Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart |  | Director: Sascha Paladino
Actor: Bela Fleck
Studio: DOCURAMA
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $16.55
as of 11/23/2009 08:39 CST details
You Save: $10.40 (39%)
New (14) Used (5) from $15.99
Seller: vinylsoundsbetter
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 2692
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.4
MPN: 158461
UPC: 767685158463
EAN: 0767685158463
ASIN: B001U9BRX4
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: November 3, 2009 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | BELA FLECK: THROW DOWN YOUR HEART (DVD MOVIE) |
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Amazon Q&A with Q&A with Béla Fleck and Sascha Paladino, director of Béla Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart
Did you actually play an akonting or another banjo-predecessor while you were in Africa?
BÉLA: Yes I did. And in the extra cuts in the new version of the film, there is some footage. I did better at learning their music on the banjo, though...
Has the trip to Africa affected or influenced your playing style since? For example, did you mimic any of Djelimady Tounkara's ngoni–inspired technique?
BÉLA: I love the way it has changed my playing and given me some different thoughts to try. I also got a lot out of all the live touring I did with Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate and the other great musicians who came over.
Have you kept in touch with any of the African musicians or people you met during filming?
BÉLA: Yes we have, some more than others of course.
Some of the musical moments ended up being pretty intimate; were you expecting that? Were any of the musicians uncomfortable being filmed?
SASCHA: I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew that the music would be amazing, but I didn't know how the musicians would feel about being filmed. Luckily, they really opened themselves up to us. Part of that had to do with Béla--when he pulled out his banjo and started playing, it put the African musicians at ease even if there were language barriers. Instant connections were formed through the music, and one of my goals with the film was to highlight those connections.
The setup of the story and the interviews are unobtrusive in that they allow the music to do most of the talking. Did you intentionally shy away from some of the documentary precepts for your first feature?
SASCHA: Yes. It was important to me to let the music speak for itself. I wanted to make sure this film wasn't just a collection of "talking head" interviews. I tried to include just enough of a glimpse into each musician's life and personality so that it would deepen your experience of their music, but not get bogged down with talking. To me, the film is a musical adventure, with Béla as your guide, that gives you a chance to hang out with and get to know some amazing African musicians. One of the themes that surfaced during the filming was the idea that Westerners are often exposed to the negative things happening in Africa – poverty, AIDS, war, things like that. As Haruna Walusimbi says in the film, that is only a very small bit of what Africa is. As a result, a big part of the film is about shedding light on some very beautiful, joyous things in Africa. One way we did that was by putting the glorious music front and center.
Though most of your previous ventures were in writing, are you going to focus more on directing now that you've completed this film?
SASCHA: I plan to continue both writing and directing. I like that writing and directing use different parts of your brain, but that in the end they're both really about telling good stories.
What made you decide to make this film together?
BÉLA: Sascha had shot a film about Edgar Meyer and me, called Obstinato: Making Music for Two. When he made this movie, I got excited about his talent, especially since he is my younger brother. So he became the obvious and only choice when I decided to go to Africa and realized that it would have to be filmed.
SASCHA: When Béla asked me to work on the film, I had been making short documentaries for a few years, and had worked as a cinematographer on a music film in Africa, so I knew a bit about the challenges and joys of making a movie there. Since Béla is my brother, there was a level of comfort in working together that was a really positive thing for both of us. Béla and I didn't grow up together (he is 17 years older than me), and working together was a way of getting to know each other better, too.
Would you be interested in going back to Africa, maybe to places you didn't get a chance to see, and making more music?
BÉLA: Yes, although I experienced so much on this recent trip that there is not a rush to go back immediately. I have some other projects to do right now, and other parts of the world to consider going to.
SASCHA: For sure. There's so much amazing music in Africa, we really just scratched the surface. There are many, many movies to be made about music in Africa!
Oumou said that Béla was better at communicating with his hands, that is, musically. Were you nonetheless curious or left in the dark about what the lyrics were saying? Haruna Walusimbi's song about his father was extremely moving; did you grasp the subject matter at the time?
BÉLA: I had no idea what Haruna was singing or why he was crying until afterwards. It makes it very interesting to watch now, knowing what is going to happen.
