Overlord

OVERLORD (Cooper, 1975)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date May 13, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

Tom Beddoes (Brian Stirner) does not fight for glory or fantasies of heroism. The not-quite-21-year-old Englishman believes from the moment he is drafted that he will die fighting the Nazi menace; he writes as much in a letter to his parents. The opening shot of the film suggests the same thing to the audience, albeit in a somewhat hallucinatory manner. That path that “Overlord” (1975) traces from basic training to the storming of the beaches at Normandy is an inevitable one, rendering Tom's story both a tragedy and a tribute to the nobility of the soldier who stares fate square in the eyes and doesn't retreat.

Tom's perspective is really that of a filmmaker and an audience looking back on monumental events now receding (though never diminishing) in the past. Producer James Quinn initially wanted to make a documentary about a new memorial intended to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of D-Day. After Quinn recruited a young director named Stuart Cooper, who had developed a critical following with the short documentary “A Test of Violence” (1970) and his feature debut “Little Malcolm” (1974), the project began to transform.

Cooper stuck with the initial idea to employ documentary wartime footage from the massive archives of Britain's venerable Imperial War Museum, but weaved a fictional narrative (which he co-scripted with Christopher Hudson) through the grainy shots of aerial bombardments and naval skirmishes. Some of the archival footage is breathtaking and eerily surreal; a giant water wheel propelled by dozens of sputtering rockets clatters across a rocky beach before toppling over, an alien contraption almost comically ill-suited to its environment. The layering of movie-style sounds of gunfire and explosions to the silent footage (some of which was taken from cameras mounted in bomb bays or on the guns of fighter planes) sometimes undercuts the awe-inspiring ferocity of the visuals, but that's a minor quibble.

By contrast, the scripted sequences of Tom leaving home, going through boot camp, and biding his time before deployment are quiet and often serene, though flash forwards remind us of the freight train rapidly approaching. Brian Stirner portrays Tom as a gentle, thoughtful soul, clutching his copy of “David Copperfield” and shyly coming on to a pretty young woman (Julie Neesam) he meets during some rare down time. His philosophical bent proves to be a detriment when he has far too much time to think about what the future holds, but his less introspective peers are aware of their likely fate too; they simply don't articulate it the way Tom does.

Cinematographer John Alcott (best known for his collaborations with Stanley Kubrick on “A Clockwork Orange,” “Barry Lyndon,” and “The Shining”) shoots in a style that perfectly complements the documentary-fiction hybrid. Many scenes with Tom hanging out with his fellow soldiers or saying goodbye to his parents feel like kitchen-sink naturalism, but the film sometimes abruptly veers into abstraction (slow-motion, slightly out-of-focus shots of soldiers running) or stops for a meticulously crafted painterly composition: a low-angle shot of Tom peering over a hill with thick white clouds drifting above him (both beautiful and completely unaware of him) is particularly memorable.

“Overlord” won some festival awards at the time, but failed to pick up American distribution, largely disappearing until it was resuscitated and released a few decades later. There are numerous British films about soldiers and citizens maintaining a stiff upper lip during wartime; “Overlord” may not be the very best (Powell and Pressburger are tough competition), but it is certainly one of the boldest and most innovative. You've never seen anything quite like it. Unless you've seen it, of course. And with this Blu-ray upgrade of Criterion's previous SD release, there's no reason for you not to.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Since “Overlord” intercuts a great deal of documentary footage into its narrative material, the video quality can vary from source to source, but I can't imagine anyone being bothered by the slightly degraded or damaged image in some of the war shots. The image quality is consistently strong in the material photographed by John Alcott and this high-def transfer brings a lot of detail into sharp relief. Black-and-white contrast is meant to be soft and slightly gauzy in most scenes and the 1080p transfer preserves it all with a needed touch of subtlety.

Audio:

The linear Pcm Mono audio track sounds somewhat sparse, but that's by design. Dialogue is crisply mixed. Some of the war sound effects are mixed quite loudly, perhaps a bit too much so at times, but I'm sure that's also by design. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Criterion has imported all of the extras from its 2007 SD release of “Overlord.”

The film is accompanied by a commentary track by director Stuart Cooper and lead actor Brian Stirner. Their commentaries were recorded separately. Cooper has much more information about the overall production of the film, but Stirner's unique perspective is enlightening as well.

