The Freethinker

THE FREETHINKER (Watkins, 1994)

New Yorker Video/Project X, DVD, Release Date Nov 6, 2007

Review by Christopher S. Long

Director Peter Watkins has spent a good portion of his career challenging media conventions. His films don't blur the line between fiction and non-fiction so much as they render the distinction irrelevant, at least for his work. When he employs documentary-like aesthetics in his historical fictions, he's not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, but rather to create a unique mode of address that cuts through the artifice of mainstream feature filmmaking. Any technique is fair game. Watkins “interviews” working-class 18th-century soldiers as they prepare for the Battle of “Culloden” (1964) and invites the friends and lovers of “Edvard Munch” (1974) to address the camera directly. “The Freethinker” (1994) sees Watkins continuing to refine his idiosyncratic strategies in ever more complex and startling ways.

Watkins has never been shy about discussing the challenges he has encountered in getting his films produced and distributed. In order to shoot his script about the Swedish playwright August Strindberg (a project initially commissioned by the Swedish Film Institute in 1979), Watkins thought way outside the box, all the way to Nordens Folk High School in Biskops-Arno, Sweden, where the director and his students shot the film over two years as part of a video production course he taught. Watkins wrote the script, but encouraged his student cast and crew to improvise and collaborate, prompting this description in the closing credits: “The film is the result of collective work from 1992-1994... under the supervision of Peter Watkins.”

Even with the collective's contribution, “The Freethinker” still bears a striking resemblance to Watkins's masterpiece, “Edvard Munch.” Like that film, “The Freethinker” is nominally a bio-pic about a celebrated Scandinavian artist, in this case Strindberg. Like “Edvard Munch,” the film jumps around in time, has characters that directly address the screen, and employs virtually any technique needed to make each scene work. However, “The Freethinker” creates an extra layer of reflexivity beyond “Munch.” Anders Mattson, the actor who portrays Strindberg, functions on at least three narrative levels. First, he plays the character of Strindberg. Second, he acts as an odd kind of narrator as he reads excerpts from Strindberg's plays, referring to them as “Strindberg's” rather than “mine.” Third, he appears as a version of himself, an actor playing a role in a film.

The entire film also inhabits multiple narrative levels. In addition to more standard re-enactments of moments from Strindberg's life, we also see scenes from his plays performed as they would have been in late 19^th century Sweden. The movie goes fully navel-gazing by portraying details of its own production, as well as in sequences of a more indeterminate nature, such as when a crew member appears on screen to interview Strindberg... or perhaps Mattson. Further still, Watkins sometimes breaks with his own words as printed on screen, often railing against the injustices of the world's mass media (and quite persuasively, even at his most hectoring.) At some points, critics even take center stage to comment on the film's treatment of Strindberg. Add in the film's complex chronological shifting (Strindberg “dies” with an hour left to go) and you have a heady experience like few other films.

It's an experience not easily digested in a single sitting. The movie runs over four-and-a-half-hours, but as with the lengthy director's cut of “Edvard Munch” (220 min.), every scene feels essential. Watkins takes the road seldom traveled by bio-pic directors, refusing to portray his artist as a lone genius, but rather as a product, and a conduit, of the social and political forces of his time. Strindberg the artist is also shaped by his most intimate relationships, particularly by the original Miss Julie, his first wife Siri von Essen (played by Lena Settervall). Watkins's eye for socio-political detail can be downright exhaustive at times, perhaps to a fetishistic degree. If you've ever wanted to learn about the development of print journalism in 19^th century Sweden, then buddy, this is the movie for you.

The movie is shot on analog video, and that look had a distancing effect for me at first, but once I became accustomed to it, I was completely drawn in, as I am to virtually any Peter Watkins project. The movie's treatment of Strindberg is so rich and so finely-layered it has few parallels in cinema, save perhaps for “Edvard Munch” or, in the realm of fiction, Fassbinder's “Berlin Alexanderplatz.” At the same time, I'm not sure I can say I really got to know Strindberg particularly well. “The Freethinker” offers so much it reminds the viewer of the impossibility of understanding a dynamic personality and vision in the space of a mere four or five hours.

Video:

The movie is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. “The Freethinker” was shot on analog video (Beta SP) so the transfer can't do much to make it look great. Bright spots sometimes look overblown, and there's a dullness to the image that can't be helped. It ain't pretty, but you get used to it.

Audio:

The DVD offers a Dolby Digital Stereo audio mix. Optional English and French subtitles support the Swedish audio.

Extras:

Hey, the movie's over four hours. Even on two discs, there's no room for extras. The set does include a 16-page booklet with another self interview by Peter Watkins that's definitely worth checking out.

Final Thoughts:

“The Freethinker” is another great entry in “The Films of Peter Watkins” series from Project X/New Yorker Video. These titles may be hard to track down nowadays, and I haven't heard a whisper about any plans either to upgrade or re-release any of Watkins' movies on disc, but I'd hate for this series to wind up forgotten. I think Peter Watkins is one of the greatest and, perhaps, most unfairly overlooked directors of the past half century-plus, and the only way I can provide evidence for that claim is to point you movies like “The Freethinker” and “Edvard Munch.” And “Culloden” (1964). And “The War Game” (1965). Oh, and “La Commune” (2000), which I would include as one of the ten best films of the 21^st century, if only I mistakenly believed that 2000 was the first year of the 21^st century.

