Two-Faced Woman

Article first published as DVD Review: Two-Faced Woman on Blogcritics.

Swedish actress Greta Garbo was one of the greatest talents of Hollywood’s golden age, transitioning smoothly from roles as a silent seductress to a bona fide movie star in the talkie era. She was also deeply eccentric, and at 36, she simply stopped acting, and never returned to the screen again for the rest of her life. Warner Archive has released her final film, Two-Faced Woman, in its burn-on-demand series, and while it’s certainly nowhere near a career-killer, it’s also not the most memorable note to go out on.

The film was part of a short-lived experiment at MGM to transform Garbo into a comedic actress, a strategy that worked well for Ernst Lubitsch’s 1939 film Ninotchka, for which Garbo received an Oscar nomination. That film had the benefit of some gravitas thanks to its Soviet setting, not to mention the signature Lubitsch touch and a script worked on by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. By contrast, 1941’s Two-Faced Woman seems incredibly insubstantial, and not in a light-as-air romantic way, but in a dull, plodding way that can’t even be saved by the talents of Garbo and Melvyn Douglas.

Douglas stars as fashion magazine editor Larry Blake, a man vacationing in the mountains who has no interest in skiing until he spies instructor Karin Borg (Garbo). He’s initially rebuffed by her, but after a mishap on the slopes and a missing person search, the two return happily married. Soon enough, however, Blake announces his intentions to return to work into New York, much to the chagrin of nature lover Karin, who stays behind.

But soon, without her husband’s knowledge, Karin travels to New York where she finds Larry starting to cozy up to Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett). In a test of loyalty, she decides to pose as her own fictional twin sister Katharine, a supposed fireball of sexual energy who never really gets to show much passion at all beyond a few mild double entendres. The film is undercut further by a plot insertion that allows Larry to discover the ruse almost immediately (apparently an insistence by censors nervous about a married man/sister-in-law flirtation).

The film proceeds in typical mistaken-identity fashion, but has precious little to hang its hat on besides that tired narrative convention. That works in an Astaire-Rogers picture where virtuoso dancing and endless charm are the real attractions, but here, there’s almost nothing but endless scenes of Garbo attempting to pull off a fiery screwball heroine. There is no denying that Garbo had charm, but it was of a more peculiar brand than this film calls for, and even in a lively scene where she performs a Latin-inspired dance number, it feels like the wrong vehicle for her.

Directed by the dependable George Cukor, Two-Faced Woman is competently produced on every level, but lacks the spark to make its well-trodden narrative shine. Any Garbo film made available on DVD is a good thing, but this is not her finest hour.

The film has not been remastered, but the print used in creating the DVD was in pretty good shape, with only minor marks and scratches. This Warner Archive entry comes with the film’s theatrical trailer.

Broadcast News — The Criterion Collection

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Broadcast News — The Criterion Collection on Blogcritics.

The Film
One of the great films of the ’80s and indeed, one of the finest romantic comedies ever made, Broadcast News has often had the misfortune of being overlooked and underappreciated, just like its writer and director, James L. Brooks. Sure, Brooks is responsible for his share of stinkers, including recent non-starter How Do You Know, but lest one forget, Brooks is a supreme director of actors, a writer simultaneously gentle and acerbic, and a sharp-minded producer responsible for successes on the big screen and small.

All of these qualities coalesce in Brooks’s greatest achievement, Broadcast News, which was nominated for seven Oscars and seemingly promptly forgotten after it failed to win any of them. You won’t find the film on any great movies lists (at least, none I’m aware of) and even in a discussion of Brooks (who has only directed six films as of this review), you’re more likely to hear about Terms of Endearment or As Good as it Gets.

I would have never expected the folks at the Criterion Collection to release the film, but I’m overjoyed that they have. In my mind, it’s as significant a release for the company as its upcoming box set of rare Mikio Naruse silents. Sure, Broadcast News has been readily available in this country since its release, but Criterion’s edition adds insightful supplements, reveals the attractive photography the previous edition didn’t and provides what one hopes is the impetus for a new wave of recognition for the film.

Broadcast News stars Holly Hunter as ambitious news producer Jane Craig. Along with brilliant-but-insecure reporter Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks), Jane pushes their Washington, D.C. network affiliate for hard-charging stories, but the climate is changing — personified by the handsome but incompetent Tom Grunick (William Hurt), who succeeds almost in spite of himself. His good looks and smooth delivery mark a sea change for the news industry, which is veering toward obsequious infotainment, much to the chagrin of Jane and Aaron.

But unlike Sydney Lumet’s Network, Broadcast News isn’t a wholecloth media satire, although Brooks’s observations about the industry are consistently on-point. The sharpest lines are saved for the romantic triangle that ensues between Jane, Tom and Aaron, a messy mix of emotions that’s fueled as much by the thrill of a fast-paced workplace as it is romantic inclination.