“Mining the Archive” (23 min.) is an interview with Roger Smither and Anne Fleming, film archivists at the Imperial War Museum. The Museum's archives play a major role in the film and they have plenty to say about the way archival footage was introduced and how much the Museum served as a research source for the movie.

The Museum didn't just provide film footage. They also had extensive historical documents, including journals written by soldiers who participated in the D-Day invasion. The disc includes readings by Brian Stirner from the journals of Sgt. Edward Robert McCush (9 min.) and Sgt. Finlay Campbell (12 min.) We also get a brief introduction by Stuart Cooper (2 min.)

The shot feature “Capa Influences Cooper” discussed how photographer Robert Capa, who took photographs on Omaha Beach on D-Day, influenced the look of the film. This feature consists of audio commentary by Stuart Cooper played over footage from the film and some of the few remaining Capa photographs from D-Day (8 min.)

“Germany Calling” (2 min.) is a 1941 propaganda film that played before many films released in England during wartime. It cut footage of Nazis (most, perhaps all, taken from Leni Riefenstahl's “Triumph of the Will”) to comic music, speeds it up, and runs it backward to mock the goosestepping menace. Tom sees bits of this film during a scene set in a movie theater in “Overlord.”

“Cameramen at War” (1943, 15 min.) is a documentary by the British Ministry of Information (credited as “Compiled by Len Lye”) which talks about the courage of the men who embedded with the troops to shoot film. D.W. Griffith is identified in one scene.

“A Test of Violence” (1969, 14 min.) is Stuart Cooper's debut short film that won multiple festival awards. It is nominally about Spanish artist Juan Genovés, though it's a very abstract piece that recreates the violent scenes Genovés painted.

The disc also includes a Theatrical Trailer (3 min.)

The 28-page insert booklet includes an essay by critic Kent Jones, an excerpt from a presentation given by Imperial War Museum archivist Roger Smither, and excerpts from the novelization of “Overlord” written by Stuart Cooper and Christopher Hudson, co-screenwriter of the film.

Final Thoughts:

“Overlord” can feel a bit too portentous at times, but it is a sincerely moving portrait of a soldier bracing himself for the inevitable tragedy of wartime. Criterion hasn't added any new features from its 2007 SD release, but the high-def transfer is a strong one, as usual, and the original collection of extras was plenty good enough.

Westfront 1918

WESTFRONT 1918 (Pabst, 1930)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Jan 30, 2018

Review by Christopher S. Long

The naivete of a virginal student, the cheerfulness of a working-class Bavarian man, the hard-earned experience of an army lieutenant, the reluctant stoicism of of another infantry grunt – a wide gamut of personality traits and defense mechanisms, each pierced with equal disregard by steel-core bullets in G.W. Pabst's grim World War I movie, “Westfront 1918” (1930).

Pabst is best known today for his two silent Louise Brooks vehicles, “Pandora's Box” (1929) and “Diary of A Lost Girl” (1929), but most of his sound films aside from “The Threepenny Opera” (1931) remain largely overlooked. Criterion's twin releases this week, “Westfront 1918” and “Kameradschaft”(1931), prove that the great Austrian director made the transition to sound as smoothly as anyone.

“Westfront 1918” begins with the battle away from the front lines, as a group of soldiers relentlessly paw at a young woman (“Mine next!”) who has a full-time job fending off their advances before finding her way into the arms of her young lover, the aforementioned student. Later, the film will focus on the desperate straits of the German citizens suffering from wartime shortages, including endless food lines and a soldier's wife forced into dire measures to pay the bills while her husband is at war.

For all the attention lavished on the homefront, Pabst and screenwriter Ladislaus Vajda, adapting a novel by Ernst Johannsen, reach their heights when evoking the horrors of life and death in the trenches. Bravery is in no short supply, but it's defined not by grand heroic gestures, rather by the ability to endure the constant terror of slaughter, as likely to come from errant “friendly” fire as from the enemy hidden a few hundred yards away in the other trenches.

Death can arrive from anywhere and at any time. A soldier reaches to test a small wound on his neck and just has time to exclaim “Well, I'll be” before pitching forward. A small group of terrified men try to prop up a crumbling wall in one of their makeshift shelters, as the very structure built to protect them now threatens to bury them alive. There is nowhere to hide, and there never will be.