Edvard Munch

EDVARD MUNCH (Watkins, 1974)

Project X/New Yorker Video, DVD, Release Date Nov 13, 2007

Review by Christopher S. Long

A distant cliff with thick ridges running vertically down its face looms large on the screen. Rough, shadowy indentations pockmark the surface of this rocky landscape. Are we in the Alps? Maybe the Pyrenees? No, we're in the Oslo studio of Edvard Munch, and this craggy hillside is actually a close-up shot of the canvas on which Munch has built thick layer upon thick layer of paint. This topographic image is the culmination of a startling series of shots in which the increasingly frenetic artist paints, scrapes away, re-paints, re-scrapes, and nearly bores a hole through the canvas as he constantly revises his work. I cannot recall an instance in which the tactile elements of a painting have been captured so vividly on film, the scratch of a palette knife flensing away the excess paint further enhancing the effect. Then again, I have never seen a film quite like writer/director Peter Watkins' magnificent “Edvard Munch” (1974).

The film primarily covers a ten-year period from 1884-1893 (Munch from age 21 to 31), though it often returns to Munch's troubled childhood. Nineteenth-century Christiania (now Oslo) was plagued by disease, both of the consumptive and venereal strands, and the middle-class Munch family was not spared its blight. Edvard's mother, brother, and his beloved sister Sophie died when he was still a child, crippling losses that would haunt him his whole life.

In 1884, the young Munch (played by Geir Westby, who, like the rest of the cast, is a non-professional actor) belongs to a Bohemian intellectual circle led by Hans Jaeger (Kare Stormark). Jaeger's radical philosophy (a volatile mix of nihilism and anarchy) influenced Munch greatly, though Watkins contends that the painter's long-running, tempestuous affair with the mysterious Mrs. Heiberg (Gro Fraas) proved even more crucial in shaping the painter's life. The story progresses through Munch's formative years as a professional artist, and details his battles both with personal demons and external demons: the art critics of 19th-century Europe.

As in most of his other films, Watkins employs a pseudo-documentary style to recreate historic events, but “Edvard Munch” does not “blur” the lines between documentary and fiction so much as it ignores them altogether. Watkins narrates in a dry, formal voice that provides historical and political context, and all of Munch's dialogue is drawn from his diaries and correspondence. But the film is hardly a staid “just the facts” historical report. Indeed, “Edvard Munch” is one of the most stylistically innovative films I've ever seen, radical enough to stand alongside any avant-garde project.

The film leaps back and forth through time. The elliptical editing conveys Munch's emotional state rather than simply connecting events in a standard biopic structure. As Munch scrapes frantically at his canvas, we return to a moment when his sister Sophie is dying of tuberculosis. Sometimes characters talk directly to the camera, either speaking on their own or answering the questions of an off-screen female voice. This disembodied voice has no diegetic source, but it doesn't matter. The actors sometimes improvise their lines, responding with their own opinions rather than from Watkins' script.

All of these creative tools (discontinuous editing, direct address to camera, etc.) have been used in other art-house films as Brechtian devices, but Watkins isn't trying to distance the viewer. Though the film has a certain reflexive quality, this hodge-podge of techniques creates the eerie sense that we are peering in on events as they are happening, 20th-century eyes directly witnessing the previous century, and the movie has an immediacy and a sense of physicality that lend it great affective power. Watkins has created a unique cinematic point-of-view that I struggle to describe even a decade after I first watched it. A free-associative, semi-omniscient perspective which leaves open all possibilities at all times? Eh, I'll keep trying. Any shot needed to convey the subtlest nuance is fair game. In Watkins' art, there are no rules save those meant to be broken.

No subject is off-limits either. Though the film centers on Munch's life, sometimes its scope expands to cover life in 19th-century Christiania where the bourgeoisie thrive, but the working class suffer from wretched labor conditions and rampant disease. Watkins is too politically engaged to romanticize Munch as a solitary genius. The artist is not just a product of his mentors (including August Strindberg as well as Jaeger), but also his society. His lingering melancholia is not an artistic indulgence, but the logical response of a sensitive intellect to the squalor and inequity he witnesses every day (some scholars have suggested Munch suffered from bipolar disorder, a subject not touched on in the film).

Munch had a restless mind, and frequently transformed his style, leaping from impressionism to naturalism to expression and most points between; he also experimented with multiple media including lithography and woodcutting. His paintings were aggressive and shocking, and agitated viewers didn't quite know what to make of them. All of this alienated the staid art critics of the day who derided Munch's work, prompting him to move to Paris and later to Berlin, though we wouldn't find acceptance anywhere until later in his career.

I don't know how much Watkins identifies with Munch, but he has previously described himself as a marginalized director whose politically-charged films have been suppressed by media and corporations who prefer tamer, more familiar fare. At the very least, it seems likely that Watkins takes keen pleasure in depicting Munch's critics as preening dullards who treat any deviation from the norm as evidence of incompetence, dementia, or even moral perversion.

