Claude Autant-Lara: Four Romantic Escapes

CLAUDE AUTANT-LARA: FOUR ROMANTIC ESCAPES FROM OCCUPIED FRANCE (1942-1946)

Criterion Collection (Eclipse Set), DVD, Release Date Jan 23, 2018

Review by Christopher S. Long

During the Nazi Occupation, French director Claude Autant-Lara reeled off a series of box-office hits that struck a chord with audiences eager for a romantic escape from desperate times. He extended his commercial success through the post-war years, but then suddenly found himself under attack from an unexpected source.

Francois Truffaut's now-famous 1954 critique of “A Certain Tendency” in French cinema primarily targeted screenwriters Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost for their staid literary adaptations, but since they wrote many of Autant-Lara's most successful films (including all the films in this set) the director took heavy collateral damage and increasingly found his work marginalized as an exemplar of the dreaded “tradition of quality.” This new four-film box set from Eclipse suggests that the scorn was mostly unwarranted, and that a concerted critical effort at latter-day redemption is equally unnecessary.

“Le Mariage de Chiffon” (1942) is typical of most of the set. Pleasant, efficient, and almost instantly forgettable, it features Odette Joyeux, the stand-out star of the set, as a sheltered 16-year-old from an aristocratic family who is pursued by a much older military officer (Andre Luguet). Chiffon, however, has her heart set on another much older man who also happens to be her uncle (Jacques Dumesnil). OK, he's actually the brother of her step-father but still... I guess the times were just different as this story was apparently considered charming. Joyeux was nearly thirty at the time and hardly makes a pretense at actually playing an innocent teen, blunting some of the gross-out factor.

The plot is largely forgettable (did I already use that word?), but the film evokes some of the romance of the earl days of aviation as good old Uncle Marc risks everything to be first in flight. The faithful house servant Jean is also brought to life quite gamely by Pierre Larquey. A graceful, unobtrusive camera glides through many scenes, underscoring the delicate, audience-pleasing romance of... an underage girl finally hooking up with her uncle.

Anyway, it's just fine, but I can't say the same thing for “Lettres D'Amour” (1942) where the light, romantic touch tilts into vapidity. Less than a year after playing a teenager, Joyeux now plays a widow who gets enmeshed in a mistaken-identity caper in mid-19^th century France, a convoluted tale involving Emperor Napoleon III, a lawyer, and nobody else that really matters much. While the camerawork remains smooth here, the editing is sometimes clunky, including a sequence when one character steals an object and is shown in multiple cuts leaving the room, walking away from the house, then entering yetanother room, a deft manipulation of scene transitions right out of the Tommy Wiseau school of filmmaking.

Fortunately, the next film, “Douce” (1943), is the stand-out feature in the set. Another tale of dueling romances, “Douce” strikes a much more serious tone. Joyeux returns to playing an aristocratic teen, or something close to a teen, who uncovers a plot between her governess (Madeleine Robinson) and the family's estate manager (Roger Pigaut) and decides to stop it by seducing the manager, a long-time crush of hers. The wealthy household is ruled by Douce's fiery grandmother (Marguerite Moreno) while her sad-eyed father (Jean Debucourt), a widower, largely plays the helpless bystander as the drama boils over. Marred by a final twist so abrupt it comes off as absurd, “Douce” still packs a punch and features Joyeux's most compelling performance in the set.

“Sylive et le Fantome” (1946) was released just after the war, and marries Autant-Lara's penchant for light romance with the ghost story genre as Joyeux, yet again playing a teen, falls for a long-dead man who played a role in her family's past. The story is pretty silly, but the film remains of interest because the ghost (or one of the ghosts) is played by the great Jacques Tati, in his first feature-film role. You honestly don't need to know more than that, so let's move on.

All in all, the collection comprises a group of mildly entertaining movies, not particularly noteworthy, but also not the abominations some assumed they were after Truffaut's critique. Are they therefore worth your time? Consider one complicating factor before making your decision.

Autant-Lara's public career ended in total disgrace. By the 1980s, he had embraced far-right politics and entered the European Parliament with Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, launching a series of anti-Semitic attacks, and spewing Holocaust denial propaganda.

Many a think-piece has been written on how to approach the works of great artists who leave behind troubling legacies, but less thought is devoted to mediocre artists who do the same. I usually agree with the “separate the art from the artists” school of thought, but it also depends on how worthwhile the art is. I intend to keep listening to Richard Wagner for the rest of my life, but I feel I can safely live without any more Ted Nugent even if “Cat Scratch Fever” is pretty decent.

All art should be preserved and preferably be made available to as wide an audience as is feasible. But while you might be curious about a sweet, sunny, mildly diverting romantic farce by a future Holocaust Denier, nobody will blame you if you decide you have other priorities in life.

Video:

“Le Mariage de Chiffon” and “Lettres D'Amour” are presented in 1.37 aspect ratios, the other two films in 1.33:1.

Like all Eclipse releases, all four films are offered with standard definition transfers, with little, if any, new restoration for the set. The image quality is still surprisingly strong considering that, though the quality varies with each film. “Lettres D'Amour” shows more intermittent damage from the source print than do the other films. All four films are black-and-white, and the B&W contrast is satisfyingly robust on all films.

Audio:

All four films are presented with Dolby 2.0 mono sound mixes, which qualify as efficient and functional, and nothing more. Optional English subtitles are provided to support the French audio.

Extras:

Each disc is stored in a separate slim keepcase with its own cover art, with all four cases tucked into the now-familiar Eclipse cardboard sleeve.

As with most Eclipse releases, no extras are offered beyond the liner notes included with each disc, all of which are written by writer and translator Nicholas Elliott.

Final Thoughts:

It's great to have the Eclipse series back after a two-year hiatus, disappointing that the 45^th installment may also be the least compelling of the series. April brings the next installment with Ingrid Bergman's Swedish years, so perhaps Eclipse will now return to a regular schedule, a welcome development for any film buff.

Larisa Shepitko: Eclipse Series 11

LARISA SHEPITKO: "WINGS" (1966) and "THE ASCENT" (1977)

Eclipse Series from Criterion, DVD, Release Date Aug 12, 2008

Review by Christopher S. Long

(As Snowmageddon approaches the Northeast, I started thinking about the snowiest films of all-time. Hey, sometimes I go for the obvious. When I think of snow in movies, I always think of “The Shining” but then I had a vivid memory of the battle sequence, described below, in Larisa Shepitko's “The Ascent.” Thanks in part to this Eclipse release, Shepitko's films may be a bit better known today than they were back in 2008, but it's safe to say she still remains criminally underseen by many viewers.

On the off-chance you don't have time to watch “The Ascent” while riding out the storm this weekend, make sure to put it on your list to check out soon. And, oh yeah, “Wings” isn't bad either. Isn't the Eclipse Series groovy?)

You may not have heard of Larisa Shepitko. Though she was a contemporary of Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Parajanov, among others, her films have rarely played outside of the Soviet Union. In part, this is due to the fact that she died in a car accident at the age of 41 with only four feature films to her name as well as a few shorts and a television comedy. Filmmakers like Shepitko exist internationally only in the form of retrospectives at repertory theaters, and it is difficult to make a retrospective out of four films.

