‘Billy Budd’ on BBC 2

Extract

Susanne Langer's codification of the process whereby the most strongly defined of two or more simultaneously presented art forms will swallow the others is peculiarly applicable to the problem of filming opera, an art form which itself illustrates her thesis in its transformation of words and drama into musical entities. In a filmed opera the cinematic side of the enterprise should not be a mere substitute for the opera's dramatic as opposed to musical elements, although it becomes so if a stage performance is filmed with entirely fixed cameras. It must in fact treat the opera as an entity and not fall into the trap of expanding or dwelling on the dramatic angle alone. The result of such indulgence would be a distortion which several operatic films in the past have produced. The drama balloons far beyond the composer's balanced creative integration, and swallows the music which then becomes no more than a background score. In the BBC Television film of Billy Budd, the producer Basil Coleman avoided this pitfall with conspicuous success. At the same time, he did not make the mistake of a timid use of the camera which while preserving opera's peculiar relationship between drama and music produces a dull film, but allowed it to be true to its own medium as well as to the music-drama. The setting on board HMS Indomitable would present the obvious attraction of pretty camera work around and about one of the most photogenic subjects in existence. Shots like this however were cut to a minimum, even at such a heaven-sent opportunity as the arrival of the pressed men, when a panoramic view of their approach over the sea would certainly have been justified. However the music renders all this sort of thing unnecessary. The sea, for instance, is never glimpsed in the film because in a sense it is always there in the music, or all that is needed of it. A shot of the boat load arriving from the Rights of Man would have usurped the function of the music at one of its most magical moments—Billy's bright fanfares on the wind, salt and clear as the sea air above, over an uneasy fade-out of the hauling song.