Like the best directors exploring the uncharted dimensions of sound cinema, Pabst doesn't pour on the sound design simply to simulate realism, but deploys sound selectively for specific expressive effects. The low whistle of an incoming shell is all the more frightening because of the relative silence it shatters. Pabst shot many scenes silently, layering in sound in post-production, freeing the camera to guide as fluidly as in his earlier films, though he also used synchronized sound in the few more dialogue-heavy sequences.

“Westfront 1918” generates much of its considerable power from the array of faces and bodies of all kinds documented by the camera, but never more so than during the hellscape that ends the movie, a makeshift hospital littered with the dead and dismembered, the living still unable to believe they no longer have legs or arms. The film's final note hardly inspires even the faintest shred of hope as a helpless man criesout for water. We fade-out before learning if anyone is left to hear him.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.19:1 ratio, a narrower ratio employed in the early days of sound film. The original camera negative is lost, and this 2014 restoration by the Deutsche Kinemathek relies on a 35 mm duplicate positive held at BFI, and a 35 mm duplicate negative from Praesans-Film AG to replace shots missing from the positive print. Considering the extensive restoration necessary, this high-def transfer looks remarkably sharp and shows off a grainy depth with surprising detail even in some of the darker scenes. There are a few instances of damage visible, but the final product is quite impressive.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono audio track sounds a bit hollow but is otherwise clear and consistent throughout. Optional English subtitles support the German audio.

Extras:

Criterion has unearthed one unexpected feature, a lengthy (71 min.) interview with several World War I vets, both German and French, who discuss their reactions to the film. As a group, they find it quite powerful and realistic. The interview was originally aired (along with the film) on a Nov 12, 1969 episode of the French TV program “Les Dossiers de l'Ecran.”

The disc also includes an archival audio-only interview (1988, 3 min.) with the film's editor Jean Oser, who mostly discusses how his early approach to what later would come to be known as Foley sound work.

We also get a new interview (2016, 18 min.) with film scholar Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. He contrasts Pabst's film with Lewis Milestone's “All Quiet on the Western Front,” released at almost the same time, and then provides some fascinating details about the production of Pabst's film as well as about some of the cast members.

Finally, the disc includes a Restoration Demonstration (9 min.), featuring members of the team at Deutsche Kinemathek. I'm always riveted by this restoration featurettes and wish they were longer.

The slim fold-out insert booklet features an essay by author and critic Luc Sante.

Final Thoughts:

Many viewers know Pabst past as a master of silent cinema, but his first sound film ranks comfortably among his very best. Criterion has provided a strong high-def transfer of this recently restored film along with a solid collection of extra features. Obviously, this release is strongly recommended.

Hearts and Minds

HEARTS AND MINDS (Davis, 1974)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date June 17, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

The most commented upon moment from Peter Davis's Vietnam War documentary “Hearts and Minds” (1974) remains a show-stopper forty years later. Amidst a montage of Vietnamese citizens mourning the death of loved ones killed by American weapons (one despondent woman lowers herself into an open grave as others try to pull her back up), General William Westmoreland, interviewed in a placid outdoor Stateside location, explains, “The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner.” Score a win for the power of movie editing; the esteemed general could not look any worse, though he sure tries. Elsewhere, Westmoreland refers to Vietnam as “a child” that needs to be nurtured, apparently unaware that Vietnamese culture had a few millennia head start on America.

The primary accomplishment of Davis's Oscar-winning documentary was to represent the people of Vietnam directly rather than through the calculated, racist terminology of the war's primary marketers. The powers-that-be wanted them to be portrayed as children or, even better, as “gooks.” The film showed them as humans. No wonder it generated so much controversy.

The title derives from one of the catch phrases strategically employed by government officials. A clip used in the documentary shows President Lyndon Johnson emphasizing how essential it was to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people. The slogan “hearts and minds,” repeated by many government representatives as part of an organized ideological campaign, was meant to refer to people “over there” but the film reminds viewers that the fight for “hearts and minds” was waged just as vigorously on the home front.