“Wings” (1966, 85 min., not to be confused with the silent American film that won the first Best Picture award) is her first post-graduate feature, and it is a marvelously astute character study. Nadezhda Petrukhina (Maya Bulgakova) was an ace jet pilot during the war but as she reaches her forties she struggles to find a sense of purpose in life. She believes strongly in her obligation to serve her country and fellow citizens, but she finds her job as a schoolteacher unsatisfying. It’s not that she isn’t devoted to her charges; she’s so passionate and dedicated that she steps in at the last minute to play a Viatka doll in a stage play. But like an ex-athlete who struggles to adjust to life out of the limelight, Nadezhda can’t make the transition from war to peacetime. What’s the use of being a war hero if you’re a forgotten war hero?

She spends much of the film wandering around town, catching up with old friends or spending time with her daughter Tanya (Zhanna Bolotva) who no longer has time for her. This is yet another challenge for the ex-pilot, adjusting from an identity as a mother to an empty-nester. Her daughter no longer needs her, her military skills are no longer in demand, and she is a single woman approaching middle age. She has slipped through the cracks of Soviet society and tries desperately to gain some purchase on solid ground whether through work or possibly even marriage.

None of the choices are as appealing to her as lingering in the past. In the film’s most lyrical scenes, Nadezhda thinks back to her time in the air. From her pilot’s point of view we see the wide open sky stretching out to the vanishing point, the sort of sublime imagery that Werner Herzog has made a career out of. But as the Stones once sang “Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone.”

Bulgakova, then only 33, inhabits the role of the restless ex-soldier with an understated ease that generates tremendous empathy without histrionics or even an Oscar-worthy crying jag. Nadezhda is a bundle of insecurity who can hide her anxiety in comfortable settings, but roars like a bull in a china shop when on unfamiliar ground. For a war hero, she’s quite vulnerable and Bulgakova isn’t afraid to risk embarrassment in a few scenes, particularly when Nadezhda finally meets Tonya’s husband.

“The Ascent” (1977, 109 min.) was Shepitko’s final film. Made a decade later, it displays the same unhurried pace and lyrical tone of “Wings” but in the service of more visceral subject matter. Adapted from a novel by Vasil Bykov, the film follows two Byelorussian soldiers on a doomed mission to find help for their beleaguered unit as they try to evade the occupying Nazi force. Cursed from the outset, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) come to terms with their fate in very different ways.

The first half of “The Ascent” is nothing short of brilliant, both as a war film and as a snow film. The snow is everywhere, not just in the trees and on the ground and on the lakes and falling from the sky, but in the soldier’s clothing, encrusting their faces, infiltrating their lungs as they struggle for raspy painful breaths. The list of films in which snow has been employed to equal or greater effect is a short one: “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “The Shining” and...? 

In an amazing sequence that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Shepitko was a virtuoso filmmaker, the two soldiers stand off against a company of Nazis. The enemy is barely visible through the driving snow. Sotnikov, shot and barely able to move, fires into the whiteness. Has he hit somebody? There’s no way to tell. For a moment it appears to be over, but then a return volley rings out. He fires again at a barely visible silhouette, ready to die rather than be captured by the Huns. Rybak, not nearly as eager to achieve martyrdom, begins to flee through the woods but returns to drag his crippled friend away from the fight.

There are other inspired moments in the film, particularly a scene when the soldiers hideout in a farmhouse, a cliché of “soldier on the run” films that Shepitko stands right on its hand, or perhaps she simply brings a more pragmatic, less gung-ho American perspective to the material. Unfortunately, the second half of the movie doesn’t quite match up to the inspired brilliance of the first. Not that it’s bad, but the film begins to feel rather predictable and overly familiar in its later stages. Tragedy has been inevitable from the start, but it unfolds in a mechanical and self-conscious manner that leeches it of some of its potency. Regardless, “The Ascent” is a success by any standard, and netted Shepitko the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival.

Both films are splendid examples of a gifted filmmaker whose work has fallen unfairly into obscurity. The same fate has befallen hundreds of directors, of course, but it seems particularly unjust considering Shepitko’s tragic demise, leaving so few films behind and so much promise unfulfilled.

Video:

Both films are presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, and both were filmed n in black and white. Both transfers are picture-boxed meaning some viewers will see black bars on the left and right of the screen. These aren’t fully restored transfers like the regular Criterion line. The whole point of the Eclipse series is simply to get as many lesser-seen films out on the market as possible, quickly and in an affordable format. “Wings” shows its share of wear and tear, but is still more than presentable. “The Ascent” actually looks quite strong for an unrestored transfer, and I have no substantive complaints about it. Black-and-white contrast on “The Ascent” is particularly sharp which is a good thing considering how washed-out some of the snowy scenes might have looked otherwise.

Audio:

The films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono. Optional English subtitles support the Russian audio.

Extras:

Like all Eclipse releases from Criterion, there are no extras although the inside sleeve of each DVD features very informative essay about Shepitko and each film.

Each DVD is stores in its own keep case. The two keep cases are housed in a slim cardboard slip cover.

Final Thoughts:

Both “Wings” and “The Ascent” achieve greatness at times, and even their weak points are stronger than most films. Larisa Shepitko’s films deserve to be seen by a wider audience, and this set from Eclipse provides Region 1 viewers the opportunity to see her best work. I love the Eclipse series. What a great idea and a great service to the cinephile community.

Julien Duvivier In The Thirties: Eclipse Series 44

JULIEN DUVIVIER IN THE THIRTIES (Duvivier, 1930-1937)

Eclipse Series From Criterion, DVD, Release Date Nov 3, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

If director Julien Duvivier's star dimmed in the post-war years, the 1930s witnessed him a the height of his prowess. Few directors would make the transition from silent cinema to talkies as seamlessly as Duvivier even if, like most directors, he made the change only with great reluctance.

Following a successful run of more than twenty silent pictures, Duvivier's talkie debut was an absolute stunner. “David Golder” (1930) isn't exactly a cheerful pick-me-up. The film's opening montage film shows a shouting crowd; characters super-imposed over the masses warn us that the film's title character is both a “scoundrel” and “a great man.” The paunchy, aging Golder (Harry Baur, who stars in all four films on this Eclipse set) backs up both claims in a difficult financial negotiation set in a smoky room lit mostly by the glare reflecting off sweaty, balding foreheads. This is a business man who means business. 

It's reasonable to be concerned about the ultimate purpose of a film centered on a greedy Jewish banker and his equally greedy wife and daughter. But the film, based on the debut novel of Russian-born Jewish writer Irene Nemirovsky, paints a vivid portrait of wealthy European Jews at the onset of the worldwide economic depression, filled with the intrigues and scheming of any insular group of power brokers, and any family corrupted by easy money.

