I've had this for close to a year now, and am ready to watch it, and see if it comes close to the Volker Schlondorff version, which is very dear to me. Volker's version took liberties with the source material i think and made Mrs. Brecht unhappy i seem to remember reading of, but i don't care if he did or not, in fact i think if the filmmaker has what it takes they can do whatever they want with source material (ie: Kubrick's The Shining).
Alan Clarke is one of those great British filmmakers along with Ken Loach, and Mike Leigh, who did extraordinary work for television, some of the highlights i've seen include Penda's Fen - a unique experiment, was all hyped up to it, and thus it was a bit of a let down for me at the time (1974), Diane - a gritty drama i warmed up to quite alot, probably because there was no hype attached to it (1975), Scum - Alan's first biggie, was theatricalized too, an uncomfortable experience, but great (1977), Road - his directing style reaches a bravado level here in my opinion (1987), Elephant - had a Haneke feel to it (1989), and The Firm - Alan's last biggie, will need to see it again to fully appreciate it, as my memory of it is quite blurry (1989).
Baal as through the lens of Clarke is more stagey than Schlondorff, making sense as it is a play after all. Bowie is a great actor, each scene is punctuated by a brief musical refrain which has a Brechtian distancing effect to it. ..... Well this might be more faithful to Bertolt Brecht, i do prefer Volker's vision better, which makes you feel like you are thrust into a tangible world with a bizarre script, everything they say is like some symbolical poetry .... to get the most out of Alan Clarke's film here it is maybe better to channel one's fan feelings towards the late Bowie than to the German new wave, but it can't be helped. The spirit of optimism whispers in my ear that the 2nd viewing will be much better. Maybe by then i will actually understand what Brecht was saying with it, and not just taken along by style, and mood, basically about a drunken poet who gets on people's nerves, a downward spiral sort of story, indulgent.... as i type there is a delightful confusion going on with a lady singer in a bar kind of locale with midget clowns, i like that, it would be awesome if it gradually becomes more and more derailed and wacky, c'mon Alan!! ..... nope, it seems to be taking an abstract route, split screen, left a painting of the sun in the sky, and on the right 3 characters on a barren set, which was how Fassbinder did The Coffeehouse barren set, maybe Alan knew his Fassbinder, that would be a plus
Lot more split screen now as above here, so it is getting more stylistically pleasing. ..... ick, well just finished it, didn't like it overall, David Bowie's acting and not his singing is the good thing about it, there was a moment also where i almost was following along with what the characters were saying, was a nice feeling, the feeling of understanding something, but it quickly faded away. 1 and a half stars out of five. *_*