Lt. George Coker, who survived six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, remains a true believer and exhorts a room full of American moms to raise their sons to be obedient so they can be ready to serve when needed. When we later see footage of an American soldier setting fire to a thatched roof in Vietnam, the clear implication is that it takes a village to raze a village. Other veterans like Randy Floyd, who flew 98 bomber missions, are much less gung-ho after their service. He remembers the pride he took in his highly-skilled work, but now struggles to justify the war and fears that the American public would rather forget than learn some potentially uncomfortable lessons. Unsurprisingly, Coker remains convinced that America won the war, Floyd and others are more dubious.

A particularly dispiriting montage features a relentless parade of American presidents assuring the public that we have a vital national interest in Southeast Asia, though Eisenhower is the only one who inadvertently slips in an honest explanation not couched in fear-mongering or jingoism, noting that we can't risk losing a reliably cheap supply of tin and tungsten. Davis, like any documentarian, selects his subjects carefully and employs editing as a powerful rhetorical device, but he certainly doesn't view the war in partisan terms. It's just America's ongoing thing.

“Hearts and Minds” is one of the most important war documentaries ever made, but the subsequent forty years of American military policy requires a consideration of how relative the term “important” is when talking about film (documentary or otherwise). The movie certainly did nothing to change American military policy, and I can't imagine Davis or producer Bert Schneider ever thought that it would. It still stirs the soul today, infuriates the viewer already inclined to be critical of military intervention, and provides a much-needed corrective to the official propaganda. That's a vital accomplishment by any standard, but it makes me wonder whether even the best documentaries can ever serve as hammers for social activism or if they can really only be mirrors.

Maybe I'm just in a despairing frame of mind right now (no maybe about it, actually). Don't let that dissuade you from watching this eloquent, genuinely moving film. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The film combines interviews shot in controlled environments with documentary footage shot on the run in Vietnam and is photographed both on 35 mm and 16 mm. It all looks consistently strong and the high-def transfer renders it all in sharp detail with a rich grainy structure throughout.

This is a dual-format release with two DVDs (one with the film one with extras) and a single Blu-ray disc. The SD transfer has not been reviewed here.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono track is clearly mixed both in dialogue scenes and in war footage. Getting clean sound on documentary films is no easy task, but there's no sign of damage or dropoff in this sound track. Optional English subtitles support the audio in English, Vietnamese and French.

Extras:

Criterion originally released “Hearts and Minds” on SD in 2002 and this dual-format release retains the previous spine number (156) .

The old commentary by Peter Davis, recorded in 2001, has been imported from the SD release.

New for this re-release (and included on both the DVD and Blu-ray versions) is over two hours of unused footage from “Hearts and Minds.” This includes interviews with Phillippe Devillers, Tony Russo, David Brinkley and others as well as a scene from a funeral in Quang Nam (a village accidentally bombed by American forces) and a scene set a hospital in Saigon.

The thick 44-page booklet includes essays by Peter Davis (updated from the version included in the 2002 booklet), critic Judith Crist, history professor Robert K. Brigham, history professor George C. Herring (slightly updated from the one in the 2002 booklet), and history professor Ngo Vih Long.

Final Thoughts:

If you already own the old SD release of “Hearts and Minds” I don't know if the high-def upgrade and the two hours of outtakes are enough to justify a double dip. But it's an essential movie for anyone interested in the Vietnam War or in the ways in a documentary filmmaker can build a powerful argument.

Many Wars Ago

MANY WARS AGO (Rosi, 1970)

Kino Lorber/Rario Video, Blu-ray, Release Date Jan 7, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

While World War II movies bring to mind a host of settings from tense submarine cat-and-mouse battles in the Pacific to stiff-upper-lip homefront movies in the UK, a single dominant motif comes to mind when thinking of World War I on the screen: trenches. That's partly due to my own ignorance as I have largely missed out on the grand tradition of World War I pilot movies,including the first Best Picture winner “Wings” (1927). But from “All Quiet on the Western Front” to “Paths of Glory” and even “Blackadder Goes Forth,” the most enduring image of the Great War is of men huddled in muddy, makeshift trenches, awaiting the order to go over the top, knowing all the while it probably means not coming back.

