The Full Monteverdi is a British

Cinema of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

 film (2007), written and directed by John La Bouchardière

John La Bouchardière

John La Bouchardière BMus MA is a British opera, film and television director.He was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, studied at the University of Birmingham and was a staff director at English National Opera...

 and based on his live production of the same name, itself based on Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

's fourth book of madrigals (1603) which, in turn, is a collection of settings of poems by such Italian renaissance poets as Giovanni Battista Guarini

Giovanni Battista Guarini

Giovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.- Life :He was born in Ferrara, and spent his early life both in Padua and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567...

, Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini

Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet, courtier, and opera librettist at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras...

 and Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...

. The film features the British vocal ensemble I Fagiolini

I Fagiolini

I Fagiolini is a British vocal ensemble specialising in early music and contemporary music. Founded by Robert Hollingworth at Oxford in 1986, the group won the UK Early Music Network’s Young Artists’ Competition in 1988 and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2006...

 and the original cast of actors from the live production.

The plot concerns six couples who are breaking up simultaneously in a restaurant. During the course of their meals, revelations about the past drive the couples to separation. The apparently avant-garde structure of the film is based in the musical material, which is often of highly contrapuntal polyphony

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

, and follows the stories of the different couples in a manner similar to the vocal interchanges in the madrigals.

Production

Shot in HD on location in Bristol, Cheltenham, Gloucester and London, including the London Eye

London Eye

The London Eye is a tall giant Ferris wheel situated on the banks of the River Thames, in London, England.It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom, visited by over 3.5 million people annually...

, the central restaurant scenes were filmed on a studio set designed by Chloe Lamford. The sound was recorded with music director Robert Hollingworth in advance and lip-synched in post-production.

Release

The Full Monteverdi had a limited theatrical release, primarily through music festivals, and has been broadcast in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. The film was released on DVD by Naxos Records

Naxos Records

Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...

.

The film was given a theatrical release in South Africa by Ster-Kinekor

Ster-Kinekor

Ster Kinekor is a South Africa-based cinema company. Its head office is in the Ster-Kinekor Office Park in Sandton, City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality.-History:...

, opening on 2nd April 2010, and in New Zealand by Rialto Distribution, on 24 June 2010.

Critical reception

The film's reception was largely favourable, particularly from classical music critics, though some found La Bouchardière's matching of contemporary realism with Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

music uncomfortable; most acclaimed it for its innovation, fidelity to the spirit of the original music and unrelenting emotional depth. It was awarded a Choc du Monde de la Musique.

External links

• Official website
• Trailer
• http://www.johnlabouchardiere.com/thefullmonteverdifilm.html