Product Details

• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English, Spanish, German
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Arthaus Musik
• DVD Release Date: September 18, 2001
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005Q30W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,680 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guitar Magic!, September 12, 2003

By 

Luis M. Benito (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paco De Lucia: Light & Shade (DVD)

This DVD is an insightful documentary that takes us into the life of Paco De Lucia through personal interviews with the musician, his family and Flamenco experts. If you are, as I am, enchanted by Paco de Lucia's masterful guitar playing and are interested in his background, the philosophy behind his music and his biography, you'll be fascinated by this film. It should be a complimentary addition to your library of Paco de Lucia's CD's.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flamenco meets Short Attention Span Theater, May 1, 2009

By 

Paul Magnussen (Campbell, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Paco De Lucia: Light & Shade (DVD)

Paco de Lucía is without doubt one of the greatest and most influential geniuses the flamenco guitar has ever seen, and so a biographical documentary cannot fail to be (potentially at least) of the greatest interest.

Unfortunately, this one features some of the most dreadful direction I've ever seen.

Lucía's career may be divided simply into several distinct phases:

• Child prodigy
• Flamenco guitar soloist
• Accompanist to Camarón
• Pop star
• Jazz/fusion guitarist
• Classical guitarist

All of these are presented, but jumbled into a giant dog's breakfast without any apparent system. Even the musical performances are hacked into pieces, shuffled and aleatorically reassembled.

This is a pity, because the DVD contains a great deal of fascinating material, such as a video of Antonio Mairena with Ricardo on guitar, a bulería by Camarón with Paco, and an early juerga at Camarón's home.

Although this is a British production, the sound-track is available in Spanish, English or German; and here we come to another problem. Because when Spaniards are interviewed, we get not subtitles but voice-overs. There are French and Japanese subtitles as well; but even if you choose French subtitles, you still, insanely, get the English voice-overs. I didn't try the Japanese subtitles.

Now, voice-overs are fine when (for example) the BBC is giving you the main points of a speech by the French Prime Minister -- that is, for about 30 seconds. But in large doses they're very wearing indeed; and this is particularly unfortunate because this DVD has one of the most interesting interviews with Lucía I've seen (actually, it's more of a fragmented monologue).

Nor can you even skip the interviews and then watch them in the original Spanish, because they've been dismembered and splattered all over the program.

The other main interviewee is Paco's sister María, who perpetuates the story that "Entre dos aguas" was thrown into Fuente y caudal as an afterthought (this despite the fact that it's the first track on the album, it's the only track to feature bass and bongos, and Philips had already been busting its guts trying to sell him to a wider public -- successfully this time, of course). Nobody bothers to talk to Ramón or Pepe.

So four stars for the material, one for the production.

The Spanish biography Francisco Sánchez is longer (two DVDs), more interesting, more coherent, features complete performances, and gives you English subtitles (although no German). If you're not a German, then, I would advise you to get that instead -- or at least first.

For the future, my (possibly unwanted) advice to the director of "Light and Shade" would be the same as that of the King of Hearts to the White Rabbit: Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end; then stop.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great approach to Paco, June 27, 2003

By 

C. Zamora "drzamora" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paco De Lucia: Light & Shade (DVD)

This DVD has great quality in both sound and video. One of the things that makes me appreciate it the most is the fact that it is one of the very few DVDs featuring Paco de Lucia available in this continent. The documentary is rather short. It is, of course, a documentary, and not a concert video, but I guess that most of us are craving to see Paco in action. There are so many great concerts that could be revived by remastering and bringing them to DVD.

By the way, there is new double DVD featuring Paco's biography and some complete concerts, including Aranjuez. It is called "Francisco Sanchez - Paco de Lucia". The bad thing is that it has only been released for PAL. Come on guys! Bring Paco de Lucias's duende to the rest of the world!!!