In conversation the other day, a friend referred to the “original film version of Sweeney Todd”. I made the distinction that Tim Burton’s film is the only film version (of the Sondheim musical), that the other version is just a stage performance that was filmed. Ditto for Into the Woods, Pippin, Riverdance, and others.
I pointed this out just as a point of defining a thing as it is. I love having a DVD of the stage production of Into the Woods, and I think it was very well done. But it is not a film. It is a filmed stage production.
I had thought the the Donny Osmond DVD of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was a filmed stage performance, but it turns out it’s more like the Kevin Kline / Linda Ronstadt Pirates of Penzance: a stage production restaged for cameras without an audience present. This would be a category all its own. Not the same as a proper film, but no audience (thus more free movement of cameras) so it’s not the same as the above mentioned filmed stage performances.
On the flip side, however, I would vehemently insist that Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Stop Making Sense, and The Last Waltz definitely are films. I can accept that a Concert Film is often deemed a subgenre of documentary, but it is a film nonetheless.
Still, in yet another contrast, this does not qualify every VH1 concert special to be deemed a film.
Now, I do strongly feel that it is right to make the distinction but I can’t articulate why it is right to make the distinction. If you would agree with me, how would you articulate it?
Why is Stop Making Sense a film while Into the Woods isn’t?
To come closer to comparing apples to apples: I consider David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to be a film, but his 1988 Glass Spider filmed concert was just a promotional television special. Why?
I agree with you, but looking at it objectively, I have no idea why I think that way. But I do. Concert films are films while filmed stage performances are something else.
The difference is that a filmed stage performance usually refers to a work that has a story and plot, and which could have been done as a regular movie showing different scenes, but was show as multiple actors performed on stage.
A concert film is one made about a music concert. The performers play the instruments; there is no dramatic plot or roles to play.
But it’s not a film about a music concert, it’s a film of a music concert. It’s a live performance staged for an audience that is then filmed. Yet, for some reason, Justin_Bailey and I consider one “live performance staged for an audience that is then filmed” to be a film while another “live performance staged for an audience that is then filmed” is only a filmed stage performance.
And for Riverdance or Lord of the Dance “there is no dramatic plot or roles to play”.
And not every filmed concert gets Concert Film status. Consider the Bowie vs. Bowie example of the OP.
I can’t come up with anything better than an “I know it when I see it” kind of a critical distinction.
Gotta disagree with your definition. To me a “filmed stage performance” is one where the presentation and staging of the play or concert differs markedly from a regular one. If anything, “The Last Waltz” to me is the definition of a filmed performance; the Band certainly didn’t have that many guests on a regular concert and probably wouldn’t even have done that concert if it hadn’t been filmed. Stage peformances without audiences also count, since there’s no reason for a play not to have an audience outside of making it easier to film. When I think of concert films I think of something like “The Song Remains The Same”. Yeah it has those unintentionally hilarious “dream sequences” but the actual concert has pretty much the same setlist, same performance style, and staging as a nonfilmed Zeppelin concert.