Francesco Rosi continued this tradition with “Many Wars Ago” (1970 – AKA “Uomini Contro”), a film adapted from the slightly fictionalized memoir “A Year on the Plateau” by Italian officer Emilio Lussu. The film recasts Lussu as Lt. Sassu (American actor Mark Frechette, fresh of his breakout role in “Zabriskie Point” and a few years before his arrest for bank robbery and subsequent death in prison) and transforms the book's first-person account into an third-person narrative with Sassu only gradually assuming a more prominent role.

Italian soldiers stationed on the Asiago Plateau in the north of the country hunker down in trenches less than a half a mile from Austrian soldiers heavily fortified atop a hill. On an early maneuver, an Italian scout calls for a halt when enfilading fire strafes the ranks. The unauthorized stop enrages General Leone (French star Alain Cuny) who, while stationed strategically towards the rear of the advance, orders the scout to be immediately executed.

Some fancy maneuvering by the general's subordinates saves the man's life, but Leone and his fellow commanders intend to make sure that the hill is retaken no matter how many of their own soldiers must die. In a series of developments that inevitably calls to mind Stanley Kubrick's “Paths of Glory” (1957), the upper echelon explore every legal option they have to “discipline” their troops, including repeated decimation of the ranks (i.e. firing squads for randomly selected soldiers). These bastards will get motivated over their dead bodies! The officers' pathology is underscored in one scene in which the terrified Italian soldiers are ordered to launch a futile frontal assault (one of many obsolete strategies from many wars ago) that prompts the also-traumatized Austrians to implore them to retreat: “We can't go on killing like that!”

The troops are understandably distraught, and the film traces the open rebellion of Lt. Ottolenghi (Gian Maria Volonté), a committed socialist, and the gradual awakening he induces in the more by-the-numbers Lt. Sassu. The soldiers initially view the Great War as another natural plague to be endured, but become increasingly convinced that they are the victims of a class war. As the dissension mounts the film builds to a critical decision point: will the troops spin right around and attack the real enemy back at headquarters?

As you might expect, “Many Wars Ago” paints a drab portrait all in green, gray, and brown with the occasional flourish of red. Rosi balances scenes of sodden inertia in the trenches with chaotically choreographed battles sometimes as difficult to make sense of as it must be for the ground-level participants to experience. Some images are difficult to shake, like the almost Python-esque spectacle of men outfitted in medieval armor and sent right into the line of modern machine gun fire.

Rosi's bleak depiction of war sparked controversy from many quarters when it debuted at Venice in 1970. The right predictably fumed about the movie's alleged defamation of the military while some on the left weren't satisfied that the film appropriately portrayed the righteousness of the class struggle. Rosi doesn't conflate courage or conviction with success, and provides no promise that the martyred victims will inspire a new generation to fight the good fight. Maybe he read a history book or two, and learned that sometimes the hero's journey just ends.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

According to the packaging, the movie has been “digitally restored in collaboration with the National Cinematheque and the Turin National Film Museum under the supervision of Francesco Rosi.” Another note slightly complicates the matter.

From the booklet included with the Blu-ray, Sergio Toffetti, curator of the Italian National Film Archive, writes, “This copy of 'Many Wars Ago' was reprinted at Cinecitta laboratories from a reversal belonging to the Italian National Film Archive. As the original negative has been lost, a duplicate negative was made according to an obsolete technical process which allows the original negative to be printed directly onto reversal film. The resulting film... has a reasonably high level of definition, although some fluctuations of color and dominant doubles tend to alter the original chromatics. The original tone and density of the color may eventually be recovered using digital modern techniques.”

This somewhat unusual note suggests that the film could use another level of restoration, but the high-def transfer we get looks fairly strong to me. The note makes me wonder whether the drab colors are entirely faithful to Rosi's original vision, but they seem appropriate to a film about trench warfare. Some modest damage is visible in a few scenes, mostly a few flecks and speckles, but nothing significant. An even better version might await, but Kino and Raro Video have provided a solid transfer here.

Audio:

The DTS-HD Master 2.0 track isn't particularly dynamic, and dubbing in Italian movies of this era always sounds weird, like it's coming from a disembodied source, but that's not a flaw in the mix. No distortion is noticeable and the sometimes overwhelming score by Piero Picconi sounds surprisingly resonant. Optional English subtitles support the Italian audio.