In a truly harrowing sequence, Golder, recovering from a recent heart attack, argues with his wife Gloria (Paule Andral) while bed-ridden. After Gloria accuses him of being “the same little Jew” who sold scraps, he almost literally chokes her to death by grabbing her extravagantly jeweled necklace. He strikes another damaging blow when he reminds Gloria that she once was known as Havke. It's one of the most bilious displays I can recall seeing in any film, genuine, seething hatred from two fully invested actors.

Duvivier and his team of cinematographers balance grotesque imagery (David wanders in on a sweaty obese man toweling himself off while wearing only underpants) with many immaculate compositions, including a remarkable shot that allows separate actions to unfold in different rooms, each cordoned off in opposite halves of the frame. Duvivier is a big fan of parallel action; when not peering into two rooms at once, he cuts back and forth aggressively between simultaneous sequences, one of which ends with a suicide on a night-time street. The camera also lingers on the faces of impassive butlers while their “masters” discuss their various schemes, showing that Duvivier had no problems taking advantage of the new opportunities afforded by sound technology.

“David Golder” is so relentlessly gloomy that the next film in the set feels positively upbeat by comparison. After all the title character of “Poil De Carotte” (“Carrot Top”, 1932) is just a ten-year-old boy who contemplates suicide due to the cruelty of his mother and the benign neglect of his father (Baur). Carrot Top (Robert Lynen) does his best to endure a family situation in which he feels so disenfranchised he refers to his parents as Mr. and Mrs. Lepic. Mother openly despises him, perhaps because he arrived late in life as an unexpected gift, while doting on her feckless oldest son. Father is primarily concerned with escaping his wife and running for mayor of their small town.

The film was a huge commercial success for Duvivier in no small part due to the plucky performance delivered by young Lynen. Carrot Top has a rich imagination which both allows him to survive and also produces frightening manifestations such as the circle of phantoms who swirl about him as he makes a nighttime dash to feed the livestock. He is, unfortunately, too perceptive to deny his situation and his prayers for mother to “forget I exist” give way to voices in his head (also filmed as ghostly apparitions) urging him to end his problems for good. A last-minute reconciliation between father and son comes as an immense relief even if there's little reason to believe the boy will live happily ever after.

“La Tete D'un Homme” (1933) sees Duvivier try his hand at the detective story, this time casting Baur as Georges Simenon's world-famous Inspector Maigret. Duvivier and co-screenwriters Louis Delapree and Pierre Calmann remove all suspense from the story, providing viewers access to the planning and execution of the murder of an elderly American widow that kicks off the action. The tension builds slowly in the unraveling, first when a hapless schmuck of a thief (Alexandre Rignault, whose giant hatchet face pegs him as a born patsy) is framed for the crime and later as the supernaturally patient Maigret zeroes in on the real killer. Rignault's flight into the nighttime Paris is a sequence of moody perfection capped off by a thin, elongated shadow seemingly copied directly from “Nosferatu.”

Since the crime itself is a bit of a bore, the movie wouldn't work without an intriguing killer. Fortunately the film delivers in the form of the tormented Czech medical student Radek, a character seemingly plucked from a Dostoevsky novel. Thinking himself superior and the unfair victim of a terminal malady, he exhibits little guilt, preferring to taunt the police instead. Russian import Valery Inkijinoff adds another indelible face to the film's rogue gallery, his remarkably expressive features practically an open window to a shriveled soul. Baur is almost overshadowed in the process, but turns in a fine performance as a calm, implacable investigator whose secret weapon is the ability to listen.

The final film in the set provides at least intermittent respite from the misery of the first three entries. “Un Carnet Du Bal” (“Dance Card”, 1937) is an episodic feature that may play to some viewers like an early Max Ophuls film and is surely the most elegant feature in the set. Christine (Marie Bell) is recently widowed and hopes to alleviate her grief, or at least come to terms with it, by reconnecting with the male suitors who danced with her at her coming-out ball on her 16^th birthday, nearly two decades ago.

Her adventures take her from Italy to France and through a varied series of encounters that prove that the past is irretrievable and the future entirely unforeseeable. Many of the men have fallen on hard times, a few because Christine did not entertain their advances back at the ball. Unsurprisingly, Harry Baur delivers the most memorable performance. His disappointment with Christine's rejection, as well as another great personal loss, drove him to the priesthood where he feels he does great good, but not enough to overcome his lingering heartache. In another vivid encounter, she meets with a former lover whose life has taken him from lawyer to petty crook. The two hours he spends talking with her may be the last he spends as a free man, but the opportunity to see himself through her eyes might make it all bearable.

Other men have adjusted to post-Christine life more happily, including a heroic but lonely mountain guide, a small-town mayor about to remarry, and an ebullient hairdresser with a penchant for dopey card tricks. Christine's travels are initiated by her memory of the ball, rendered by Duvivier and team as a carefully choreographed phantasmagoria reminiscent of Carrot Top's swirling ghosts, and her journey inevitably takes her back to the beginning, to another ball and then back home to the Italian villa she had shared with her husband. “Un Carnet Du Bal” was yet another big hit for Duvivier, released the same year as perhaps his best-remember film today, “Pepe Le Moko.”

The success of “Pepe” and, to a lesser degree, “Carnet Du Bal” brought Duvivier to Hollywood before he returned to France, with a few detours to the UK, after the war. While he still directed some fine films during the post-war period, his critical reputation would suffer once the “Cahiers Du Cinema” critics lumped him unfairly in with their despised purveyors of “the tradition of quality.” Duvivier has since been embraced once again by critics, but still remains eclipsed by the shadows of his contemporary stars like Marcel Carne and Jean Renoir, the latter of whom rated Duvivier as one of the greatest filmmakers of any era.

Video:

All four films are shot in black-and-white. “David Golder” is presented in its original 1.19:1 aspect ratio, a ratio used only in the first few years of sound film. The other three films are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios. As usual with Eclipse releases, the films have not been restored for this release and they vary in quality. “La Tete D'Un Homme” shows the most damage with several short shots badly warped around the edges, but most of it still looks fine. “Poil De Carotte” probably looks the best. Overall, while the film's all show some instances of damage with the occasional skipped frame evident, they are still sharp enough to show a pleasing grain and a satisfying black-and-white contrast. Considering the age of the films, these “no frills” restorations look quite solid.

Each film is on its own DVD housed in a separate slim keep case. All four slim cases tuck into the cardboard packaging for the set.

Audio:

All four films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono sound mixes. Voices sometimes sound a little tinny and the music a bit warbly, but overall the quality is acceptable if far from spectacular. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.

Extras:

As with most Eclipse releases, no extras are provided aside from liner notes on each of the four discs by Michael Koresky who, as usual, does a fabulous job.

Final Thoughts:

I think “David Golder” is a flat-out masterpiece and “Un Carnet Du Bal” is so rich I expect to enjoy it even more on repeat viewings; the other two films are damned fine as well. Yet as marvelous as the movies in this four-disc Eclipse set are, they also provide a sobering reminder of the tragedy of history. Thanks to the success of “Poil De Carotte,” Robert Lynen became one of France's pre-eminent child stars in the '30s. By the age of 20, he joined the French Resistance and was executed by the Nazis in 1944. The great Harry Baur, nearly omnipresent in this set, appeared in several other films for Duvivier, enjoying his own stardom. Baur would also die at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Novelist Irene Nemirovsky was killed in Auschwitz in 1942.