“Edvard Munch” is the best film I have ever seen about an artist or the artistic process. Unlike most art biopics, Watkins does not rely on cheap epiphanies (Jackson Pollock watches a toppled paint can drip on the floor and, voila, he's fully realized his new vision!) to neatly explain a messy story. Instead, we see that Munch achieved inspiration by three primary methods: work, work, and more work. Painting, scraping, painting, scraping, Munch never stops pushing on and on. And while Munch's story is inevitably one of anguish, the film also expresses the joy and pride a dedicated artist can take in the process of creation. “Edvard Munch” is nothing short of a masterpiece. 

Video:

First, a brief explanation. Project X and New Yorker Video released “Edvard Munch” in two separate versions. The first single-disc release (from 2006) includes a shorter cut of the film (174 min.) and few extras. They later released (in 2007), a two-disc “Special Edition” (reviewed here) which includes the original full-length two-part cut of the film (220 min., an extra 46 min.) and several extras. One part is included on each of the two discs. For you real sticklers, the cover image I include below is of the first release. I couldn't find an image of the “Special Edition” cover but the only difference is that the cover includes the words “Special Edition 2-DVD Set.”

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The film was originally shot on 16 mm. This digitally-remastered transfer inevitably looks very grainy and since the transfer is interlaces, you will see some instances of combing (boy, there's an old term from the pre-Blu-ray days). However, the image quality is solid enough, though I'd dearly love a high-def upgrade of this masterpiece.

Audio:

The DVD is presented with a Dolby Digital Mono audio mix. The sound quality is adequate. Optional English and French subtitles support the audio, which is mostly in Norwegian, though it some German, and Watkins' narration is in English.

Extras:

I suppose the 46 additional minutes could count as an extra compared to the first DVD release of the movie, but I strongly recommend viewers simply watch this complete version first before checking out the previous one.

The “Special Edition” includes three short extras about Edvard Munch. “Moments in the Life of Edvard Munch” (1957, 11 min.) and “The Munch Museum in Oslo” (1963, 10 min.) are short informational films that don't really add much to the main movie. “From Ekely, The City and the Artists” (1953, 12 min.) is much more interesting, providing a romanticized portrait of the artists' community in the suburbs of Oslo. It was filmed just seven years after Munch's death, and before construction of the Munch Museum.

A fourth short feature cuts together some of Munch's own silent-film recordings (6 min. total). They were shot on a 9.5 mm Baby Pathe and are quite blurry and probably of interest solely because Munch filmed them.

The “Special Edition” comes with a 56-page insert booklet. It includes a self-interview with/by Watkins as well as a full chapter from Joseph Gomez's book “Peter Watkins.”

Final Thoughts:

I think “Edvard Munch” is not only Peter Watkins' best film, but one of the greatest films ever made. I was even placed it in my all-time Top Ten. Your mileage may vary, but I suspect you'll at least agree that you've seen few movies like it, aside from other Peter Watkins movies, that is.

Project X/New Yorker Video released several Watkins films under the series “The Cinema of Peter Watkins” back in the mid-2000s, shortly before the Blu-ray revolution. I think it's one of the most exciting DVD series ever released, though more than a decade later, I now wish for Blu-ray upgrades for all of them. “Edvard Munch” is the crown jewel of the collection, but it includes many strong releases such as “The War Game and Culloden”, “Punishment Park”, “Privilege”, 'The Freethinker”, and more. They're all worth checking out.

Punishment Park

PUNISHMENT PARK (1971, Watkins)

Project X/New Yorker Video, DVD, Release Date Nov 22, 2005

Review by Christopher S. Long

“Punishment Park takes place tomorrow, yesterday, or five years from now. It is also happening today.”

That's how writer/director Peter Watkins described his 1971 film on its release, so if you find the film disturbingly predictive of whatever time you first encounter it (for me, it was 2005, the rotten nadir of the W. Bush era), consider it evidence of Watkins' success.

In “Punishment Park,” released in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings, President Nixon has enacted emergency legislation that permits anyone deemed a threat to national security to be detained indefinitely at an undisclosed location where they will be tried by a military tribunal granted special powers during this temporary (i.e. permanent) time of crisis. The population is hyper-polarized, and tensions between authoritarians and so-called radicals threaten to tear the social fabric apart.

The film primarily follows the stories of two groups of prisoners: Corrective Group 637 and Corrective Group 638. The first group has already been tried, while the second group awaits trial. To be tried under this emergency tribunal is, of course, the same as being found guilty, but there's some good news! The government has kindly granted each convict a choice: face a lengthy sentence in a military prison, or spend three days in Punishment Park.

What is Punishment Park? According to the government, it's a training course essential for law enforcement to prepare to battle the ever-growing threat of domestic terrorism. For the members of Corrective Group 637, Punishment Park is simply hell. They must cross a course through fifty miles of California desert to reach an American flag at the finish line, all while being pursued by police who, allegedly, will arrest them peacefully and remove them from the course if they are captured. Things don't quite work out in such a (law and) orderly fashion.

Like many of Watkins' other films, “Punishment Park” is constructed as a pseudo-documentary. A British film crew, represented periodically by Watkins' off-screen voice, interviews both prisoners and officers. The crew is ostensibly on scene to serve as impartial recorders, but inevitably wind up enmeshed in events that spiral out of control. Cinematographer Joan Churchill deserves credit for a nimble, athletic performance as the camera zooms across the uneven desert landscape to keep up with the hectic action; keep in mind that was the pre-digital era and Churchill was toting a 16-mm handheld camera through the blazing heat day after day.

