Ferrante Fever
Queen + Béjart: Ballet for Life
Since Freddie Mercury moved like the Nureyev of rock, it’s only natural that the music of Queen became the basis for a ballet. Wanting to bring ballet to new audiences, choreographer Maurice Béjart composed the Queen-based Ballet for Life. The new release includes a documentary (with interviews of Brian May and Roger Taylor) and a 1997 performance by Béjart Ballet Lausanne. Béjart bent the boundaries of ballet as Mercury bent the form of rock.
Ferrante Fever
Elena Ferrante doesn’t peddle herself on “Good Morning America;” her face as well as her identity remains unknown. And yet the author of the Neapolitan Novels is among the world’s best-selling novelists. Ferrante Fever explores her word-of-mouth, critics-driven popularity while gathering insightful comments on her work. Jonathan Franzen says Ferrante opens a universe always there, but previously unseen. Other commentators add that she writes more with sounds than images in narratives that seem ready for film.
The Beatles: Made on Merseyside
The Beatles weren’t the only rock ’n’ roll band in circa 1960 Liverpool, England. They weren’t the first and for a long while weren’t even the most popular. That honor went to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Beatles: Made on Merseyside looks at the foursome’s origins through interviews with their mates and lots of archival photography. Liverpool was a sooty-grim place, but an infusion of new music brought the city life.
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes
“It was a music that had a sound to it—it sounds like Blue Note,” says the label’s current head, Don Was. This enlightening documentary cuts back and forth between present and past—between contemporary Blue Note recording artists such as Ambrose Akinmusire and Derrick Hodge and the label’s last century roster of Miles Davis, John Coltrane. The history is fascinating: Blue Note was founded by German Jewish refugees who loved jazz (and paid musicians fairly).