Albert Brooks’s Aaron wears his heart on his sleeve with regards to Jane, a close friend who he also wants to romance, even if we never really believe it could happen. Brooks is a master at communicating the futility and earnestness of his feelings, culminating in a beautiful short monologue where he wishes out loud that Jane could be two people — the woman he loves and the friend who he could confess that love to. Albert Brooks makes the James Brooks dialogue sparkle at every turn.

Similarly, Hunter is in total command of a wide range of emotions as the high-strung Jane — a character that is almost always cranked up to 10, but which Hunter refuses to let become a caricature. As she falls for Tom, who represents everything she despises, she makes the relationship seem plausible, justifying it to the audience as well as she justifies it to herself.

Hurt’s aggressively bland performance isn’t to be forgotten either, as he imbues Tom with an unwitting and unaware blank slate nature that makes him perfect for the television industry. It takes an intelligent actor to play a character this dumb.

Broadcast News features a pitch-perfect script that just oozes cleverness, but somehow maintains the perfect balance of pathos and humor needed to come off as genuine. It never feels dependent on screenplay-ese. But more than simply exhibiting Brooks’s talents as a writer, the film shows that he knows how to direct a picture as well. Consider a scene that features a beat-the-clock running of a tape from the edit bay to the control room that functions like a breathless car chase. Or the scene where Jane feeds Tom all the right words during a live newscast — Brooks shoots both characters from behind in extreme close-up in the foreground, with the related action taking place on the edge of the frame. These are striking images for a dialogue-heavy romantic comedy.

I’ll go ahead and say it: Broadcast News is an unqualified masterpiece. In an age where almost every Hollywood romantic comedy seems to evoke groans of genre fatigue, it’s heartening to watch a film that can fit within the mold while existing as a vibrant character piece with touches of ironic subtext around the corners. Add three truly great performances to the mix, and you’ve got a film that is long overdue for some fervent praise.

The Blu-ray Disc
Broadcast News is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This presentation easily blows the previous Fox DVD out of the water. That edition featured a non-anamorphic, cropped image that was riddled with digital artifacts. It would be easy to think that the film was visually undistinguished, ugly even, from watching it, but this Blu-ray release sets the record straight. Michael Ballhaus’s unassuming photography shines, looking fresh and vivacious with a nice layer of film grain present. Reds and blues really pop from the image, while skin tones of characters are stable and well rendered. The film is shot without hardly any high contrast moments, but each color appears distinct and bold. Essentially all instances of scratches and damage have been unobtrusively erased. The film looks magnificent.

Audio is presented in a 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track that is clean and peppy, with Bill Conti’s news theme-like score leading the way with its bright tones. The film is mostly dialogue, which is crisp and clear, but some moments, such as bursts of gunfire during a live report, provide some heft to the stereo mix.

Special Features
Again, Criterion easily surpasses Fox’s barebones DVD with a series of extras that is more comprehensive than it appears at first glance. A new audio commentary featuring James L. Brooks and editor Richard Marks gives Brooks ample opportunity to be self-deprecating, while a three-part documentary on Brooks’s career shows just how wide-ranging his talents are. His work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi and The Simpsons is examined on equal footing with his film work, and the excellent piece features lots of interviews with collaborators, including Julie Kavner, Marilu Henner, Hans Zimmer and Wes Anderson.

Another fantastic inclusion is a 20-minute interview with veteran CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky, who served as an inspiration for Jane Craig and was also a consultant on the film. This is the kind of extra that only Criterion would pursue, and it makes the package all the more well-rounded for it. Zirinsky speaks intelligently both about the news industry at the time and the film itself, where it appears she played an integral role.

An alternate ending, which provides a more definitive conclusion to the love triangle, is included along with a lengthy audio introduction by James Brooks. Ultimately, this ending doesn’t work as well as the original, but Hunter and Hurt are both great at selling the alternate reality. About 20 minutes of deleted scenes are also included with optional commentary by Brooks. Many of the scenes deal with a subplot about a government source that was entirely cut out of the film.

Also included is a Fox-produced featurette featuring interviews with Brooks, Brooks and Hunter created during filming. It’s strange that this piece didn’t show up on the Fox DVD, and though it starts out with a cheesy voiceover introduction, the interview footage is good. Even better is about 20 minutes of outtakes from that same session, which includes more interview and on-set footage.
The theatrical trailer and a booklet with an essay by critic Carrie Rickey round out the package.

The Bottom Line
I’ve sung the praises of Broadcast News as long as I’ve known about it, and this Criterion release makes it even clearer what a great film it is.

Dogtooth

Article first published as DVD Review: Dogtooth on Blogcritics.

A tiny world crumbles in Dogtooth, the third feature from Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos, and a film that is filled with details both delightful and disturbing. A well-to-do businessman (Christos Stergioglou) and his submissive wife (Michele Valley) create an otherworldly home for their three children that’s governed by arbitrary conceptions of law and language. Here, the word “zombie” means a little flower, cats are vicious predators and the world beyond the confines of the driveway is absolutely off-limits, deadly even.