With the stated goal of providing a forum in which all sides could be heard, Watkins cast the film with non-professional actors who were encouraged to speak their minds in a largely unscripted affair. Passions burn hot, and the untrained actors sometimes reach a shrill pitch that allows for little to be heard aside from cries of “Pig! Pig! Pig!” but Watkins' choices allow for the venting of authentic anger that remains potent today, a record of a polarized nation that is both timely and timeless.

Watkins may have provided everyone a chance to speak, but he isn't shy about picking a side. The trial of Corrective Group 638 is revealed as a farce from the outset, with a ranting judge denying all objections and even ordering one defendant bound and gagged in court, a reference to Bobby Seale's treatment during the Chicago Seven Trial. Out in Punishment Park, the authorities resort to brutality so abruptly and so vigorously, it's difficult to view them as anything but the “fascist pigs” that protestors claim them to be.

Many critics at the time derided “Punishment Park” as absurdly alarmist, perhaps even irresponsibly so. Certainly, parts of the film seem overwrought, exacerbated by some amateur performances that feel awkward and stilted. As far as being absurdly alarmist or too over-the-top, well, I mean, I'm writing this in 2018, and literally while I was working on this paragraph, the president proudly proclaimed himself a “nationalist” to a cheering crowd, so, uh...

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This low-budget film, produced for about $65,000, was shot in 16 mm and later blown up to 35 mm. Because of the blow-up, the image on this standard definition transfer from Project X/New Yorker Video is grainy and sometimes missing sharp detail, but the overall image quality is solid though, of course, a high-def upgrade would be welcome.

Audio:

The film is presented with a Dolby Digital Mono audio mix. The sound is efficient, if not very dynamic. Optional English and French audios support the English audio.

Extras:

The film is accompanied by a full-length commentary track by author Dr. Joseph A. Gomez.

In the lengthy Director's Introduction (27 min.), a deadly serious Peter Watkins discusses the production history of the film, and describes in crystal clear terms what he intended to accomplish with “Punishment Park.”

“The Forgotten Faces” (1961, 18 min.) is one of Watkins's earliest short films. He re-enacts the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 with an amateur theatrical group in Canterbury, and the finished product shares a lot in common with “Punishment Park.”

The disc also includes a text essay by media critic Scott MacDonald taken from the Spring 1979 issue of “Film Criticism” and you can also access the original 1971 press kit for the movie.

The thick insert booklet includes a lengthy excerpt from Dr. Gomez's 1979 book, “Peter Watkins.”

Final Thoughts:

In honor of Peter Watkins's impending birthday, I'm declaring this Watkins Week at DVDBlu Review. I'll be posting several reviews of DVD releases from the ProjectX/New Yorker Video series “The Cinema of Peter Watkins.” He's one of my favorite filmmakers, and he's certainly a unique voice in world cinema. I hope you'll get the chance to check out some of his work.

I wouldn't rate “Punishment Park” as one of Watkins' top movies (like the extraordinary “Edvard Munch” and “La Commune”), but it showcases his signature pseudo-documentary style (a description that fails to do justice to one of the few genuinely unique voices and visions in world cinema) and packs quite a force even at its most strident moments. “Punishment Park” was controversial enough in its day that it never secured a proper theatrical release, and was mostly shown on college campuses before all but disappearing from the public's attention. This 2005 DVD release was the first chance many American viewers had to see Watkins's work, and it's well worth tracking down if you can still find it.

Belle Toujours - Manoel De Oliveira Toujours!

Portuguese director/national treasure Manoel de Oliveira died today at the age of 106. By most accounts he was the oldest active filmmaker, and by any account the shape and span of his career was virtually unparallelled. His first film, “Douro, Faina Fluvial”(“Labor on The Douro River") was a silent movie released in 1931; a bit later, “The Strange Case of Angelica” (2010) employed digital animation to relate its exquisite tale of haunted love. Perhaps the only parallel to Oliveira's film career is that of film itself.

Oliveira was largely silenced in the middle of the 20^th century by oppressive censorship from the right-wing regime in Portugal. After 1942's “Aniki-Bóbó” he shot only one feature and several documentary shorts over the next quarter century. He was merely resting up for the greatest stretch run cinema has ever witnessed.

From the '70s on, Oliveira seemed to become more prolific with each passing decade. Oliveira released more than twenty films, a mix of features and shorts, in the 21^st century, a century he greeted a few weeks after his 92nd birthday.

Oliveira's output as a nonagenarian and centenarian certainly contributed to his beloved status among cinephiles around the world, but he was no aged trick pony. His films, often about doomed love (indeed he made a mini-series called “Doomed Love”), were sensitive, literary, meticulously staged works of deceptive simplicity that speak to an eye that saw clearly well past the century mark. They would be great and celebrated films from a mere lad of eighty, or thirty for that matter.

Below I have re-posted my 2008 review of Oliveira's “Belle Toujours” which I'm not even sure ranks as one of his top five movies made since turning 90, but which is still a modest gem. For other great Oliveira films on DVD and Blu-ray, I recommend the Cinema Guild releases of “Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl” (2010) and the aforementioned “The Strange Case of Angelica” which also includes that first short “Douro, Faina Fluvia.” And if you can find a copy of the Image Entertainment's release of “I'm Going Home” (2001), one of Oliveira's finest, pounce on it.

