. We introduced ourselves to Soju (20 % alcohol) that went wonderfully with dot sol bibim bap. Arrived at the concert site early enough to find two vacant seats in the front row. Free popcorn and blankets provided courtesy of Air France (Adrian Maben being a French citizen). Nice to see AF still doing things in style. Ah la France…

Adrian briefly introduced the remastered version of the documentary, stating how it captured Pink Floyd at the beginning of their “Golden Age”, and then left us to enjoy the film. Which we did. Immensely. My son had never seen Live in Pompeii and came away with a very good understanding of what Pink Floyd was all about, at least in the 70s. The sound was very good for an outdoor concert, very nice bass, though the treble was toppy. Adrian came back after the film to answer questions and provide some further details on how the music was recorded (12 microphones IIRC) and his hopes to see a 5.1 version realized before he joins Rick Wright in the great gig in the sky (he didn’t actually say that, but that’s what he meant). He spoke briefly about the new film he’s made from the recently discovered cuttings (Chit Chat with Oysters) and about the time he spent with the group, his key memory being the wonderful sense of humour of all the band members.

For me, it was a reconciliation with a rather bad experience I had during their first concert in Montréal in 1971 (I think). The combination of the circularity in their music and some very good acid (windowpane) brought me to the edge of an abyss, possibly the one that Syd Barret never emerged from. Circularity = madness ? That was the association that I couldn’t escape at the time. So, yesterday’s viewing was a trip once again down the same path, yet this time, I saw the circularity as arriving back home at a safe place. That, I think, was the message of their music at the time. Follow us into this plunge into madness, into space, beyond the conventionalities of the collective hallucination we call reality. Trust us, we’ll take you there, and back. And they did, although Syd never made it back.