The three 20-some children — two daughters (Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni) and a son (Hristos Passalis) — don’t have names, but possess unquestioning enthusiasm for the way they have been conditioned to live. No one blinks an eye when mother announces she’ll be giving birth to a baby, maybe two, and a dog. Why wouldn’t she?

Dogtooth plants a foot in worlds both surreal and banal, with totally unpredictable behavior patterns taking place against a backdrop of seeming domestic placidity. At some point, we grow accustomed to the strange rituals that populate this household — even at their cruelest and most bizarre, with sudden bursts of violence disrupting the manufactured normality. Thimios Bakatakis’s rigid photography frames each action statically against the mostly bare walls of the home, lulling us into a false sense of security similar to what the father and mother must get from so carefully controlling their children’s existence.

But the illusion is bound to disintegrate, and the father brings it about himself by introducing Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), a security guard brought in to satisfy his son’s sexual urges, to the family. The film’s sex scenes are unblinkingly uncomfortable, with the sex itself performed as a series of passionless, stiff motions.

For the son, this seems to be enough, but Christina pushes her influence beyond him to the daughters, and the incongruous sexual behavior that results (licking body parts, erogenous or not) is only the beginning. VHS tapes find their way into the household, leading to hilariously misguided attempts to quote Rocky and Jaws, and in one riveting climactic scene, Jennifer Beals’s moves from Flashdance. This sequence stunningly illustrates the wide range of disturbance that the tightly controlled universe set these people up for, from the superficial (the effect of movies) to the fundamental (you can almost see the heretofore foreign sexuality trying to burst out of the character).

Lanthimos establishes a cool tone early on, and the film’s matter-of-factness about its characters’ perversity recalls the work of Michael Haneke, but Dogtooth is imbued with more humor than your average Haneke film. The superbly drawn script by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou doesn’t telegraph its intentions — some scenes are disquieting; some are darkly hilarious. Most have an element of both. Whether one finds the film to be blackly comic or persistently horrifying, the film remains a fully realized vision of each.

Kino has released Dogtooth exclusively on DVD, and it’s too bad the film isn’t getting a Blu-ray release, as its exquisite photography would really benefit. Still, this is a strong DVD presentation and the small selection of extras is solid. A 13-minute interview with Lanthimos is presented in English and details the genesis of the project, which he first envisioned as a science fiction film about the future of the family unit. Some of those touches certainly remain. Three deleted scenes are included, best of which is an alternate version of a truly inspired use of Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon.” The scenes run about five minutes total. The theatrical trailer and 16 film stills round out the extras.

The Quintessential Guy Maddin!

"Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary"

Article first published as DVD Review: The Quintessential Guy Maddin! on Blogcritics.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a cinematic auteur working today with a more idiosyncratic vision than Guy Maddin. The Canadian director has made his trade creating surreal fantasy worlds steeped in the film grammar of a bygone age, ensuring that every Maddin film is anything but a boring experience. Even when his bold stylistic experiments don’t always coalesce, Maddin by and large crafts riveting works of weirdness, touched with a sense of madness and absurdity. Whether he’s quoting German expressionism or Soviet montage, Maddin comes up with something all his own.

Zeitgeist’s new four-disc set, billed as The Quintessential Guy Maddin!, collects five of his most prominent feature length works along with a number of short films. All of the discs included here exist as previous standalone releases from the company, but for those who don’t own any of them, this set is a fantastic introduction.

Disc one: Careful (1992)
Careful might just be Maddin’s masterpiece, and this cockeyed tale of repression in a tiny mountain village is as funny as it is frightening. Past accidents have caused the residents of the village to be wary, and everyone speaks in a whisper to avoid causing another devastating avalanche. But there’s turmoil beneath the surface, with incestuous desires threatening to boil over, and boy, do they ever. Maddin takes a butler-in-training’s lust for his mother and whips it into a recipe for droll comedy and striking imagery, aided by artificial film strip coloring and a creaky visual style that represents some of the best and worst of the silent era.

This disc is the remastered version that Zeitgeist released in 2009. It includes a commentary by Maddin and screenwriter George Toles, an hour-long documentary on Maddin’s career narrated by Tom Waits and Maddin’s 1995 short Odilon Redon.

Disc two: Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997) and Archangel (1990)
Maddin’s second feature, Archangel, presages some of the visual strategies of Careful, and even if it isn’t as fully realized of a film, its silent film-style tale of a town unaware of the end of World War I and the mistaken identities that ensue within feels like a wonderful forgotten dispatch from another era.

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs takes a little more patience to make your way through. It’s more visually polished than his previous work, and the garish color palette looks like three-strip Technicolor pushed to lurid heights, with magentas and yellows substituting for deep reds and blues. It’s the (intentionally) overly flowery dialogue and glacial pace that makes this bizarre tale of obsession less engaging than other Maddin films, but there's no denying it's a unique beast.