BELLE TOUJOURS (the great Manoel de Oliveira, 2006)

New Yorker Films, DVD, Release Date June 24, 2008

Review by Christopher S. Long

It’s rare that I get to write about a hundred year old director but, to be fair, Manoel de Oliveira was merely a lad of 97 when he made “Belle Toujours” (2006). Also to be fair, de Oliveira has to wait another 5 months before he officially makes it to 100, but considering that he has released two features and two shorts in the last two years and has one of each in production in the current year, he doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. He made his first short film in 1931, and his first feature in 1942 after which his career was derailed for nearly 15 years, and he would not release his next feature film until 1963 when, at the age of 55, he finally got things cranking.

As if flipping off Father Time, Oliveira has been more productive in the past decade than at any other time in his career, releasing 18 films (features and shorts) since 1998, nearly half his lifetime output. Please note that it is old hat (pun intended) to discuss Manoel de Oliveira’s age these days, but since this is the first opportunity I have had to write about this remarkable director, I’m entitled. I promise not to say a word about it over his next hundred years.

With “Belle Toujours,” Oliveira has made perhaps his oddest film, intended as a sequel of sorts to Luis Buñuel’s landmark “Belle de Jour” (1967). Except that “sequel” isn’t the right term; rather it’s an afterword written long, long after the main text. “Belle de Jour” is one of Buñuel’s most perverse and perverted films (and I mean that in a good way), the story of a bored housewife named Severine (Catherine Deneuve) who loves her devoted husband but still chooses to spend her days working in a high-end brothel. She harnesses her inner masochist with the help of her husband’s best friend Henri (Michel Piccoli) and an array of twisted clients.

“Belle Toujours” kicks off at a concert in which the much older but not necessarily any wiser Henri (played again by Michel Piccoli) spots the much older and possibly wiser Severine (played this time by Bulle Ogier) in the audience. He stare at her as if trying to mesmerize his former object of desire, but she proves elusive and disappears in a limo before he can speak to her. Henri is nothing if not dogged, however, and he soon tracks her down at her hotel. She has no interest whatsoever in catching up with her “old friend,” but he persuades her to have dinner with him. While killing time, he also stops in a bar to recount his story (the story of “Belle de Jour”) to an easily impressed bartender (Ricardo Trêpa, the director's grandson and star of some of Oliveira's later films) which isn’t really intended as exposition for the viewers, but further confirmation of Henri’s vanity.

You might be thinking this is a reunion story of sorts. That is, if you know nothing about Buñuel or Oliveira which, apparently, is true of whoever wrote the summary at Rotten Tomatoes which ludicrously describes the film as “a short and sweet elegy on aging, sexuality, and the power of cinema.”

“Belle Toujours” picks up right where “Belle de Jour” left off, digging perhaps into even more perverse territory. Henri’s patrician façade has no doubt fooled many a socialite into thinking him quite the gentleman, but his intentions to Severine are anything but honorable. Severine, we discover, has “redeemed” herself in the ensuing four decades, devoting herself to her husband and to God. Henri cannot let this affront to nature stand, and plays sadistic mind-games with her, and the real mystery for us to confront is whether Severine, despite her protestations, is every bit as much into humiliation as she ever was. Indeed, what else could she possibly expect when she (not so?) grudgingly accepts his invitation to dinner? Oliveira’s subversion of the need for the closure one might expect from a reunion narrative is his slyest, and cruelest, touch. Buñuel would be proud.

Indeed, the film is permeated by the spirit of Buñuel, not just in its direct references to “Belle de Jour” (a picture here, a gift there) but in its relationship to his entire work. Viewers unfamiliar with Buñuel might be puzzled when the film appear to continue one scene “too long” after the main characters have exited and the servants are talking to each other, but it’s the sort of moment that cropped up again in again in Buñuel’s work, most notably in his masterpiece “Exterminating Angel” (1962).

Piccoli, as usual, is brilliant. Though a mere whippersnapper next to de Oliveira, Piccoli has been a screen star for sixty years now, and has done some of his best work in recent years, especially with Oliveira (Piccoli was also phenomenal in 2001's “I’m Going Home”), and he relishes his opportunity to re-visit one of his best-known roles. Here, Henri Husson makes the leap from supporting character to protagonist with Severine as more of a fringe character who flits about the edges of the screen until the climactic dinner sequence. Bulle Ogier cannot match the screen presence of Catherine Deneuve, but she isn’t called on to do much here except to simply be Severine.

Will you be unable to enjoy “Belle Toujours” if you aren’t a Buñuel aficionado? No, though it’s fair to say you won’t necessarily be fully in tune with de Oliveira’s project. Even on its own, the film is an ambling, amusing psychosexual cat and mouse game which proves that the march of time doesn’t mean you have to be any less of a sick bastard. That’s a theme we can all identify with.

Video:
The film is presented in a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. Though the transfer is interlaced, it’s unusually strong by New Yorker’s standards. The color saturation is just right (sometimes a problem with this studio) and the image quality is fairly sharp. Still, it would be nice if they could offer progressive transfers in the near future.

Audio:
The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.

