Kevin's Digital Week 15: Myth and McCarey

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-Ray of the Week

The Minotaur
(Opus Arte)
The future is now for opera recordings, as this work by British modernist Harrison Birtwistle, which premiered in London in April 2008, is available only on DVD and Blu-ray, not CD. The Minotaur—a staggeringly powerful work by Birtwistle, whose earlier operas tended toward the obscure, dramatically and musically—is a perfect example of how Blu-ray’s high-definition visuals and surround-sound audio give opera fans the best possible conditions under which to appreciate any work, new or old.

Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera House Chorus in a superb reading of Birtwistle’s characteristically thorny, spiky score; the performers—led by John Tomlinson’s Minotaur, Johan Reuter’s Theseus and Christine Rice’s Ariadne—handle the fiendishly difficult vocal and dramatic demands. Stephen Langridge’s staging is both direct and metaphorical, the perfect visualization of this Greek myth. The lone extra is a half-hour behind-the-scenes documentary, Myth Is Universal.

DVD of the Week

Make Way for Tomorrow
(Criterion)
Leo McCarey’s 1937 melodrama, one of Hollywood’s supreme tearjerkers, never approaches mere sentimentality. A forerunner of Yasujiro Ozu’s classic Tokyo Story (1953), Make Way explores how a long-married couple is shunted aside by their children in turn after losing their comfortable Manhattan apartment to the local bank. McCarey shows how aging parents can make their grown children so uncomfortable that they prefer not to deal with them—the resulting finale, when the couple goes “on the town” one final time, is memorably poignant.

The film's biggest flaw is a group of one-dimensional actors unable to carry the weight of their acidly-drawn characters; other than that, Make Way for Tomorrow is another DVD triumph for Criterion. The 73-year-old black and white film looks splendid, and the contextual supplements include interviews with Peter Bogdanovich and Gary Giddins, and insightful essays by Tag Gallagher and director Bertrand Tavernier.

Kevin's Digital Week 14: Audrey and Adolf

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 22 February 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-ray of the Week

Coco Before Chanel
(Sony)
Director Anne Fontaine’s conventionally enjoyable biopic — arecounting of the great French designer’s life before she became famous — is dominated by Audrey Tautou’s dazzling star turn, which gives the movie much of its style and panache. Although Tautou is far prettier than the real-life Coco Chanel, she shares a severe, dark beauty—and a pair of luminously piercing eyes—as she exudes the self-confident allure that made Coco irresistible to both men and women.

Even with the genre’s built-in limitations (a fatal accident seems like a screenwriter’s contrivance, even though it really happened), Coco Before Chanel is, thanks to Tautou’s grace and Fontaine’s adherence to the designer’s dictum that simplicity is best, exceptionally entertaining. On Blu-ray, Coco dazzles visually, Fontaine’s commentary is chatty and informative, and a behind-the-scenes documentary includes interviews with the director and her superstar.

DVD of the Week

Hitler’s Bodyguard
(Athena/Acorn Media)
This 13-part, 10-hour documentary looks at the Third Reich and Second World War era from a slightly different perspective. A thorough, endlessly fascinating historical account, this series is an absorbing overview of the thousands of men among various Nazi groups whose job was to safeguard the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, thanks to the constant possibility of his being an assassins’ target. Even though much of the information is not particularly new, the skillful presentation makes Hitler’s Bodyguard an important historical document.

Aside from the usual unnecessary recreations of events that mar many current non-fiction history programs—do we really need actors dressed as Nazis driving around in swastika-laden automobiles?—Hitler’s Bodyguard gives a suspenseful, exciting account of a glossed-over aspect of WWII study: who was responsible for watching over Hitler during a dozen years and more than 40 attempts on his life? There are no extras on any of the four discs—the lengthy series speaks for itself—although the set includes a short viewer’s guide.

Kevin's Digital Week 13: Studio Canal Trio, Majestic Zinn History

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 15 February 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

The Studio Canal Collection—Contempt, The Ladykillers, Ran
(LionsGate)
For its first American Blu-ray releases, France’s Studio Canal has chosen three classics from three eras: Alexander Mackendrick’s blackly comic The Ladykillers (1955), Jean-Luc Godard’s bleakly comic Contempt (1963) and Akira Kurosawa’s black, bleak war drama Ran (1985). While the films themselves are superb—The Ladykillers features the incomparable Alec Guinness, Contempt grandiosely demonstrates Godard’s love-hate relationship with Hollywood, and Ran, among Kurosawa’s grandest epics, poetically shows man’s inhumanity—the Blu-ray releases are not a grand slam.

There are generally satisfactory transfers: although Ran and Contempt have less-than-stellar visuals, The Ladykillers has been superbly restored. Among the plentiful extras providing important contextual information about each film are a Daniel Day Lewis-narrated documentary about Ealing Studios, Forever Ealing, that’s the best Ladykillers bonus; One Upon a Time There Was...Contempt, which brilliantly explores Godard’s classic film; and several Kurosawa featurettes on Ran give a good overview of a remarkable career. A promising Blu-ray start from Studio Canal and LionsGate. 

DVD of the Week

The People Speak
(A&E)
This unlikely but triumphant dramatization of the late Howard Zinn’s popular A People’s History of the United States is a gripping account of how our country was shaped by ordinary people: those whose voices are ignored in most history books. Filmed at Boston’s historic Majestic Theater, The People Speak is narrated by Zinn (who recently died at age 87) and includes stars of stage, screen and music—from actors Kerry Washington, Kathleen Chalfant, Rosario Dawson, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover and Matt Damon to singers Bob Dylan, Eddie Vedder and Bruce Springsteen—all proclaiming the immortal words of dozens of unheralded patriots over the course of several centuries of American history. 

Of course, an event like this will generate more cries of “Hollywood elites/liberals rewriting history” — and there are moments of foolishness, such as Zinn disparaging Abraham Lincoln with an out-of-context comment about his wanting to save the union without freeing any slaves. Still, The People Speak is memorable viewing for anyone interested in American history. Extras comprise short backstage glimpses and interviews with Zinn, performers and audience members.