Commentary tracks featuring Maddin and others are included for both films, along with storyboards and production photos, and Maddin’s remarkable 2000 short The Heart of the World.

Disc three: Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2003)
An extraordinary fusion of silent expressionism, dance film and classic horror, Dracula is a singular work, hewing fairly closely to the Bram Stoker novel while carving out its own territory within the vast world of Dracula interpretations. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet performs the classic tale, with Maddin emphasizing further the critiques of xenophobia and Victorian repression that Stoker’s novel featured. The film is riveting and gorgeous, and for those turned off by Maddin’s quirks, Dracula exists as the least jokey and irony-laden film of the set. (Not that Maddin’s penchant for the absurd is completely missing, as a quick scene condenses a large portion of the novel’s action into just a few seconds of outrageousness.)

Included on the disc are a Maddin commentary track, a featurette on the design, interviews and a making-of.

Disc four: Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)
Cowards Bend the Knee may clock in at just over an hour, but it easily packs in the most weirdness of any film included here — and probably a majority of films out there. Briefly, the film concerns a hockey player named Guy Maddin (played by Darcy Fehr, not the director) who takes his girlfriend to get an abortion in a beauty parlor and leaves her midway for the beauty parlor owner’s daughter. She then insists that before he can touch her, his hands must be replaced with those of her dead father’s, which she has kept preserved in a jar. That scratches the surface, I guess. Black-and-white and silent like Dracula, the film is broken down into 10 roughly equal segments, and was designed to be an installation at an art gallery, but it’s not so abstract as to lose the compelling nature of the narrative, which is infused with black wit to spare.

The disc includes a Maddin commentary, blueprints for four short films, vintage photos that inspired some of the film and a featurette on the film’s companion piece, Brand Upon the Brain!, which is available in a very nice DVD release from Criterion.

Lost in Translation

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Lost in Translation on Blogcritics.

The Film
Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is a film that I come to appreciate more with each viewing. Her story of fleeting human connection in a modern world has always struck a chord with me, due in large part to Bill Murray’s masterfully melancholy performance, but the film reveals itself to be a richer experience each time. Moments that once felt slight now carry an added resonance and interactions between characters feel more authentic. Coppola’s dreamy sense of mood and pace makes for a film that sticks with you.

Scarlett Johansson stars as Charlotte, a recent philosophy graduate tagging along with her photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi) on his business trip to Tokyo. She’s like an aimless ship adrift in the luxury hotel where they’re staying, unable to sleep and unsure of her future. In the same hotel is Bob Harris (Murray), an erstwhile movie star in Tokyo to shoot a commercial for Suntory Whisky. He’s there for a distinct purpose, but any manufactured enthusiasm he musters while doing the commercial is washed away as soon as the cameras stop rolling. The distant voice of his longtime wife nags him about neglecting his family and picking out décor for a remodel over the phone.

Bob and Charlotte’s paths edge ever so closer slowly, and eventually the two settle into a companionship that is sweet, delicate and filled with genuine care — something that more than 90 percent of contemporary Hollywood romance films can’t lay claim to. Together, they break out of the shell out of the hotel to explore the city of Tokyo, which Coppola shoots with an irrepressible delight, and each one gives the other a reason to face the future with hope.

Murray is a revelation, allowing the audience the opportunity to see every crack in his exterior and proving that he’s no less charismatic in dramatic roles than he is in comedic ones. Johansson, whose career has taken turns for the underwhelming, nevertheless shows that she has a good performance in her, and she balances fragility and strength to great success here.

Lost in Translation is a film that seems poised to only grow in stature as the years pass. Its modest minimalism isn’t a sign of slightness and charges against Coppola of simply portraying self-indulgent ennui of the privileged seem to deliberately miss the point. The confident aesthetic and moving performances of the film ensure its status as one of the great American films of the past decade.

The Blu-ray Disc
Lost in Translation is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This disc represents a huge improvement over the standard DVD release, with colors appearing more vibrant, images appearing sharper and fine detail in objects, clothing and faces much more apparent. While the scenes that feature Tokyo’s nightlife will undoubtedly impress, some might be frustrated at the softness present in a good portion of the transfer. For the most part, this is likely attributable to the source material, which featured Coppola and cinematographer Lance Acord using guerilla techniques to get a number of shots. Any image softness feels natural to the look of the film, as does the fairly persistent film grain that gives the image a nice sense of texture.

The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is pitch-perfect, providing a full range of ambient sound in crowd scenes, dynamic range for the excellently curated soundtrack and strong, clear dialogue from the fronts.

Special Features
This is mostly the same old, same old, with only a trailer and a superficial promo for Coppola’s latest, Somewhere, added to the previously available extras. Those extras include several deleted scenes, a 30-minute making-of featurette, a fairly informal conversation between Murray and Coppola, the extended sequence of the film’s Matthew’s Best Hit TV talk show and a music video for Kevin Shields’ “City Girl.”

