Beyond Good And Evil

A misguided attempt to dramatize the psychological triad formed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (Erland Josephson), his Jewish friend Paul Rees (Robert Powell), and a Russian girl named Lou Von Salome (Dominique Sanda), this overbearing drama fails mightily. Nietzsche is portrayed as a jealous sociopath who drives Rees to suicide, and director Liliana Cavani cannot resist including a drug-hallucination ballet about Good and Evil which approaches the excesses of her controversial Il Portiere di Notte in its melodramatic sexual hysteria.

From 2015–2017, in the midst of an historic creative high, Zorn wrote and recorded no less than six CDs of music for “Simulacrum,” his most powerful and intense 21st century ensemble; the music then became a project for live performance. This concert from July 2019 finds the band at their blazing best, performing compositions from four different “Simulacrum” releases. No one blends metal and jazz quite like Zorn (he’s been doing it since the late 1980s) and these mind-bendingly intense performances will leave you breathless. Beautifully recorded at Firehouse 12 in New Haven and lovingly mixed at Bill Laswell’s Orange Sound by James Dellatacoma this is a hyper powered stop-on-a-dime live performance by three virtuosic musical maniacs.