Extras:
With such a short film, it would have been nice to get a few more extras. What we get isn’t bad though. There are four interviews, the best of which, of course, are the ones with de Oliveira (23 min.) and Piccoli (9 min.) Interviews with Bulle Ogier (5 min.) and

Ricardo Trêpa (2 min.) provide a few brief perspectives on working with the veteran director.

Also included are a Trailer, a Photo Gallery and a Press Kit which can be accessed as a PDF file on your PC.

Film Value:

At 65 minutes (not counting the end credits), this strange coda to “Belle de Jour” is over almost as soon as it starts or, more accurately, speeds away after its lightning-strike hit and run job. I suppose you could consider this film to be a meditation on aging (as many critics have written), but it’s a pretty pervy one and surely not a “sweet elegy” of any kind. In all honesty, I like this film more than “Belle de Jour” which, I admit, is not one of my favorite Buñuels. Long live Michel Piccoli! Long live Manoel de Oliveira! Well, I guess they’ve already done that. But you know what I mean.

L'argent

L'ARGENT (Bresson, 1983)

New Yorker Vido, DVD, Release Date May 24, 2005 (currently out-of-print)

Review by Christopher S. Long

(The greatest director in the history of cinema was born Sep 25, 1901, or maybe 1903, or maybe he just always was. My review of his final masterpiece was originally published in 2005 and has been substantially revised for reposting today. I know a lot more about Bresson now than when I first wrote it, but I wasn't too far off. At least I knew it was awesome. My apologies for not having good screenshots for the first scene I analyze in detail but, well, I don't have them. You'll just have to watch the movie.)

An old man walks down the street while reading a newspaper. He passes by a parked car in which our protagonist Yvon (Christian Patey) sits quietly and looks straight ahead. Several police cars speed by, sirens blaring. The old man continues walking until he sees three men, presumably police officers, crouching behind their cars, so still they could be sculptures: the old man hurries away. Across the street, another man (we cannot see who) comes out of a bank, holding a woman in front of him. One of the crouching men very deliberately aims his gun.

Cut back to Yvon as he sits in his car still staring blankly; a single gunshot rings out off-screen; if Yvon hears it, he does not react. The man retreats cautiously back into the bank: who fired at whom and why doesn’t anyone seem to be panicking? Cut back to Yvon once again as a volley of gunshots rattles off-screen. He reaches slowly for the ignition and starts the car. Hold on an extended closeup of Yvon’s hands (always hands with Bresson) on the steering wheel as more sounds play out off-screen: shouts, police whistles, etc. We finally cut to an exterior shot of Yvon’s vehicle as a police car pulls alongside him. Yvon, his expression still blank, shifts the car into drive and peels out.

It’s the strangest, most subdued bank heist you’ve ever seen on film, and it is also a text book example of the idiosyncratic style of the great French director Robert Bresson. At least three quintessentially Bressonian features are on display here. First, there's Bresson’s oft-discussed approach to acting. He employed non-professional actors, whom he referred to as “models,” and trained them to perform as automatically and mechanically as possible, often using multiple takes to wear them out: the goal was for the models to act without inflection, often resulting in the stoic, passive “Bresson face.” For more discussion of Bresson’s use of models, please check out my review of “Au hasard Balthazar.”

Second, this scene offers an instructional lesson on Bresson’s revolutionary approach to sound. For Bresson, sound and image are often redundant, and if the two work together they do not necessarily reinforce each other but sometimes cancel each other out. If a sound conveys the essential meaning of the scene, there is simply no need to show a similar image as well. Therefore, when we hear the volley of gunshots and the whistles, we do not see the police shooting at the robbers, but rather Yvon’s hands as they rest limply on the steering wheel as if awaiting further instructions from their master. As for what precisely occurs at the bank, we are left to wonder; in Bresson’s view, the ear is more imaginative than the eye, and sound is not merely the bastard child of image.

Third, Bresson’s emphasis on economy and precision (“L’Argent” runs at just 81 minutes) is evident in this scene. Bresson ruthlessly stripped away all extraneous elements from his films, until he was left with only the barest essential elements required to tell the story. After Yvon speeds away, we see a brief car chase which Bresson conveys by two primary images: Yvon’s feet as they switch from the accelerator to the brake and a shot of the police car as seen in the side mirror of Yvon’s car. Cut back and forth between these two shots a few times and… there’s your car chase. It is also worth noting that this is not merely economical from an artistic point of view but from a pragmatic perspective as well - Bresson seldom worked with big budgets.

These three elements (among others) defined Bresson’s films for the bulk of his career and combined to produced one of the most distinct, hermetic, and endlessly fascinating bodies of work in all of cinema. If Bresson had not perfected these techniques (how is such a thing possible?), he had finely tuned them by the time he directed “L’Argent” (“Money”) in 1983 at the age of 82, and it was the last film the French master would ever make. Bresson, who died in 1999, intended to continue directing, but was unable to secure financing for his long-planned adaptation of the Book of Genesis and he unofficially retired by the end of the 1980s. Fortunately, Bresson’s final film is also one of his greatest.