The Bottom Line
The film is worthy of a more stacked edition, but the high-def upgrade suits Lost in Translation very nicely.

Howl

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Howl (2010) on Blogcritics.

The Film
Based on the events surrounding Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem Howl, the film of the same name feels both ambitious and slight at the same time. Directed by documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman, Howl explains with a title card that it’s made up entirely of actual words spoken by the real people (interviews, court records, the poem itself), and in some ways, this film is like a documentary because of it.

There are moments where that feels true — notably, in interview scenes where James Franco absolutely nails the essence of Ginsberg — but the film has objectives beyond this authenticity. It all amounts to three different types of films trying to coexist, with variable levels of success. Besides the documentary element, we get animated segments that illustrate the abstractions of Ginsberg’s poem and a courtroom drama that details the obscenity charges leveled against publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Andrew Rogers) for printing Howl.

The animated sequences range from ugly to sublime, with hand-drawn animation looking better than some of the crude computer animation that’s featured, but even when it doesn’t quite work, this is a bold attempt to merge literature and cinema. The courtroom scenes on the other hand often feel perfunctory and are drained of almost any tension. They’re not a total waste of time though, as they’re populated by a remarkable cast (Jon Hamm as the defense attorney, David Strathairn as the prosecutor, Bob Balaban as the judge, and Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker and Treat Williams as witnesses).

At 84 minutes, the film feels a little too overstuffed with ideas for its frame. The approach to storytelling befits the nature of the material, but a bolder step toward more visual abstraction and less rote courtroom proceedings might have made Howl even more of a cause to celebrate. As it stands, the film has lots of good ideas, and executes a majority of them well. They don’t seem to coalesce into a wholly satisfying work, but that’s hardly a reason to steer clear.

The Blu-ray Disc
Oscilloscope Laboratories presents Howl in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The presentation handles almost everything quite well, with the black-and-white sequences of Ginsberg reading the poem, the greenish-tinted interview scenes and the golden courtroom palette all looking quite nice. The image is stable and filled with rich detail, and the color saturation is quite pleasing. The animation sequences are more variable, although it’s quite likely this has to do with the source material. Some of the shots have a noticeable softness and there are infrequent banding artifacts that stick out when they do crop up. Overall though, this an excellent high-def presentation.

Audio is presented in a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track that is clean and clear and forceful when it needs to be, but potentially has some problems with its levels, as everything outside of the animated scenes seems to be mixed at a slightly lower volume, causing one to keep the remote handy at all times. This persists throughout the film.

Special Features
A nice collection of extras has been assembled in this release, which is a dual-format two-disc set, with both a Blu-ray and a DVD disc of the film. Most of the special features are included on both discs.
An audio commentary features Epstein, Friedman and Franco, which the three recorded together. A 40-minute making-of features interviews with the directors and much of the principal cast, and covers the origin of the film, its photography and the divergent visual styles, among other topics. Interviews with some of Ginsberg’s collaborators that Epstein and Friedman conducted during their research are also included in a separate feature.

An audio-only feature has Franco reading Howl, which he also does in the film, but here you get it without interruption if you please. You can also hear Howl directly from the source in video footage of Ginsberg reading the poem in 1995 at the Knitting Factory in New York.

Features only included on the Blu-ray include two more poems read by Ginsberg — Sunflower Sutra and Pull My Daisy — from that same reading and a Q&A with the directors at the Provincetown Film Festival, moderated by director John Cameron Mitchell.

The Bottom Line
Howl features an approach to filmmaking that is commendable even if it doesn’t always work, and there’s plenty to recommend here — not the least of which is Franco’s assured performance.

Army of Shadows — The Criterion Collection

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Army of Shadows — The Criterion Collection on Blogcritics.

The Film
Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, a 1969 masterwork about the French Resistance during World War II, didn’t receive a proper release in the United States until 2006, and it fared poorly in France during its initial run. It’s not difficult to see why — Melville was accused of championing Gaullist principles and filtering the film’s French freedom fighters through the lens of a gangster film, the genre with which he’s most associated.

Army of Shadows is also relentlessly bleak, featuring a small band of French citizens not just struggling against the Nazis, but with their own compromises and commitment to the cause. Long-term victory is never in sight — the war rages around them for the entirety of the film — but short-term victory is hardly ever achieved either, and Melville creates a disquieting sense of futility with this monumental work.

Like his films about gangsters and thieves — Bob le Flambeur, Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge among them — Melville approaches Army of Shadows with a meticulous sense of detachment, but this film is drained of any jazzy coolness or sly irony that suffused his gangster films. Instead, we get cold, unblinking reality that is made all the grimmer because of the real-life events that surround what occurs in the film.

Lino Ventura stars as Philippe Gerbier, the leader of a small band of rebels that includes fighters played by Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret, Claude Mann, Paul Crauchet and Christian Barbier. As the film opens, Gerbier is being taken to a concentration camp. He plots his escape, and in an astonishing sequence, makes it happen with a quick knife to the throat of an attending guard. This scene and others like it punctuate long stretches drained of action or intrigue that allow us and the characters to contemplate the chances of survival — and just what it will take to survive — in this war.