SASCHA: I had a very deliberate strategy with the use of subtitles. The first couple of songs in the film, there are no subtitles translating the lyrics. This is because I wanted to put the viewer into Béla's shoes – he didn't know what the lyrics were saying at the time since they were in a different language, and he was really focused on the music. But as the film goes on you start to get subtitles translating the lyrics, starting with Haruna Walusimbi's song. The lyrics, dealing with the loss of Haruna's father, are very meaningful, and they deepen the emotional experience of the scene. So, starting with that scene the viewer is taken out of Béla's perspective a little bit and given more information than he had at the moment it was filmed.
The music created and recorded seemed so organic to the process, did you expect the trip to be such an overwhelming success?
SASCHA: When we first arrived in Africa at the beginning of the shoot, we had some fears that things weren't going to turn out the way we had hoped, and we wouldn't find enough compelling music. But soon we found our groove – and some amazing musicians – and the result was better than we could have imagined.
BÉLA: We were very ambitious, but the trip far exceeded our expectations.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
Heart warming November 11, 2009
Gustavo L. Moré (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Beautiful. This DVD shows what a gentle soul can achieve through music and human tolerance. My gratitude to Bela Fleck and his team for showing us the timeless music of Africa and its great spirit.
Astonishing and moving November 3, 2009
L. Brakeman
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bela Fleck's journey to Africa is nominally about "finding the roots of the banjo." In reality Fleck's journey became an iconic odyssey into his own identity as a musician. As Fleck travels from one village to another, encountering splendid African musicians, you get a glimpse of the sheer power of the universal language that we call music. Sascha Paladino, Fleck's brother and the film's director, has an amazing ability to capture the subtle interactions between the musicians, even when they did not speak the same verbal language. The production team did a hero's work--usually in very primitive circumstances--capturing the unique sound of some amazing African instruments. For its humor, its musicality and its sheer humanity -- do not miss this film.
the Universal Language... October 18, 2009
HCE
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and now, Bela Fleck demonstrate the healing power of an authentic art form--before use value degenerates into exchange value, to cop a phrase from Marx.
Once said art form--in this case radical folk music--becomes commodified, it is lost to us. Once the artist is seduced he is longer that. Priest becomes pimp--which is the capitalist State in the US in essence.
For that reason Fleck needed to travel to the cradle of civilization, all but abandoned by the "civilized world," owing to their great distress, and, therefore areas still exist which remain relatively untouched by the corrupt corporate State here at Empire.
The folk music there beats on. Save the rain forests, save the species, save that which heals the dis-eased West.
All three are done for...
stats:
"In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called 'absolute poverty.'"
"Every year 15 million children die of hunger."
"The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world." Hunger in Global Economy
"Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people." UNICEF
"The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants."
"Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished."
"To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year."
"Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger."
"In Asian, African, and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in absolute poverty--starving. Every year, 15 million children die of hunger."
1) Google: African children starvation +statistics
2) watch the DVD
3) relax
Bela Fleck, African brother August 20, 2009
africhika
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
wow, i JUST came back from watching this at an indie theater in chicago. LOVE IT! bela is an african brother! western media only portrays africa in terms of despair, destruction, disaster, disease and destitution.
Bela shows the joy of African music and how music is truly universal. it may sound cheesy, but it's a wonderful documentary. the cinematography is beautiful as well. bela meets with fabulous people. this doc. is so rich and uplifting. bela is truly a gift and using his talent to do more than what most of today's pop singers don't have the guts/skills to do.
absolutely breathtaking June 29, 2009
A. M. Johnson (Denver, Colorado)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I just had the opportunity to see this documentary at a local independent theater. I thought "Banjos and Africa? Random! But could be fun..." I was so so so underestimating the power of this film! The music is nothing short of tremendous (one piece in particular, in the first quarter of the film, is virtually guaranteed to leave you breathless and astounded), Incredible, passionate voices and remarkable instruments combine to form sounds that will grab your soul and shake it.
Bela is fun to watch as he interacts with African musicians of various calibers. I love how unassuming he is, and how he speaks (as one of the African musicians points out) perfectly through his music, although his mouth sometimes fails him. What a remarkably talented and humble guy!
All in all, 5 stars +++. I went home and bought the MP3 album immediately, and can't wait to buy the DVD. :)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
|
|
|
|