When Horror Came to Shochiku: Eclipse Series 37

WHEN HORROR CAME TO SHOCHIKU (1967-1968)

Eclipse Collection (Criterion), DVD Box Set, Release Date Nov 20, 2012

Review by Christopher S. Long

The airline passengers in “Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell” (1968) are doomed all right, but what will finally do them in? Is it the bomb scare radioed in to the pilot in the opening scene? Or perhaps the suicidal birds that splatter red-black feather blood against the cabin windows? How about the not-related-to-the-bomb-threat gangster who sneaked a gun on board and takes the crew hostage? Maybe it's the UFO that has been reported in the vicinity.

Since all of these game-over threats materialize before the opening credits even roll, there's plenty to keep you guessing. Which one will kill our brave and unfortunate men and women? Do you think you know the answer? Well, you don't, because it turns out it's the space vampires. Duh.

It's just the kind of genre-mashing, logic-defying lunatic plot hypersaturation that enables you to overlook the fact that Goke isn't from Hell at all, and that there really isn't even a Goke because, well geez man, space vampires. And don't forget about that gangster or that bomb guy 'cause they're not going anywhere either. “Goke” weaves a complex tapestry and it's something magnificent to behold.

“Goke” was one of four sci-fi/horror films released by the venerable and venerated Shochiku Studios in 1967-1968. The house best known for Ozu, Mizoguchi, and, later, Oshima, was slow to embrace the monster movie craze kicked off by Ishiro Honda's monumental “Godzilla” (1954), and their entry into the field was over almost before it started, but they certainly didn't hold anything back. The late sixties marked the crest of a few New Waves and while Shochiku might have skimped a bit on production values, they left enough in the budget for the kind of gonzo innovation and stylization that assured this quartet of films an enduring life as cult favorites.

“Goke,” directed by Hajime Soto, is easily the highlight of the collection for me. The deranged premise is matched by an equally deranged cast of characters, including not only that gangster and wannabe bomber (who turns out not to be so bad) but also a semi-sadistic psychologist, a space biologist (lucky, that), and an American woman en route to Vietnam to pick up the body of her soldier husband. Perhaps the standout is Mr. Mano, a corrupt, venal politician who is given such glorious lines as “Humanism! Just what we need!” and “Intellectuals always try to confuse people!” You won't weep for many of them as the body count rises, but just when you think the film can't top its pre-credits insanity here comes an ending that will remind you of just puny this little old pale blue dot of a planet really is.

“Goke” is iron-clad-nutso proof that a film can be simultaneously ridiculous and smart, and should not be confused for disposable camp. Its secrets to success are not so secret: damned fine writing and damned fine filmmaking (cinematographer Shizuo Hirase was at the top of his game). It's a daunting task to crack any “best of” list from 1968, but I state with supreme confidence that “Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell” is an accomplishment on par with just about anything New and/or Wavey anywhere in the world in that landmark year.

I wasn't as overwhelmed by the other three films in this Eclipse set, but I can say that each of them has its distinct charms. “The X From Outer Space” (1967) kicked off Shochiku's genre foray. It is way too laden with exposition and takes far too long to unleash its man in a rubber suit on helpless urban populations, but once space monster Guilala starts knocking over buildings and uprooting transformers, the mayhem that ensues achieves a kind of mindless white-noise poetry whose appeal is undeniable. Plus it's inspiring to watch our intrepid heroes struggle to figure out how to stop the nuclear-powered dynamo. “Perhaps if we smother Guilala with Guilalanium.” How the heck did you figure that one out, Mr. Science Person? The film's most memorable feature, however, is the incongruous score by Taku Izumi beginning with an inexplicably chipper opening credit theme and then sambaing its way through the rubble. 

“The Living Skeleton” (1968) is the only black-and-white offering in the set, and it's heavy on atmospherics, light on everything else. The opening scene establishes the bleak world as a group of hostages on a cargo ship are gunned down in cold blood by crazed pirates. Fast forward three years and the twin sister of one of the victims abruptly finds the call of the ocean irresistible. The film is a twitching bundle of secret identities and hoary frissons that leads to a pretty silly and far too twisty denouement, but there are still pleasures to be had in this black-and-white coastal landscape even if the skeletons (living or dead) are a bit lacking in the scare department. 

“Genocide” (1968) arrives with a premise almost as divinely deranged as that of “Goke.” An American plane carrying an H-Bomb soars above Japanese islands. The sight of a buzzing bee sparks bombardier Charly (Chico Rowland) to flashback to his Vietnam combat days and he accidentally opens the bomb bay doors. But no worries, the bomb is secure. Unfortunately, a swarm of insects seizes this opportunity to engulf and crash the plane, and eventually to threaten the human race with, what else, genocide? Add in at least one crazed scientist who wants to help the little buggers on their extermination quest (but with good reason, you can be sure), and you've got the recipe for disaster but... heck, there are no buts here. There's gonna be a disaster. I wish the execution was as inspired as the set-up, but if the film never approaches “Goke” for cinematic perfection, it has more than a few moments that make it worthwhile, and the final images are genuinely moving. Extreme close-up photography of insects will also send the creepy-crawlies down your spine. 

Video:

“The X From Outer Space” is presented in a 2.24:1 aspect ratio, “Goke” in 2.35:1, “The Living Skeleton” (the only B&W film) in 2.50:1, and “Genocide” in 2.47:1. Though these Eclipse editions have not been digitally restored, the picture quality is generally strong. “The Living Skeleton” looks particularly vital in its rich black-and-white contrasts. “The X From Outer Space” seems like the weakest of the lot overall, but doesn't present any significant problems, just some soft image quality at times.

Audio:

All four films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono. “The X From Outer Space” offers an English dub in addition to the original Japanese audio. There isn't much to say about the audio; some of the music and effects sound a bit thin or slightly warbled, but overall the audio is crisp. Optional English subtitles support the Japanese audio.

Extras:

As with most Eclipse releases, there are no extras. Each disc is stored in a separate thin keep-case with its own art. All four discs slide into the thin cardboard slipcover carrying the Eclipse Series logo.

Each disc has liner notes (a three page fold-out for “The X From Outer Space,” one page each for the others) by critic Chuck Stephens who writes both about Shochiku's overall foray into the sci-fi/horror genre and about each of the films.

Set Value:

According to Chuck Stephens, fans of “Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell” have taken to referring to the film as “Vagina-Face Apocalypse” (see below) which adds a super-cool nickname to an already super-cool title. Criterion started the year with an extraordinary Blu-ray package of “Godzilla” which has still held up as one of their best titles of 2012. Eclipse is now finishing the year with “When Horror Came to Shochiku” and if the average film quality can't match up to the original bad boy of the genre, I don't think “Goke” is that far off. I cannot recommend “Goke” highly enough. And the other three films are at the very least, fun ways to pass an evening and occasionally a lot more than that. 