When the film does offer answers to that thought, they’re not attractive ones, as is brutally seen in a gut-wrenching moment where Gerbier and company kill one of their own who betrayed them to the Nazis. Melville extends the scene to almost excruciating lengths, from the discussion of method to the act itself, and the resulting gravity of war’s moral implications hangs over the rest of the film like a heavy blanket.

Army of Shadows is a brilliantly achieved human tragedy, with a third act that’s somehow more devastating than anything that’s come before it. Melville, who was involved in the French Resistance himself, executed an elegantly constructed tale that is all but guaranteed to haunt the recesses of your mind for some time.

The Blu-ray Disc
Army of Shadows is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Criterion gives us the same 2004 restoration of the film here that it did on its superb 2007 DVD edition of the film. As good as that presentation was, the Blu-ray improves on it slightly here, giving us a more natural color palette that is also slightly more desaturated of color, in line with Melville’s intention. Sharpness and clarity is improved slightly as well. Overall, the film looks magnificent here, with a nice layer of film grain that’s never too obtrusive and plenty of fine detail in every shot. The 2004 restoration scrubbed away any notable instances of damage.

Two options for audio are present — the default uncompressed monaural track and a 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Both are good choices, with no distracting elements popping up during the film’s quiet moments and strong, forceful sound coming forth during bursts of violence. Dialogue is stable and clear throughout.

Special Features
The supplements are identical to those on the packed DVD edition, now on a single disc instead of two. Film historian Ginette Vincendeau contributes an audio commentary, which was recorded for BFI in 2006. Criterion-exclusive interviews with director of photography Pierre Lhomme (who oversaw the restoration) and editor Françoise Bonnot lend a retrospective feel to the supplements.

There’s also plenty of archival material to dig through, including interviews with Melville and most of the principal cast. Several short excerpts of archival programs also feature interviews with actual resistance fighters. A solid 2005 half-hour documentary on the film features interviews from a number of those involved and is a nicely well-rounded piece for those who don’t want to look at everything. Trailers for the film’s original release and U.S. premiere and a restoration demonstration by Lhomme are also included on the disc.

The Bottom Line
Criterion had already outdone themselves with the 2007 DVD release of this staggering film, but the added Blu-ray bump in quality only makes it that much more of an essential release.

The Films of Rita Hayworth

"Tonight and Every Night"

Article first published as DVD Review: The Films of Rita Hayworth on Blogcritics.

An immensely appealing screen presence, Rita Hayworth captivated audiences in the 1940s and 1950s with her blend of sex appeal, graceful dancing and genuine charm. Her pin-up girl status may have caused some to ascribe her success more to her looks than her talent, but in a new collection of five films from her heyday at Columbia Pictures, it’s readily apparent that Hayworth possessed a magnetism that allowed her to thrive in widely divergent genres, from musicals to film noir to a biblical epic. Even when the films aren’t terribly engaging, it’s hard to take your eyes off her.
Included in this five-disc set are three films being made available on DVD for the first time.

Cover Girl (1944)
Hayworth stars as chorus girl Rusty Parker in Charles Vidor's Cover Girl, one of her most recognizable films and one that has been previously available on DVD. When Parker goes to audition for a spot on the cover of a fashion magazine, she is chosen because she looks just like her grandmother (who Hayworth also plays in flashbacks), a star of the stage who the magazine editor (Otto Kruger) had fallen in love with long ago.

The position launches her into stardom, but it might come at the cost of her relationship with Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly), who runs the nightclub where she performs.

With music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, one would expect an instant classic musically, but most of the numbers feel like remainders from their better work. (The flashback 19th Century numbers are especially turgid, even if Hayworth does look good in the costumes.)

Cover Girl is on more solid ground when it’s engaging in the playfulness of Kelly (who had a significant amount of control over the film) rather than the more romantic strains that Kern thrived on. “Make Way for Tomorrow,” which Hayworth and Kelly perform with Phil Silvers, gives the film a bolt of energy and Kelly’s “Alter-Ego Dance,” which uses superimposed trick photography to allow Kelly to dance with himself is probably the most enduring moment of the film. Hayworth would shine more later.

Tonight and Every Night (1945)
While the narrative is certainly thinner here than in Cover Girl, Tonight and Every Night is often a more enjoyable musical and a better showcase of Hayworth’s talents. Available here for the first time on DVD, the film, directed by Victor Saville, introduces a flimsy frame narrative to look back on a London theater that never missed a performance despite the bombing raids of World War II.

Hayworth stars as Rosalind Bruce, an American showgirl who attracts the attention of Royal Air Force pilot Paul Lundy (Lee Bowman). Their will they-won’t they relationship is pretty standard stuff, but the musical numbers are uniformly solid, from the graceful dancing of Marc Platt to Hayworth’s fetching rendition of “You Excite Me.”

