Pure Love – The Voice of Ella Fitzgerald
Documentary, 52´, SWR/arte, 2017
About the Film
Ella Fitzgerald’s voice remains unmatched to this day. She had perfect intonation, her voice spanned three octaves. Ella had a seemingly effortless phrasing and the moments when she didn’t hit the right note can be counted on one hand in her almost 50-year career. There is almost no musical style in which she has not excelled and her numerous, now legendary ‘Great American Songbook’ recordings of US composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter and Duke Ellington, among others, have set standards for generations of singers in terms of the ‘right’ interpretation of songs. Ira Gershwin is reported to have said: “I didn’t know how good our songs were until Ella sang them.” In the film, the mystery of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice is unraveled through statements by singers such as Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater or Theo Bleckmann, the drummer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington, the violinist Regina Carter, the Norman Granz biographer Tad Hershorn, the jazz critic Will Friedwald or her biographer Judith Tick. Through her voice, we learn something about her life and try to find out how Ella was able to touch people all over the world so deeply with her voice for so many decades.
Credits
| Screenplay/Director: | Katja Duregger |
| Director of Photography: | Klaus Sturm, Jaron Henrie-McCrea |
| Sound: | Austin Moore |
| Film Editing and Graphics: | Volker Gehrke |
| Music und Sounddesign: | Pablo Paredes |
| Research: | Vanessa Christoffers-Trinks |
| Head of Production: | Cornelia Kellers |
| Commissioning Editor: | Harald Letfuß, SWR/arte |
| Producer: | Gerd Haag |
| Production: | TAG/TRAUM GmbH & Co. KG |
| Duration: | 52´30 Min. |
| Year of Production: | 2017 |
Festivals:
- Dok Station 2019, Music Documentary Filmfestival, Bukarest, Rumania
- Kongsberg Jazz Festival 2018, Norway
- Toronto Black Film Festival 2017, Canada, World Premiere
- SWR Doku Festival 2017, Stuttgart, Germany
- Doc´n Roll Festival 2017, London, England
- Diva´s Jazz 2017, Rome, Italy
- 13th Jecheon International Music & Film Festival 2017, Jecheon, South Korea