Baal (1982 TV Movie) User Reviews

Interesting Comparison With Schlondorff Version

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 31 July 2021]

This striking vehicle for the great rock star David Bowie makes an interesting comparison with the earlier 1970 New German Cinema adaptation in which the Bowie role of the outrageously misbehaving scruffy poet was played by none other than Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The original production of the 1920s play by Brecht started Oscar Homolka, later to be seen as a sometimes comforting and heartwarming character actor in Hollywood films. The

But the Baal character, based on a part animal legendary figure of the 17th century, is hardly at all comforting and makes the scampish bum in Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning look like a paragon of the bourgeois.

I have not seen a more recent German adaptation but contrasting the 1970 and 1982 versions I prefer the way director Alan Clarke in the later one relies on old fashioned tableaux combined with simplified stylized backgrounds and split screens to the way in the earlier one Schlondorff used smeared lenses and hand held camera work.

Plus Bowie's rendition of the song lyrics is spot on.

Baal

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 2 August 2023]

Baal regularly gets mentioned as a golden age of BBC public service broadcasting. A Bertolt Brecht play, starring David Bowie and directed by Alan Clarke best known for productions such as Scum and The Firm.

This is certainly an experimental television production and Clarke has form for that. He also made Penda's Fen.

This is very much like a stage play with Baal singing in between scenes in split screen.

Based in the early part of 20th Century Germany. Baal is a renowned poet, drunk, womaniser and scrounger. At odds with the bourgeois society that he takes advantage of.

Baal is no hero, he looks ill and ragged with his debauchery and cruelty.

The action seemed at a distant to me and I felt the story was not better utilised. It was regarded as a flop at the time of broadcast.

Over the years its reputation has grown. More due to a combination of Bowie and Clarke. I doubt many would had remembered this production if it was not for them. An interesting failure.

Stagey but haunting -well worth watching even if you're not a Bowie fan.

[clivy · 8/10 · 31 July 2023]

Back in my college days the jewel in the crown of my record collection was "David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal." It got the loudest groan from my friends, especially from my friends who were graduate students in the German department- much louder than my Alan Ginsberg sings albums.

I'm glad I finally got the chance to see the movie thanks to BBC 4. I'm still haunted by the music. I was never a Bowie fan or a rock fan. I thought some of his songs were very good but I wondered when I saw the Christiane F film back in the 1980s why the young characters idolized him. I remember when Christiane F was reviewed in the US the film critics also treated Bowie like an icon. I saw Just a Gigolo and I thought his acting was okay: it was really Marlene Dietrich's appearance that made me want to see the film.

Bowie's performance in Baal is impressive. The film is very stagey: it does feel like a theatre production that was filmed for TV rather than a movie. Most of the actors are stagey aside from Zoe Wanamaker. I felt the movie could have given more for her Sophie to do in the final scenes where she's mostly used by Ekart but mostly unused as a character. Watching Ekart paw at her breasts in the middle of the crowded pub is still shocking. Bowie gives his all to Baal and and is more than convincing as the magnetic scandalous artist and enfant terrible who draws everyone to their destruction. I take my hat off to his courage to risk what was very challenging material for a rock star and his embracing looking repulsive and derelict: I wouldn't have been tempted to sleep with Baal for all his genius because his stained broken teeth would have revolted me. Even at the opening fancy dinner party he looks full of fleas. His murdering Ekart feels staged in every sense and the last scene where Baal begs woodcutters to stay with him as he lies dying seems contrived and pat as the ending, but Bowie manages to give pathos to Baal's final moments. I want to watch Baal a second time, especially for Bowie's singing "Reminiscence of Marie A" and "The Drowned Girl". I still love Brecht and Bowie makes the songs deeply haunting. Back in the day I played the album over and over.

Baal is well worth watching even if you're not a Bowie fan. It's well worth watching along with Zoe Wanamaker's 2023 special looking back at the show and the making of the film.

Bowie pulls off a magnetic performance as the immoral,murdering,alcoholic...Baal

[kaiserspike · 9/10 · 27 July 2001]

We have a dramatic masterpiece here and the Music is used very well...both lyrical and instrumental, which has been re-released by Bowie's label.The opening "Baal's Hymn" sets the scene for the protagonist an ex-soldier, explaining his love of "the sky" alcohol, women and mass murder-----during an Orgy ,("When Baal saw lots of corpses scattered round,he felt twice the thrill ,despite the lack of room,space enough ,their not thick on the ground,space enough within this womens womb) - this line sums up the kind of character we are dealing with.The image of "the Sky" is also very important in this play,showing perhaps that Baal is bored with his life and wishes to die. Fantastic

Excellent BBC version of tough Brecht play

[robert_deveau · 9/10 · 25 August 2003]

"Baal" was the first play written by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, one which he constantly rewrote throughout his entire life. David Bowie is perfectly cast in this BBC production of a one-hour version of the play, as the alcoholic, womanizing, murderous itinerant musician/poet title character. Zoe Wanamaker is also terrific as one of Baal's girlfriends. Not everyone's cup of tea, for sure, and difficult to see (try eBay), but for those looking for something different, or for fans of Bowie, definitely worthing searching out.

Worth watching as a curio, but that's about it

[ofumalow · 5/10 · 6 April 2014]

David Bowie has always been underrated as a dramatic actor, and Alan Clarke was usually a fine director. But this TV version of Brecht's early play is stiff and uninvolving--partly because it's far from Brecht's best and ill-suited to film, but primarily because Clarke's direction is so misguided. Apart from some split screen effects for the transitional song interludes, he shoots almost everything in long-shot, keeping the performers literally at a theatrical distance, the camera stock still. (The film also seems dankly underlit, although to be fair that might be the fault of the transfer I watched.) Bowie throws himself into this irredeemable-scoundrel part with verve and is more than willing to let the makeup etc. crew make him as ugly/unhealthy looking as possible. The other cast members are perfectly adequate. But this "Baal" feels like an academic performance record for the archives rather than a fully realized adaptation of a stage work. Maybe Clarke just didn't relate to the material.

Pashes to Pashes - or - The Irresistible (sic) Rise

[frukuk · 1/10 · 6 August 2023]

This is not very good. I'd much rather watch Miss Julie (August Strindberg) or something by Ibsen. If this play hadn't been written by Bertolt Brecht, would we even give it the time of day? And despite Bowie's disgusting(ly good) performance, is there much here to recommend this staging? One only for Bowie completists, perhaps?

Something wonderfully good like Miss Julie, manages to keep focused as it delivers emotional blows. Whereas this offering veers all over the shop and is far, far, far too wordy. Perhaps this comes from Brecht's early "Laughing Gnome" period?

The heart's filthy lesson?