The film’s Technicolor photography is represented beautifully here. The print is in almost pristine condition and it’s fantastic to see this underrated film finally available on DVD.

Gilda (1946)
Likely the masterpiece of Hayworth’s career and certainly the masterpiece of this set, Gilda has been previously released on DVD (and one hopes it will receive a Blu-ray release that truly showcases its striking black-and-white photography at some point). The film features Hayworth’s most iconic scene ever: a striptease in which she only removes a single glove — proof that sexy is an attitude, and she had it in abundance.

Directed by Vidor again, the film stars Glenn Ford as Johnny Farrell, a down-on-his-luck gambler in Buenos Aires who’s given a job and friendship by wealthy casino owner Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Everything is going well until Mundson returns from abroad with a new wife — Gilda (Hayworth), a former lover of Johnny’s. The two have a love-hate relationship that Johnny is desperate to keep hidden from Mundson. Ford is magnificent at displaying tension always on the precipice of boiling over and Hayworth is a revelation as a devil-may-care fast talker who’s undeniably a bit of a slut.

The film simmers with sexual tension and adeptly combines elements of film noir and melodrama. While its final act veers into territory that’s a bit dull and preposterous simultaneously, Gilda is a resounding scorcher.

Miss Sadie Thompson (1953)
One of many adaptations of the W. Somerset Maugham short story Rain, Miss Sadie Thompson comes to DVD for the first time here. Hayworth stars as the titular character, a former nightclub singer (a prostitute in the original story, but changed for the Production Code here) who gets stranded in American Samoa with a bunch of eager Marines and a zealous religious leader (Jose Ferrer), who is determined to rid the island of immorality.

The simmering seductive nature of the plot is toned down thanks to Production Code concessions, but director Curtis Bernhardt keeps the proceedings lively with a loose, jazzy feel to the scenes.
Hayworth excels here in one of her more tragic roles, displaying a fully realized sense of rage in the film’s climactic moments. Her alluring nature also works well for the character, who attracts plenty of Marines, but Sgt. Phil O’Hara (Aldo Ray) most of all.

The interplay of sex and religion doesn’t feel fully explored, merely hinted at, so the shocking climax feels a bit out of the blue, but Miss Sadie Thompson works on a number of levels — Hayworth’s performance being the primary one.

The film was originally released in 3-D — quite the different kind of film than what gets shown in 3-D these days.

Salome (1953)
An ill-advised Technicolor biblical (sort-of) epic, Salome is also a newcomer to DVD. Hayworth stars as the titular daughter of King Herod and Queen Herodias, but that’s about as close as the film sticks to the biblical story, adding all sorts of dubious story elements and culminating in a finale that’s the direct opposite of the Bible.

Although the costumes are fine, much of the production feels like it was created on the cheap, and the proceedings — Salome gets banished from Rome, falls in love with a Roman soldier (Stewart Granger), tries to save John the Baptist (an over-the-top Alan Badel) — feel interminably dull.
Hayworth’s climactic “Dance of the Seven Veils” is a demanding and engaging number and it’s enjoyable to see Charles Laughton camp it up as King Herod, but Hayworth’s beauty, lovingly framed in a number of close-ups by director William Dieterle, isn’t enough to redeem this one.

Martin Scorsese, Baz Luhrmann and Patricia Clarkson all lend introductions to the set, with Scorsese reminiscing about Gilda, Luhrmann talking about Cover Girl and Gilda, and Clarkson introducing Tonight and Every Night and Miss Sadie Thompson. Apparently no one had anything good to say about Salome. I’m not surprised. Clarkson’s entries are painfully pre-written and seem to be read off cue cards, but Scorsese and Luhrmann lend infectious passion to their thoughts. A commentary track from Richard Schickel is also included for Gilda, along with trailers for each of the films.

The Films of Rita Hayworth is an impressive set, with each Film Foundation-supervised transfer looking marvelous, and three previously unavailable classic films now on DVD.

The American

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: The American (2010) on Blogcritics.

The Film
Sometimes, you have to wonder what marketing executives are thinking. Case in point: The American, a moody, contemplative throwback to ’70s-era Antonioni and the cool minimalism of Melville, portrayed in trailers like a standard fare shoot-’em-up extravaganza. About an hour into the film, I bet there were disappointed sighs and bored glances at watches all across the cineplexes of America. I don’t think the average moviegoer in this country likes being tricked into watching an art film — even if it does star George Clooney.

Anton Corbijn’s second feature film is short on action, even if all the necessary spy thriller elements are tucked in it somewhere — violent betrayals, double-crosses, frantic shoot-outs — and long on precisely framed images, with Clooney’s assassin Jack pinned to the edge of the shot. The result is a portrait of isolation that doesn’t always seem to have much to say, but is successful even taken as a purely stylistic exercise.