The First Films of Samuel Fuller (Eclipse Series 5)

THE FIRST FILMS OF SAMUEL FULLER (1949, 1950, 1951)

Eclipse Series (Criterion), DVD, Release Date August 14, 2007

Review by Christopher S. Long

(OK, so here's a review I wrote in between two brief hospital stays back in 2007. This was during what I call my "I need to prove to everyone how much I know about directors so I can get invited to one of those hot auteurist orgies" period, which explains the run down of so many titles. I'm sure I had a good reason for reviewing the titles in reverse chronological order. I present this review mostly unedited and in honor of what would have been Sam Fuller's 103rd birthday today.)

Sam Fuller was a movie character before he was ever a movie director. He was a teenage crime reporter on the shadowy streets of New York, a pulp novelist, and an infantryman in WWII who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Fuller had already tried his hand at screenwriting before serving in the army, but he didn’t direct his first film until 1949. “I Shot Jesse James” (1949) didn’t launch him to instant stardom, but it was an auspicious beginning to a career that would later gain a major boost from the “Cahiers du Cinema” critics who adopted Fuller as one of their favorite Hollywood icons. Godard even cast him in “Pierrot le fou” (1965) as the unnamed American Film Director. Fuller’s macho persona combined with his gritty directing style to make him a legendary figure on par with Sam Peckinpah, though more venerated as an inner-circle “auteur.”

Fuller directed several Westerns, the best of them being the delirious, fetishistic “Forty Guns” (1957) starring Barbara Stanwyck as “a high-ridin’ woman with a whip” but was most celebrated for his work in two genres: film noir and the war picture. “Shock Corridor” (1963) and the “The Naked Kiss” (1964) are the two best known examples of his noir work, while “The Big Red One” (1980), a film that requires a deeper color than “pitch black” to describe its cynical humor, is probably his best-known war film.

But it isn’t necessarily his best. That honor belongs to “The Steel Helmet” (1951), his third film and also the third film in the new boxed set from Criterion: “The Early Films of Samuel Fuller.” The movies stars Gene Evans, in his first of several roles for Fuller, as Sgt. Zack which is only a couple letters away from being Sgt. Rock which should clue comic book fans into what kind of guy Zack is (and, yes, I know Sgt. Rock wasn't created until 1959!) Zack is a cigar-chomping, wise-cracking hard-ass who has seen so many of the horrors of war that he just doesn’t give a good goddamn what happens to him or to anybody else.

In the opening scene, Zack takes a bullet in the helmet (producing an image that “Saving Private Ryan” fans will recognize) but somehow survives unscathed. He picks up a young South Korean boy he dubs Short Round (William Chun) and soon encounters an African-American medic named Thompson (James Edwards). Their tiny makeshift unit tries to survive the return to home base through decidedly unfriendly territory. The trio later runs into a unit led by a white, greenhorn Lieutenant (Steve Brodie) who can’t stand Zack but still begs him to help them get to a nearby temple. Zack refuses at first, but the sound of North Korean zip guns convinces him otherwise.

“The Steel Helmet” is remarkable for being one of the first American film to reflect the troubled and sometimes desperate conditions for GI's in Korea. It is even more remarkable for its vivid, if sometimes overwrought, depiction of racial tension in the conflict, not just between the American soldiers and the indigenous population, but among the soldiers themselves. For his part, the steel-hearted Zack actually warms more to Short Round, Thompson and Japanese-American Sgt. “Buddha-Head” Tanaka (Richard Loo) than he does to the Caucasian members of the unit. Racial issues come to a near-boil when a Communist prisoner (Harold Fong) stirs up trouble by asking Thompson and Tanaka why they would serve a country that doesn’t serve them. Patriotism trumps all other concerns, as it often (though not always) does in Fuller’s work. We’re all Americans here, so go screw yourself, you pinko bastard!

Fuller works wonders with a low budget. Though some of the sets have a decidedly artificial look to them, he still portrays a convincing and harrowing fight for survival capped by a lengthy siege in a Buddhist temple. Fuller’s heart doesn’t melt for super-grunt Zack either; the film’s most shocking moment reminds us vividly of how empty Zack’s apathetic bravado really is. He is no hero, not by a long shot. “The Steel Helmet” relies on easy stereotypes as a shortcut to creating memorable characters, but Fuller’s bravura direction keeps the material fresh and exciting. The final twenty minutes or so of “Steel Helmet” are simply extraordinary.

The first two films in the set are low-budget Westerns. “The Baron of Arizona” (1950) seems like a can’t-miss project with its impressive array of talent: Fuller writes, produces and directs; James Wong Howe photographs the film; and a young, strapping Vincent Price stars in the title role. Based on a true story, the film tells the tale of James Addison Reaves, the self-proclaimed Baron of Arizona, who almost pulled off the greatest land swindle in American history since Peter Minuit. Reaves went to unbelievable lengths (further exaggerated in the film) to create a fictional Spanish ancestor for his young wife Sofia (Ellen Drew), establishing her as the rightful heir (by way of King Ferdinand) to the entire territory of Arizona.

Price shines as the dirty-dealing crook, but the film is a relatively pedestrian effort by the director. Fuller, revealing his roots as a crime reporter, spends nearly half the movie depicting (in needless flashback) the Baron’s step-by-step machinations in engineering his scheme. We watch breathlessly as Price practices ancient penmanship and reads from a 15^th century book of Spanish land grants. Even a “Batman” style “ZAP!” “WHAM!” on the screen couldn’t give such material any oomph. Reed Hadley serves as an intriguing foil to the Baron, as a dogged expert on forgery who won’t rest until he proves Reavis to be a fraud. A last-minute change of heart by Reaves feels cheap and poorly earned, and certainly bears no resemblance to the real story.

The collection kicks off with a much more interesting film, “I Shot Jesse James.” The DVD release is particularly well-timed with the upcoming Andrew Dominick film “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford.” Fuller’s movie provides a surprisingly sympathetic depiction of James’s killer Robert Ford (John Ireland) who pulls off the infamous, dirty low-down deed about twenty minutes into the movie. The rest of the film depicts the aftermath of his betrayal, as Ford tries to carve out a living for himself in a world that thinks he is the most despicable traitor since John Wilkes Booth... or maybe even Judas Iscariot.

Ireland didn’t win any acting awards for his portrayal of Ford, and with good reason. He sometimes seems so stiff that you wonder if he’s doing line readings on set, and his range of facial expression goes from “hang-dog” to “moping.” But just when the film appears to be settling into a comfortable B-movie formula about a man trying to make a better life for his gal Cynthy (Barbara Britton), it takes a strange and exciting turn into twisted psychological terrain. To earn money (since the government didn't pay its promised reward for James’s murder) Ford portrays himself in a play titled “How I Shot Jesse James.” Amazingly, Ford (in the film, though definitely not in real life) doesn’t try to sugar-coat his crime; the play is staged like the real deal we saw in the first act. Ford waits for his good friend Jesse James to turn around to hang a picture then “Pow!” right in the back.