Extras:

This Kino/Raro Video release includes a recent interview with director Francesco Rosi (28 min.) and a brief piece (2 min.) about the film's restoration. The latter is somewhat odd as a few of the side-by-side before and after examples don't show evidence of significant change. You can also access a PDF of the Original Screenplay by Tonino Guerra, Raffaele La Capria, and Francesco Rosi.

Raro Video has also included a nifty 20-page insert booklet with many short essays from various sources, including a note from Rosi as well as essays and reviews from critics. Many of them are translated from Italian with occasionally awkward grammar, but the diversity of material cited here provides a strong sampling of opinion about this controversial and somewhat overlooked film.

Final Thoughts:

I imagine Rosi and some of the film's boosters get tired of comparisons to “Paths of Glory,” but they are apt. While “Paths of Glory” is a difficult film to match, Rosi's movie was a riskier proposition as he was critiquing his own country's military history; Kubrick wasn't chancing as much by tackling a sordid episode in the history of the French army. “Many Wars Ago” deserves a more prominent place in discussions of World War I cinema, and this Blu-ray should help stir the conversation.

Dr. Strangelove

DR. STRANGELOVE (Kubrick, 1964)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date June 28, 2016

Review by Christopher S. Long

"Sir! I have a plan!"

As considered under the withering clinical gaze of Stanley Kubrick, men are fools and any social structure or piece of technology they create cannot, by definition, be fool-proof. They only fool themselves into thinking otherwise. The military justice system designed by men in “Paths of Glory” (1957) cannot possibly produce a just result; in “2001” (1968) the flawless HAL 9000's main flaw is that it learned more than just the song “Daisy” from its human designers. Anything men create will only propagate their own defects in different ways and, inevitably, on larger scales.

I say “men” because both of the aforementioned films, like most Kubrick films, are concerned almost exclusively with men and their questionable decisions. The same is true of “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), a world of cigar chomping, cigarette-smoke blowing, serially speechifying males, mostly of the alpha type or would-be alpha type. This world is so female-starved that the only woman in sight (Tracy Reed) serves double duty as a bikini-clad blastoff partner for General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) and as a magazine centerfold to keep the boys in a cramped bomber crew occupied on a long flight.

Kubrick, adapting the straightforwardly dramatic novel “Red Alert” by Peter George and sharing scripting duties with George and Terry Southern, goes out of his way to leave the audience with no comforting assurances of any kind. Things go wrong initially when the paranoid General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) “exceeds his authority” by ordering his nuclear-armed bombers to attack their targets in Russia, inexorably drawing America into what cowboy bomber pilot Major Kong (Slim Pickens) describes colorfully as “nucular combat, toe-to-toe with the Russkies.”

OK, that's a problem, but surely the cause is just one rotten apple. Not so. When General Turgidson describes Ripper's indiscretion to President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), the commander-in-chief angrily fires back that the general's own “Human Reliability Tests” were supposed to be a guarantee against this very behavior. Turgidson dismisses it as “one little slip-up” but one can practically hear Kubrick chuckling in the background. Kubrick certainly believed in human reliability, the guarantee that one little slip up would invariably be followed by yet another. Which also reliably guarantees material for a lifetime of movies.

It really doesn't matter what plans men make; the problem is that they're the ones making the plans. The Russians have designed a Doomsday Device that will launch a counterstrike against any invading force, even one that admits to a mistake and actively assists in shooting down their own planes. The Russians' decision to eliminate themselves from the decision-making process by making it impossible to deactivate the Doomsday Device is yet another little slip-up. How about a quick prayer from the men down here to the man upstairs? Nope, no good there either.

The lesson could be that we shouldn't hand power over to war mongering buffoons like Turgidson or the enigmatic not-so-ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers x2), or to a dithering pseudo-intellectual like Muffley. But Kubrick's cynicism (abetted by Terry Southern, mostly brought in to recalibrate this tale of mutually assured destruction as a comedy, a decision not made until well into the project) runs deeper still. The bomber crew who receives the order to attack follows their meticulous training (more careful human planning there) to the letter and acts with both heroism and ingenuity to survive a Russian missile attack. And it is only because they've got both brains and guts that they're able to survive... and drop the bomb that will lead to the virtual destruction of human civilization. If only they were cowards or at least less competent, they might have saved the day.