After a tragically botched assignment in Sweden, Jack retreats to a small Italian village to be alone, and to complete a final assignment for unforgiving boss Pavel (Johan Leysen). He spends his time there alone in cafes, bonding with a priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and falling in love with a prostitute (Violante Placido). But the specter of violence is never far from him, as his job involves assembling a deadly rifle for fellow assassin Mathilde (Thekla Reuten).

Clooney proves that he’s one of the most interesting actors working today with a performance here that is stripped of every last shred of Clooney-esque charm. There are no smooth lines, dazzling smiles or head bobs to be found — just dour expressions and introspective stares — and he remains utterly captivating throughout.

The script, adapted from the unremarkable 1990 novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth, owes a great debt to Melville’s Le Samouraï and Corbijn’s visual style is heavily influenced by Antonioni’s The Passenger, among others, but The American doesn’t feel like just a copy of the classics. It stands on its own as an engaging slow burn tale with a haunting fatalistic tenor.

The Blu-ray Disc
The American is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The images captured by Corbijn and cinematographer Martin Ruhe look effervescent and crisp here. The opening snow-covered landscape shots are immediately striking, with perfect image stability and excellent clarity. Earthy wood tones in the forest where Jack tests the rifle and the whitewashed, aged walls of the Italian village’s buildings show an impressive amount of fine detail. A fine layer of film grain is usually noticeable, but unobtrusive.

Audio for the film is presented in a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. The film is exceedingly quiet, with long stretches of practically no sound at all, but everything about the mix feels precise — punctuated bursts of action are cleanly represented across all channels, while dialogue remains centered and clear.

Special Features
There’s not a lot to recommend as far as bonus content goes here, with the 10-minute making-of probably being the best bet. It’s fairly standard interview material, but feels more authentic and interesting than the average press kit stuff. A commentary track by Corbijn is kind of underwhelming, with him frequently telling us what we’re seeing on screen. A handful of deleted scenes coming in at about five minutes rounds out the disc.

Also included in the set is a code to download a digital copy, and it’s heartening to see a studio just make this a download rather than creating another disc just for the digital copy.

The Bottom Line
The American is a rewarding film experience that doesn’t just end up on the generic thriller scrap heap.

The Black Pirate

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: The Black Pirate (1926) on Blogcritics.

The Film
One of the earliest color films ever made, The Black Pirate is perhaps more impressive for its technically astute two-strip Technicolor than its story or direction, but how can any film that features the astonishingly agile swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks be anything but entertaining?

Fairbanks stars as a passenger on a ship that is overtaken by a gang of pirates. He narrowly escapes the explosion of the vessel, but his father, a duke, is not so lucky, and Fairbanks vows to take revenge. He infiltrates the pirate gang by posing as the Black Pirate and impressing them when he defeats their best man in a duel and later, takes an entire ship captive single-handedly.

Once taken, the Black Pirate discovers a princess (Billie Dove) onboard, and he must concoct a plan to extract a ransom in order to keep the pirates’ leering eyes and grubby hands away from her. Every action Fairbanks takes is done with jaunty athleticism, and he makes the films numerous stunts (most of which he performed himself) look effortless, whether he’s leaping from one tier of the deck to another or sliding down the sails.

The film is a crowd-pleaser from start to finish, with every action scene executed with aplomb. The story is slight, but The Black Pirate is never less than diverting — even the silent film-allergic should have no trouble staying engaged through this one.

The film’s two-strip Technicolor images are some of the best examples of the technology that survives, as the process made it difficult for the film stock to endure without great damage. While the colors certainly aren’t as striking as what would be achieved with three-strip Technicolor, any film lover should delight at this beautifully realized piece of film history.

The Blu-ray Disc
The Black Pirate is presented in 1080p high definition with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The two-strip Technicolor process resulted in colors that sometimes appear slightly washed-out, but every color shines on this presentation, with clear delineation and a vibrancy despite rather pale tones. The print shows nominal scratching throughout, but this is a wonderful restoration that is overwhelmingly clean. The amount of fine detail that can be seen on the ship’s ornate detailing and on the expressive actors’ faces never wavers, and is nothing less than astonishing.

Two stereo audio tracks are presented. The default features a Robert Israel-conducted version of the original score by Mortimer Wilson. A second track is organ-only by Lee Erwin.

Special Features
Kino ports over all the features from its DVD release of the film and adds a couple new ones, making for a nice set of extras. Previously available features include a commentary track by historian Rudy Behlmer and an 18-minute collection of black-and-white outtakes, also narrated by Behlmer and packed with excellent production history for those who don’t want to sit through the entire commentary.

New to this release are 30 more minutes of outtakes (also in black-and-white) and a recut version of the film, which is presented in black-and-white and features narration from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. instead of intertitles. A stills gallery also accompanies the extras.

The Bottom Line
The Black Pirate is a wonderfully fun film, and with the dearth of silent film available on Blu-ray in this country, it’s nice to see Kino consistently produce quality releases to help fill that void.