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Movie attendance was down 8 percent in 2005. Lame remakes, creatively bankrupt sequels, astronomical tickets prices and a crowed entertainment market enjoy a large part of the blame.
So does the rise of the DVD.
Armed with crystal-clear images and booming soundtracks, not to mention the ever-evolving high-tech equipment used to present them, the DVD has made home viewing a worthy re-creation of cinema’s sensory-enveloping experience. While I’d argue that it’s impossible to replicate the glories of the local movie house — there’s still something highly alluring about watching 40-foot images in the dark — many find it infinitely more convenient to flip on the TV and press “play.”
And Hollywood studios are paying attention. A film’s DVD release is now as important its theatrical run, often eclipsing the bottom line of its more expensive big brother.
Everything from the most esoteric of television shows to the lushest big-screen productions have been given a second life on DVD, many of which include a plethora of special features as an extra enticement to prospective buyers and discerning film buffs. In a new twist, King Kong: Peter Jackson’s Productions Diaries, an extravagant two-disc set tracking the making of his behemoth, hit stores just in time for the film’s theatrical rollout.
As usual, a bevy of worthwhile releases enhanced the DVD landscape in 2005.
The year kicked off well with a collector’s edition version of Michel Gondry’s beguiling Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film that continues to resonate with each viewing. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull finally got the special edition treatment, as did his unfairly neglected New York, New York. Two long out-of-print cult classics, Point Blank and Over the Edge, saw the light, as did a pair of stellar multi-disc sets, Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection and The Errol Morris DVD Collection.
Doc-wise, DiG! masterfully dug into its musical milieu, Gunner Palace was more revealing than a year’s worth of Fox News reports and Rize unearthed a burgeoning art form.
Of the TV releases, The Muppet Show: Season One reminded us that creative ingenuity once ruled the day, and PBS’ fascinating Bob Dylan: No Direction Home featured the artist at his most candid. And don’t forget nearly every series on HBO, including the hilarious Entourage: The Complete First Season, a sly Hollywood satire that’s as funny as anything that town put in theaters in 2005.
The classic film restorers over at Criterion had another great year, offering up such worthy fare as Hoop Dreams, Jules & Jim, My Own Private Idaho, Naked, Pickpocket, The River, Shoot the Piano Player and Ugetsu, among many others.
Yet when it comes to my 2005 DVD-watching experience, one man left a singular impression: iconic French director Jean-Luc Godard. For a filmmaker whose greatest cinematic triumphs occurred before I was born, DVD has been a godsend.
No less than five Godard films premiered this year, starting with Criterion’s February release of his 1972 collaboration with Jean-Pierre Gorin, the politically radical Tout va Bien. His most recent theatrical effort, last year’s lyrical antiwar meditation Notre Musique, surfaced in May, and 1997’s For Ever Mozart finally hit DVD in June.
But it was two of his ’60s classics that made the difference. In August, New Yorker Video released Week-End, followed by Criterion’s September rollout of Masculin feminin.
The latter, which originally appeared in 1966, centers on Paul (Jean-Pierre Leaud), an idealistic, lust-filled young pollster who’s struggling to form an opinion of his own amid the turbulent political climate of late-’60s France. Early on he falls for Madeleine (Chantal Goya), an adorable Pop singer whose main interests are Coca-Cola and fashion magazines.
A series of disparate vignettes follow, each of which illuminate the growing encroachment of American consumerist culture on France — and the world in general — a trend Godard scathingly mines to high comic effect.
Several caustically satirical scenes comment on America’s Vietnam conflict of the day, and one can’t help but conjure our current Iraq situation when Paul and a buddy encounter a car driven by two American military officers.
“Things booming in Vietnam?” Paul asks one of them.
“Sure are,” he replies.
“Killing lots of Communists?”
“Sure are.”
“Burning the whole country with napalm. Fantastic!”
“Yeah.”
“Women, children, all wiped out. Nice work.”
Meanwhile, as Paul converses, his buddy sneaks around to the other side of the car and in white paint writes “Peace in Vietnam” across the passenger door. When the officers finally realize the ruse, Paul yells “U.S. go home! U.S. go home!” as the car drives off.
Shot in stark black and white amid the realistic milieu of French cafes and apartments, Masculin feminin‘s off-the-cuff nature — it literally seems as if anything can happen at any time — belies Godard’s total control over the production. In an interview that accompanies the disc, Goya confirms that Godard fed Leaud lines via an earpiece during an especially candid scene in which Paul asks Madeleine several sexually invasive questions.
As we watch the long, unedited take unfold, it’s as if the two actors are actually conversing as themselves. It’s a fascinatingly intimate sequence, an experience that’s impossibly rare in today’s cinema.
It’s this meld of ultra-realism and surrealism that makes Godard such a unique and exciting artist. Bursting with ideas and stylistic flourishes, Masculin feminin remains as vital as the day it was released.
Made a year later, Week-End is an entirely different can of worms, one that would take much more space to dissect than I have here. If Masculin feminin was intent on exploring the culture of now, Week-End was a forecast of the future, a cautionary tale for a French society spinning out of control.
Dispatching with typical narrative techniques altogether, Godard set out on a new frontier, spewing forth scene after scene of surreal horror. The lengthy opening sequence, in which a bourgeois couple discuss a bizarre sexual interlude, sets the tone immediately, one that reaches a fever pitch amid the famous traffic-jam sequence that must be seen to be believed.
Week-End was a turning point in Godard’s career, marking the end of his days as a “commercial” filmmaker. There was nothing left for him to do, a development that critic David Sterritt discusses in the DVD’s illuminating audio commentary track.
I’ve watched Week-End three times, and each experience has been different from the last — exactly what its maker would have wanted. ©
This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2005.