And, of course, that really is funny. The desperate, helpless human condition where all roads lead to the same destination is just plain funny. Kubrick understands this well enough to allow the story to unfold in a relatively naturalistic manner. Though several of the performances are comically over the top (most notably George C. Scott, who wasn't so keen on going that far over), characters are mostly filmed neutrally, with a minimum of inflection by cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, whose stellar 1964 also included a little project called “A Hard Day's Night.”

When Ripper informs his executive assistant, Group Captain Mandrake (Sellers x3), of the impending attack, Mandrake is situated in a chair dead center in the frame and shot from a medium distance with a very quiet background audio track that renders his flat “Aw, hell” that much funnier, especially on repeat viewings. The subsequent attack on Ripper's air force base is shot like gritty newsreel footage. Kubrick indulges in the occasional heavy visual accent, such as a distorting low-angle close-up on a ranting Ripper and relies on the general absurdity of the sprawling War Room so brilliantly designed by the great Ken Adam. But mostly, he just places his foolish little men center stage, content to view them as specimens (writhing) under the microscope.

Though all their plans have failed, the film ends with the men forming yet another plan, an effort to preserve the human species and avoid a “mineshaft gap” with the Russians. The very compassionate president balks at the idea of choosing who gets to live or die, but Dr. Strangelove assures him that the somber decision can be made safely and logically by a computer. The film ends before we get to see just how spectacularly that idea will flame out, but one thing's for certain: it's gonna be some funny shit.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. This high-def transfer is sourced from the extensive 2004 4K digital restoration supervised by Grover Crisp that has since become the standard. This splendid restoration already yielded a great Blu-ray release by Sony a while back, and this Criterion looks pretty similar. Image detail is sharp and the black-and-white contrast is rich with a thick grain structure that should please any viewer. There wasn't much room to improve on the old release, but Criterion has at least matched the stellar quality. You can't ask for much more.

Audio:

Listeners can choose between the film's original mono track (LPCM) and a 5.1 surround design (DTS-HD Master Audio). Purists will want to stick with the mono, but the surround adds a sense of dynamism without being too showy. The film should have the sound of “small” men speaking in vast spaces and the surround preserves that while perhaps treating the music a little better than the mono. Optional English SDH subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

When a film has been released in so many home theater formats, both standard and high-def, you need to do something special to distinguish yet another version. Criterion has decided to do so by absolutely stacking this Blu-ray release with extras: 14 separate features, running just under 200 minutes in total.

Let's start with the brand new features produced by Criterion just for this release.

In a new interview (2016, 19 min.), Mick Broderick, author of “Reconstructing Strangelove,” discusses Kubrick's role as sole producer (after former business partner James B. Harris left to direct his own films) on the film as well as the many changes to the project from the first draft of the script to post-production. Let's get this out of the way here. About a half dozen times in these extras, you will be presented with the shocking knowledge that Peter Sellers was initially slated to also play the role of Major Kong, eventually portrayed by Slim Pickens. The feature wraps up with a discussion of Kubrick's experiments with film marketing, including his collaboration with Pablo Ferro on the film's groovy trailer.

In another interview (2016, 12 min.) cinematographer Joe Dunton and camera operator Kelvin Pike discuss some of the camera techniques used in the film, as well as the influence Kubrick's background as a still photographer had on his film work. Yes, he knew everything there was to know about lenses.

My favorite interview on the set is with Richard Daniels (2016, 14 min.) who has the greatest job in the world, serving as senior archivist at the Stanley Kubrick Archive. Relying on the meticulous records in the archive, Daniels shows how the film changed from its earliest stages (with evidence that Kubrick wanted Burt Lancaster, Spencer Tracy and Orson Welles before budget limitations nixed those choices). He also suggests that frequent descriptions of Peter Sellers' extensive improvisation on set may be overblown.

David George, son of novelist/screenwriter Peter George, discusses (2016, 11 min.) his father's collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, portraying it as a positive, rewarding experience for the writer. He also talks about a lengthy short story George wrote to expand the background of Dr. Strangelove, a character who does not appear at all in George's book “Red Alert.”