When I say the film is sympathetic to Ford, I mean that Fuller takes great pains to understand why Ford did what he did. This doesn’t mean that Ford is depicted in a positive light. Rather, Ford seems so childish and self-absorbed he is nearly incapable of understanding why shooting a friend in the back is wrong, as long as it means amnesty and a big paycheck. It never even occurs to Ford that his darling Cynthy (as well as everyone else) would think him a wretch for his betrayal, and any guilt he feels after the fact is directly correlated to his inability to get what he wants out of the whole affair.

“I Shot Jesse James” isn’t a masterpiece, but it's a pretty impressive debut feature. Reed Hadley isn’t terribly convincing as Jesse James and the film plods for a while after the assassination, but the second half (starting with the play) is quite engaging as Ford slowly wilts under the pressure of an entire nation’s disapproval. Just imagine what his Twitter feed would have looked like. Barbara Britton is also a stunning beauty who seems a bit out of place in such low-budget fare. She became much better known as a “Revlon Girl” in the 50s.

Video:

The films are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios. Like many recent Criterion (and Eclipse) full screen releases, the transfer is picture-boxed which means that some viewers will see thin black bars on the left and right sides of the screen. Eclipse is Criterion’s no-frills series, so the transfers aren’t up to the usual pristine standard of the parent company. Of the three, “The Baron of Arizona” is probably the weakest, showing the most instances of debris from the source print, while “The Steel Helmet” is the strongest. All of the transfers are more than acceptable.

Audio:

The DVDs are presented in Dolby Digital Mono. Optional English subtitles support the English audio. The audio transfer is clean and clear; no complaints at all.

Extras:

This is the 5^th volume in Criterion’s Eclipse Series. Like all the others, it includes no extras whatsoever. The point of the Eclipse Series is to release as many early or lesser-known films by great directors as possible without having to pour extra time and money into stuffing the package with as many extras as possible. This is strictly no frills.

Each disc is housed in its own thin keep case. There are no insert booklets, but the inside sleeve of each cover contains a few paragraphs about each film’s production history.

Final Thoughts:

This fifth volume of Criterion’s Eclipse series is my personal favorite so far. Sam Fuller has been a cause celebre for auteurist critics for most of the last 50 years yet he still remains woefully underexposed to mainstream audiences. This release of his first three films provides a valuable addition to anyone’s DVD library. Like any director making his first films, Fuller was still honing his craft, but “I Shot Jesse James” is an impressive debut and “The Steel Helmet,” only his third film, is one of his very best. This package comes highly recommended.

If you enjoy this, and want to check out more of Sam Fuller’s work, you really can’t go wrong with any choice. However, I most strongly recommend the following films which are all available on Region 1 DVD: “Forty Guns,” “The Big Red One,” “Pickup on South Street,” “The Naked Kiss,” “Shock Corridor,” and “Hell and High Water.”

Three Popular Films By Jean-Pierre Gorin (Eclipse Series 31)

THREE POPULAR FILMS BY JEAN-PIERRE GORIN (1980, 1986, 1992)

Eclipse Series (Criterion), DVD, Release Date January 17, 2012

Review by Christopher S. Long

(I suspect even a lot of Criterion devotees may not be aware of this Eclipse Set. I am re-posting my 2012 review in an effort to remedy that situation. This is one of the coolest things Criterion/Eclipse has ever released.)

Eclipse Series 31: Three Popular Films by Jean-Pierre Gorin includes three films by the director: “Poto and Cabengo,” “Routine Pleasures,” and “My Crasy Life,” all three of which are reviewed below.

How does a stranger in a strange land get to know his new home? Tune in the most popular station or head to the busiest mall to find what “everyone” is doing? Not if you’re Jean-Pierre Gorin. After spending the first part of the '70s in France as one half of the Dziga Vertov Group with Jean-Luc Godard (no word on which one was Dziga and which one was Vertov), Gorin moved to Southern California to teach at UC San Diego. Feeling suspended between two cultures (“I wasn’t French anymore, but I wasn’t quite American either,” he says in “Routine Pleasures”) Gorin turned his eye to the McDonald’s-sprouting landscape around him and discovered a few pockets of resistance to the dominant culture that were just begging to be filmed… or maybe not.

The teensiest and cute-as-a-buttonest of these pockets was a land inhabited by little Gracie and Ginny Kennedy, twin girls who had become a media sensation after allegedly inventing their own language, a rapid-fire gibberish with an irresistible sing-song quality. They had even concocted special nicknames for each other, Poto and Cabengo, also the title of Gorin’s 1980 film. The press and, alas, their thoroughly uncomprehending parents were delighted to peddle the girls as side-show freaks and scientific curiosities but, as Gorin notes, nobody bothered to ask the seemingly obvious question, “What are they saying?”

Gorin’s investigation takes a circuitous route, but not because he’s trying to preserve the mystery – he says immediately that he believes their private language is merely a Creolized version of English (and, as it turns out, German), and later he proves it. Rather, Gorin creates the impression of turning his camera (operated by the great documentarian Les Blank) in whatever direction the story takes him, whether letting the precocious twins lead him around by the nose, or noting of the parents’ total lack of awareness of class restrictions, a source of serious delusion and disappointment in late-'70s America. Gorin also seems to be keenly aware of the perils of his autobiographical impulse, and is constantly wary of turning his subjects into, well, subjects. 

After spending some time with the girls, he realizes, “Their story wasn’t with me. It was with their family.” He might be interested in understanding his new home; the twins just want to rush headlong into the next thing. Most striking, however, is Gorin’s attempt to recreate the aural landscape in which Poto and Cabengo grew up. A mid-Western father, a mother who speaks English with a suppressed German accent, and a German grandmother who spoke virtually no English at all help to explain the twins’ distinctive patois. But language plays an even more insidious role in their development. As soon as doctors applied the word “retarded” to the girls, the father (and presumably the rest of the family, and just about everyone else) began to treat them as such. Language truly is a prison.

Gorin moved to America partially at the behest of film critic and painter Manny Farber who invited him to teach at UC San Diego. Farber has become a sacred totem among cinephiles today, and it appears that Gorin was just as deeply affected by the real man as younger critics are by the legend. In “Routine Pleasures” (1986), he plants tongue partially in-cheek by attempting to make a film designed to please a skeptical Farber, seen only in still photos (one non-routine pleasure for fans will be seeing Farber in uniform from his all-American football days) and via shots of his then-in-progress paintings.

Manny Farber, winning one for the Gimper

Gorin's ersatz cinematic gift to his hero is a documentary about a group of model train enthusiasts, though “enthusiast” seems like an insufficient term. So does fanatic. The men, all white and all middle-aged or older, collaborate on a rigidly structured fantasy world set in a playground that only a group of men old enough to feel nostalgia for “the good old days” could truly appreciate. Gorin marvels at the hierarchical order of this society in which every man has an assigned role in the meticulous recreation of “real” trains (an entire massive tome is dedicated entirely to blueprints of a single train) and the efficient operation of these great American engines of commerce on the sprawling track they have built in a giant warehouse.