“L’Argent” is loosely based on Tolstoy's short story “The Counterfeit Note” which also translates as “The Forged Note” or “The False Coupon.” The story begins with two young men who pass off counterfeit bills to a local photography shop. The store owners discover that the bills are forged, but don’t want to get stuck with the loss so they, in turn, pass them onto Yvon Targe, the young man who delivers heating oil to their store. After Yvon is caught with the counterfeit money, he returns to the store with the police in order to prove his innocence, but the owners pretend not to recognize him. From this point, Yvon’s fate is sealed and his situation degenerates from bad to worse to unspeakable.

“L’Argent” traces the spread of evil (flowing by the same route as capital) from its first flowering to its final violent explosion. As the counterfeit notes change hands, they leave destruction in their wake and nobody escapes fully unscathed. In the opening scene, a young man asks for a handout from his father; in the climactic scene a homicidal Yvon has only one question to ask: “Where’s the money?”

Bresson believed in predestination (or maybe not – it's a thing critics have often written but it's a lot more complex than that) and Yvon is an innocent victim fated to be laid low by circumstances beyond his control. He is not merely falsely imprisoned but is actually transformed by the system; once released from jail, he decides he might as well become the person everyone seems to think he is.

Bresson’s films are often considered to be pessimistic and grim, but “L’Argent” ramps that dark vision up to a new level. In many of Bresson’s films, the characters achieve a kind of grace or even redemption by way of their suffering, but there is little, if any, sense of redemption in “L’Argent,” the ending of which is about as bleak as you will ever see. Except maybe in “Au hasard Balthazar.” Here you can choose from two Bresson quotes: one in which he described himself as a “jolly pessimist” and another in which he rejected the term “pessimism” as applied to his films, preferring the term “lucidity.”

Like most of Bresson’s films, “L’Argent” accumulates its remarkable affective power through its puritanical restraint. Yvon remains an opaque figure with a blank expression even as he transforms from an innocent into a killer. We could easily imagine the Hollywood version of the same story with a classically-trained method actor raving and gibbering and chewing the scenery with dramatic music to underscore the transition, but Bresson does not pursue that route. Nor does he linger on any of the typical gory elements. As he does in the car chase, Bresson simply picks a few objective details and deploys them to convey an entire scene. Bresson’s tendency to elide the main action is so pronounced in “L’Argent” that even an attentive viewer might miss altogether the fact that, in one sequence, Yvon murders two hotel owners. The ending is all the more potent and unnerving because of the sense of clinical detachment cultivated by Bresson; we are all invited to consider the proceedings with the dispassionate eye of a coroner rather than as a sympathetic and involved viewer.

We do not quite know why Yvon does what he does or why he selects his victims, though it is obviously related to his unfair treatment by society. Bresson’s cinema is one of surfaces, not psychology – which is to say it's grown-up cinema. Character is revealed only through behavior, not through exposition or analysis; there are no “character moments” offered as a sop to the audience, and Yvon’s sudden decision to cross the line into violence comes as a shock as we have not been prepared for it as we might expect. Bresson provides the what; the viewer, if he or she simply must, provides the why. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. I have the old VHS released by New Yorker and the difference in image quality (even setting aside that the VHS was full screen) is like day to night. On the tape, the desk in the opening scene is dull brown and the curtains are gray; on the DVD, the desk is cherry red and the curtains much brighter. The flesh tones on the DVD really pop out as well. Of course it's no Blu-ray, and a transfer that felt like a “revelation” in 2005 is found wanting more than a decade later. Still, it's perfectly fine... until we get something better and I'm thankful that New Yorker took the effort to release some of Bresson's great work on DVD in North America.

Audio:

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital. I don’t think any DVD can fully preserve the quality of Bresson’s rich and textured sound tracks but this version does a more than creditable job. he music and dialogue are clearly separated, and the sound effects are well-mixed. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.

Extras:

The main attraction is a commentary track by critic Kent Jones who literally wrote the (BFI) book on “L’Argent.” Jones’ commentary is enjoyable not just because of his keen insights, but also because of his halting, nervous delivery filled with awkward pauses – it adds a very personal touch. Jones blends an academic approach with his obvious love for the film and delivers one of the more lucid and engaging commentary tracks I have ever heard. If anyone ever asks me for my favorite commentary track, this one would be right up there with Spinal Tap's in-character commentary.

In addition to a very short trailer, the disc also includes three short interviews: two with Bresson (6 min. and 13 min., respectively) from French television in 1983 and one very brief one (1 min, 30 sec.) with director Marguerite Duras who expresses her admiration for the great director.

Final Thoughts:

Is “L'argent” the greatest final film by an esteemed director? I can't think of one definitively superior, and Bresson was indisputably still at the top of his game in his early eighties. Like most Bresson films, “L'argent” encourages multiple interpretations and a whole gamut of reactions. Even devoted members of the Bresson cult often disagree with each other about various takes: “Yes, this film is great, but you are completely wrong about the reasons why!” Which is just one small part of the pleasure of experiencing the work of a true one-of-a-kind artist.

Signs of Life

SIGNS OF LIFE (Herzog, 1968)

New Yorker Video, DVD, Release Date July 5, 2005

Review by Christopher S. Long

(This is the first in what I plan to be a lengthy series of Werner Herzog reviews. I won't be reviewing every Herzog movie, but I'll be reviewing an awful lot of them, more or less in chronological order and about once per week, though I'm not really a big schedule guy. But please check back often if you just need a Herzog fix. And who doesn't need that?)