Poto and Cabengo had Gorin wrapped around their little pinkies, and the director falls in love with his choo-choo men from the get go as well. Yet again, his affection makes him suspicious. Farber, perhaps speaking via Gorin, almost repeats a line from the previous film when speaking about the hobbyists: “They aren’t your things, and this isn’t your past.” And Gorin, while filming them at their controls (now with Babette Mangolte of “Jeanne Dielman” fame at the lens – it’s nice to be friends with the best and brightest) for the umpteenth time and comparing their procedures to the process of film-making (the carefully written train schedule as a script, etc.), wonders, “Was I just looking for a metaphor for my work?” Perhaps this is navel gazing, but his concerns are central to the film.

Any charges of exploitation have to be dismissed (though navel gazing remains on the table) when Gorin films his railway men in a totally blissed-out state while watching home footage of a real-life train thrumming along the tracks and venting steam. This is the mythical state of rapture audiences allegedly felt when first gazing at the Lumieres’ train arriving at a station. If Gorin is hoping to induce a similar state of stoner Nirvana in his guru, he has another think coming. Farber (at least as heard through Gorin’s sardonic narration – this could just be a post-production gambit by the director) remains obstinately unimpressed, even as Gorin tries to mold his train film into an homage to one of Farber’s favorites, Howard Hawks’ “Only Angels Have Wings.” Meanwhile, Gorin takes a journey through the mental landscape of Farber’s paintings, wonders whether it matches up with the imaginary landscapes of these nostalgic model-makers, and refuses to come up with any definitive conclusion on the matter. It’s all a wonderful mess that Gorin has the sense not to tidy up at the editing table.

“My Crasy Life” (1992) sees Gorin returning to yet another Southern California sub-culture, the Sons of Samoa street gang of Long Beach. Gorin is no longer heard as the narrator, but this film is his most overtly stylized take on the documentary yet. The gang members are given center stage most of the time, frequently while performing raps or clearly performing staged interviews and even re-enacting crimes. A police officer patrols the area in a car equipped with a HAL-like computer voice that questions his every step.

I readily admit that, as much as I love the first two films in the set, I’m not yet sure what I think of “My Crasy Life.” Kent Jones, writing the liner notes, states that the film “must be apprehended musically or not at all.” As with “Poto and Cabengo,” Gorin is interesting in producing an aural environment, and here he has players willing to collaborate with him, the music coming not just from their rap, but also from their accents and a sometimes florid, hyper-macho demonstration of what their various slang words mean. It’s quite absorbing, but I don’t know what the addition of other invented elements like the wry computer voice brings to this semi-ethnographic study. 

 

With his choice of subjects each existing in hermetically sealed spaces, Gorin is not interested in what THE people of Southern California are doing but what THESE particular people are experiencing. He isn’t looking for a mountaintop vista, but rather a view from the ground, an immersion in the specific sights and sounds of a specific place. And if he can stop to play or just chill out from time to time, all the better.

 

Video:

All three films are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios. “Routine Pleasures” switches back and forth between black-and-white and colors, the other two films are entirely in color. Though Eclipse is a no-frills set, the progressive transfers here are very strong, exhibiting a strictly utilitarian look that works great for the first two films. “My Crasy Life” (also lensed by Babette Mangolte) is more colorful than the other two, but all of the transfers look good.

Audio:

All three films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono. I always feel silly saying things like “audio is essential to this film” (how could it not be?) but since Gorin is focusing on subcultures with distinct languages, a poor sound mix would be particularly damaging. Fortunately, the Mono mixes are surprisingly rich. I can’t attest as to what degree “My Crasy Life” sounds like it did when projected, but the musical qualities of the film certainly come through strongly here. Optional English subtitles support the audio. It’s a fair question as to whether your SHOULD use the English subtitles for “Poto and Cabengo” – you weren’t really intended to understand as much of what they say as you can get through the subtitles, so try it without the first time through.

Extras:

As with most Eclipse releases, there are no extras. Kent Jones provides excellent liner notes on each of the three films. Each film is housed in a separate slim case. All three cases are tucked into a thin cardboard sleeve.

Final Thought:

Jean-Pierre Gorin will probably forever be best known as Godard’s collaborator in the Dziga Vertov Group, and I suspect most viewers, like myself, have never previously had the chance to see any of Gorin’s solo directorial efforts. I was moved to write the following on Facebook: “Poto and Cabengo, where have you been all my life?” I felt similarly enthusiastic about the endless pleasures on display in “Routine Pleasures,” and I reserve the right to form an opinion about “My Crasy Life” at a later date. I love Gorin’s discursive approach. Kent Jones says the film are “militantly unclassifiable” but I don’t think you’d be committing a major sin to label them as essay films, while noting that the term is an extremely broad one. But where most essays start with a thesis and hammer home the argument in every paragraph, these essays open up more as they go along. I simply had no idea how great Gorin’s solo films were, and I suspect this is going to wind up as one my favorite DVD sets of the year.

Chantal Akerman in the Seventies: Eclipse Series 19

La chambre

CHANTAL AKERMAN IN THE SEVENTIES (Akerman x5, 1972-1978)

Criterion Collection (Eclipse Series), DVD, Release Date January 19, 2010

Review by Christopher S. Long

(An Akerman A Day continues with... five Akermans in one day. How can you beat that kind of value?)

From the lonely confines of a sparsely furnished room to the wide open spaces of the bustling streets of New York, Chantal Akerman’s films of the '70s comprise a unified body of work of remarkable variety. Her films, reasonably labeled as structuralist and characterized by long takes, may rhyme with one another but they seldom repeat.

Both the short film “La Chambre” (1972, 11 min.) and the first half hour of the feature “Je, tu, il, elle” (1975) feature a woman (played by Akerman) alone in a room but they provide strikingly different treatments of cramped domestic spaces. In the silent “La Chambre” a camera (operated by frequent Akerman collaborator Babette Mangolte) pans slowly around a cluttered room. It reveals a red dining chair, a carefully arranged still life with fruit on a table, a chest of drawers and then Akerman lying in bed gazing at the camera and bathed in a soft painterly light streaming from the window. The camera keeps panning, Akerman receiving the same attention as the décor, and completes three full circles. Each time we see Akerman, she is behaving somewhat differently. Just when the rhythm seems to be set, it is broken as the camera suddenly stops and pivots back left then right again, placing our star more at the center of the arc, setting a new rhythm which is broken yet again by one final move.

Sugar, Sugar

In “Je, tu, il, elle,” Julie (Akerman) lives in self-imposed isolation in a Spartan ground-level apartment. In one shot, she lies on the bed facing the camera in a pose that directly references “La Chambre,” but Akerman has a completely different scheme in mind here. The room starts out cluttered like “La Chambre,” but Julie clears out everything (“An empty room feels larger”) except for a mattress which she sets on the floor. Though there are several camera movements, the enduring image from this sequence is a flat, static composition of Akerman, sometimes naked, sometimes partially clothed, lying or sitting on the mattress. She writes letters (to whom?) which she reads in voice-over while spoon-feeding herself pure white sugar from a brown paper bag. The lighting scheme here is much harsher, heightening the sense of claustrophobia. “La Chambre” was a panorama; the room in “Je, tu, il, elle” is part sanctuary, part prison. 

Hotel

In “Hotel Monterey” (1972), the camera explores the spaces of a run-down Upper West Side hotel, tracking down hallways or standing inside a moving elevator, following it up and down, and surprising a few would be riders in the process. There aren’t many people in the hotel, however, which is part of its sad story, but even the non-descript hallways and rows of identical doors acquire a dignified beauty as the camera roams ever deeper and higher. Just when we think we’re sealed in this hermetic space, Akerman has a surprise in store for the end. Suddenly, the camera reaches the roof, emerges into daylight and then breaks out into the city itself to provide an outside perspective on the hotel and situate it in the city.

This unexpected movement feels like a transition to the gorgeous feature-length“News from Home” (1976) which takes us to the streets of New York. Images of the city are accompanied on the soundtrack by Akerman reading letters written by her mother. Another rhyme now. In “La Chambre” the story took place in between camera movements, as it panned back to see Akerman in different poses. In “News from Home” the story occurs in between letters which mostly mention minor events or offer pleas for Akerman to write home more often. The letters, not always read in chronological order, indicate changes and invite us to fill in the gaps.

Stylistically, “News from Home” is a tour-de-force. It begins with a series of static shots of alleyways and parked cars before introducing a few short, sharp pans then eventually longer more fluid 360-degree movements. Akerman films above ground and below ground (some of the subway scenes are magnificent), during the day and in the blurry orange-red night. After the camera has been fixed for an hour, it is abruptly set loose. Most of the final half hour of the movie consists of several long tracking shots taken from different vehicles: a street level shot from a car, a higher perspective from an elevated train and a final movement filmed from a boat or ferry. And here’s another rhyming moment, one that resonates with the end of “Hotel Monterey.” After exploring the city so rigorously, the camera breaks free from its urban confines to turn back and record a broader view from the river. As the camera gradually sails away, we see more and more of the retreating city skyline. If you don’t feel a twinge when the World Trade Center finally comes into view, there’s something wrong with you.

These abrupt ruptures are a common feature for Akerman. Her magnum opus “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (1975) meticulously traces the daily chores of its title character but ends with a sudden plot development that completely ruptures what seemed to be a rigid structure. Likewise, these explosions into open space in “Hotel Monterey” and “News from Home” as well the final camera movement in “La Chambre” refuse the easy comfort of strict rules.

And, rhyme time again, Akerman pulls off a similar, but not identical, trick in “Je, tu, il, elle.” After spending a half hour watching Julie alone in her room we expect the entire film to unspool there but suddenly we see a shot of the apartment door and, next thing you know, Julie’s out and about. The film is built around two more discrete segments. The first is a sexual encounter with a trucker who spends nearly ten minutes talking about his penis, and the second a sexual encounter with her ex-girlfriend. The latter is filmed in several long, frank shots of lovemaking that capture the heat and intimacy of the moment yet are shot with such a flat affect (typical of Akerman) that they don’t feel voyeuristic. 

Anna

Shot in wide-screen and featuring a more conventional narrative as well as a cast of professional actors, “Les rendez-vous d’Anna” (1978) appears to be the odd duckling in this grouping but it still shares much in common with the other films in the set. Anna (Aurore Clement) is a director who travels from city to city in Europe to help promote her newest film. It’s a damned strange press junket though. We never see the film or hear anything about it, and Anna appears to be the only one making the rounds. The film is a travelogue almost devoid of any sight-seeing features. With the exception of a trip to a not-quite suburb, Anna’s trip consists almost entirely of a series of hotel rooms or public spaces (trains, train stations, etc.). She not only travels alone but seems to wind up in the same place each time. Kind of like “Up in the Air.” Except good. A series of encounters (with a lover, with her mother, with an old family friend) do little to break up the monotony.

Some might think of Akerman’s formalist cinema as stringent, but I’m struck by her sly sense of humor which, curiously enough, frequently centers on food. Poor Jeanne Dielman unable to figure out where to put that pot of cooked potatoes. Akerman in goddess pose in “La Chambre” munching on an apple. Julie shoveling sugar down her throat. A deadpan scene where Julie and the trucker share a meal at a diner and listen to a gaudy American TV show (“Cannon,” I think) that consists mostly of gunshots, sirens and revving motors.

I find Chantal Akerman’s films warm, playful, vital, and thoroughly compelling. The movies in this set offer the very best of her work (aside from the previously released “Jeanne Dielman”) and it’s hard to believe she hadn’t even turned 28 by the time she wrapped shooting on the last film in the set. Akerman is an electric talent like no other.

Video:

“Les rendez-vous D’Anna” is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. All other films are presented in their original 1.33:1 full-screen ratios. “Je, tu, il, elle” is in black-and-white, everything else in color. Though the Eclipse series does not provide restored transfers, the films here look quite good. I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of “Je, tu, il, elle” which I have previously only seen on a miserable VHS copy. The harsh lighting scheme and the sharp shadows on the walls stand out vividly here. Some of the darkest shots from inside the truck are lacking, but that’s my only complaint.Overall, I’m thrilled with the transfers here.

Audio:

“La Chambre” and “Hotel Monterey” are silent. The other films are presented in Dolby Digital Mono, and there’s not much to say abut the audio design. I wonder if we’re missing some of the richness of the original ambient soundtrack in “News from Home” but I have no way to make that judgment. Optional English subtitles are provided for the sound films.

Extras:

As with all Eclipse release, no extras are offered with this set. However, as usual, the brief liner notes are very informative.

There are three discs in the set.

Disc One, titled “The New York Films” contains “La Chambre,” “Hotel Monterey,” and “News from Home.” Disc Two has “Je, tu, il, elle” and Disc Three has “Les rendez-vous d’Anna.”

Final Thoughts:

“Jeanne Dielman” is Akerman’s indisputable masterpiece and Criterion’s release of the film was probably the DVD highlight of 2009. “Chantal Akerman in the Seventies” is a marvelous companion offering that shows how deep and rich Akerman's body of work is.

I’m not shy about using the m-word and I’m going to do so again. “Je, tu, il, elle” is a masterpiece that would be the crowning achievement for many directors, and I won’t argue with anyone who applies the same term to “News from Home” or “La Chambre.” I don’t think “Hotel Monterey” is quite in a class with those films but it’s still mesmerizing. “Les rendez-vous d’Anna” is a mild disappointment after her earlier work in the decade, but that’s one hell of a standard to hold someone to. Most filmmakers never dream of making something the caliber of “Anna” and if that’s your “weakest” film of the decade then I’m going to guess that your name is Chantal Akerman.

This is a phenomenal set, perhaps the best the Eclipse series has offered.