Every now and then a screenwriting competition actually amounts to something. In 1964, fresh-faced Bavarian poet Werner Herzog, just turned 22, nabbed the Carl Mayer state prize for a screenplay he submitted under a pseudonym, which is cool considering Werner Herzog is also a bit of a pseudonym.

Herzog, who had previously directed a few short films, rolled this relative pittance into what would become his debut feature, “Signs of Life” (1968). Though the film shows some signs of a young filmmaker straining to fill out even a modest feature-length running time of just under ninety minutes, it's amazing how much of what would become known as the trademark Herzog style is on display right out of the gate.

Protagonist driven mad by burgeoning evidence of his own futility? Check. Learned authorities completely oblivious to their own equal futility? Plenty of 'em. Three-hundred-sixty-degree pans of vast, sprawling landscapes that can't be contained by the mere film frame? Very first shot, pal. A hypnotized chicken? You insult me by even asking the question.

Stroszek (former tightrope walker Peter Brogle) is a German soldier stationed in Greece during WW II, not that you get mush historical context from the film. Injured in a parachuting accident (look quickly and you'll see young Mr. Herzog shlepping the helpless patient out of an ambulance truck), Stroszek is reassigned to a completely irrelevant post, guarding an obsolete munitions dump (the ammunition doesn't even fit German weapons) and trying to fill the endless, pointless days along with his Greek girlfriend and two fellow German soldiers also consigned to irrelevance for reasons undisclosed.

The film lingers on shots of the countryside (mostly on the Greek island of Kos) and close-ups of shattered architecture and other detritus of past civilization for a full ten minutes before any of the often tiny human figures resolve into actual characters. The first time we get a real good look at our ostensible protagonist, a narrator informs us, “The surroundings had a strange effect on Stroszek, but he could find no explanation for this.” Nor will he. In typical Herzog fashion, the film does not tell the story of a character going mad, but one who starts out mad and becomes even more unhinged. Because that's just the way the world works.

The privileging of environment over characters in the opening sequences is also quintessential Herzog. He speaks often about the expressive power of landscapes, and how they reveal the “inner landscapes” of his characters. Frequently exhibiting an active disinterest in psychology and psychoanalysis, Herzog strive instead to show us in striking visual terms just what's going on in their minds, or perhaps to remind us that there's really no way to see into such dark spaces. I am reminded of the indelibly sad scene in “Stroszek” where the title character (played by the great “unknown soldier of cinema” Bruno S.) cobbles together a sculpture he describes as a “schematic” of his (troubled) brain. That Stroszek, by the way, has nothing to do with the Stroszek in this film; Herzog explains that he used the name to pay back a student of the same name who once wrote a school paper for him. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

In the film's most striking shot, Stroszek finally loses what little sanity he was still clinging to and fires his gun (futilely, of course) into the air, at which point the film cuts to a breathtaking panorama of row after row of windmills pinwheeling in a valley below. It's the first of many similar shots in an oeuvre defined by obsessively repeated motifs, the frame crammed beyond capacity with dozens or hundreds of examples of a repeated image with no obvious center of attention to orient the viewer. The burning oilfields of “Lessons of Darkness” (1992), the furiously crawling sea of red crabs in “Echoes From a Sober Empire” (1990), veils of fog and flocks of birds in several films. These shots are so overwhelming to take in they speak only of, well, madness. Glorious, impenetrable madness.

Actually, now that I think about it some more, this Stroszek does have a connection to the more famous Stroszek of “Stroszek.” Both characters ultimately wind up as the punchline of a cosmic joke, an all-too-common fate for a Herzog protagonist. And the joke is... the cosmos doesn't care about you in any fashion.

Come on, now, that's funny.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Released way back in 2005 by the former company once called New Yorker Video, this interlaced transfer is nothing to brag about. It's from a fairly clean transfer with only modest signs of damage, but the overall quality is rather indifferent with a slightly soft image throughout. The black-and-white photography (by the great Thomas Mauch in the first of many feature collaborations with Herzog) looks a bit washed out or blown out in a few places. It's OK, it's more than serviceable, but viewers spoiled by our sleek 2016 technology might be disappointed by this relic of days of yore.

Audio:

The Dolby Digital Mono track is similarly serviceable but unremarkable with the occasional bit of drop-off but nothing big. Optional English subtitles are provided and can occasionally be a bit difficult to read in some of the white on white shots.

Extras:

Aside from a lengthy and well-worn Trailer (4 min.), the only extra is a feature-length commentary track by Werner Herzog along with Norman Hill. Anyone who has listened to a Herzog commentary knows what a treat it can be – he would surely place one or two in an all-time Top Ten Commentary Track list. This one's not quite as great as the tracks for “Even Dwarfs Started Small” or “Stroszek,” but it's pretty wonderful.

Final Thoughts:

I've found a certain strand of cinephiles who insist that director's earliest film or films are always his best, especially if said films are deemed to be “overlooked.” “Signs of Life” is certainly overlooked in Herzog's oeuvre, and it's damned good. But it is also definitely not his best. So don't listen to the people that insist it is; they just have their fetish.

Also, when you see that piano player, that's Florian Fricke, later of Popul Vuh fame, the krautrock group whose signature sound would become synonymous with many of Herzog's better-known films.