In one more new interview (2016, 17 min.), scholar Rooney Hill analyzes Kubrick's reliance on archetypes, touching on the influence of Joseph Campbell, Jung, Freud, etc. This is informative, but if you've ever taken a screenwriting class, it's also well-worn ground.

On to the older material, much of which has appeared on previous home releases:

A brief audio interview with Kubrick (Nov 27, 1966, 3 min.) conducted by physicist/author Jeremy Bernstein gives the director a chance to briefly discuss his long-standing fascination with the subject of thermonuclear war and his belief that a director needs to edit his own film.

“The Art of Stanley Kubrick” (2000, 14 min.) features biographer John Baxter, critic Alexander Walker, cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, and others in a fast-moving gloss through Kubrick's early career up through “Strangelove.” There's not much meat here, but the best part if hearing the great set designer Ken Adam speak eloquently with that magnificent Teutonic voice that feels like it must have had some influence on Sellers' Strangelove, even if it didn't.

“Inside 'Dr. Strangelove'” (2000, 46 min.) is similar to the previous feature, but with a longer time on a more focused subject, it covers more detail. Ken Adam is back in fine form as are producer/director James B. Harris, actor James Earl Jones, and others. It's fun to hear about Kubrick beating the snot of George C. Scott in chess, and thus earning the actor's respect.

“No Fighting in the War Room” (2004, 30 min.), which is not the quote from the movie by the way, is mostly centered on interviews with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and journalist Bob Woodward, discussing how real the thermonuclear threat was when “Strangelove” was made. Other talking heads chime in, including critic Roger Ebert and director Spike Lee. “Best Sellers” (2004, 18 min.) is from the same source and shares some of the same guest speakers, but focuses on Peter Sellers career, this time with Michael Palin and Shirley MacLaine adding their gushing appreciations. Snippets of Sellers' home movies spice up the interviews.

The disc also includes two archival features. First up is a “mock interview” with George C. Scott and Peter Sellers. These were standard promotional tools back at the time, split-screen interviews featuring the actors answering scripted questions on one side which then allowed local news anchors to pretend to be asking them the questions on the other side of the screen. Scott and Sellers are both in character on the phone in the war room with Sellers doing a series of British accents in addition to his American President voice. Second is a “Today” show interview (Mar 12, 1980, 4 min.) with Gene Shalit talking to Peter Sellers. Interestingly, Sellers talks about loving the chance to play two of the characters in “Strangelove,” leaving out Merkin Muffley.

And finally the disc includes two trailers. First is the Exhibitor's Trailer (17 min.) a sprawling piece narrated by Kubrick with the intention of convincing exhibitors to pick up the film. I'm not sure I would have been sold based on this one. We also get the famous Kubrick/Pablo Ferro Theatrical Trailer for the film.

But, wait, there's more.

Instead of their typical insert booklet, Criterion has included an insert “packet” in a “Top Secret” envelope to be opened “only when go code received.” The envelope contains a bulletin report with an essay by author and professor of English David Bromwich, a Playboy-style booklet with a lengthy essay by Terry Southern (originally published in the summer 1994 issue of “Grand Street”) regarding his collaboration with Kubrick, and a teeny-tiny combination book of Russian Phrases and Holy Bible.

Final Thoughts:

You get a great transfer, but not noticeably greater than prior high-def releases. What distinguishes this release of “Strangelove” is the overwhelming selection of extras provided by Criterion, with that Top Secret packet as a little incentive to encourage the die-hard Kubrick collector. I think that's enough to call this the definitive North American release of the film.

The Bridge

THE BRIDGE (Wicki, 1959)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date June 23, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

After all of one day of basic training, a group of impossibly fresh-faced German teenagers is rushed out into the field, assigned to defend their hometown bridge against the advancing Allied forces. When fighting breaks out, the kids (the oldest is barely sixteen) are both terrified and excited, stoked up on just enough nationalistic propaganda to dream of glory, but matured enough by wartime suffering to know that death is not an abstraction. They shoot wildly, celebrate every small victory like they'd just scored a goal, and somehow find a way to stand their ground in a mismatched battle that pits their puny grenade launchers and malfunctioning machine guns against an American tank column.

At this point, near the end but with a few grueling sequences left that will feel like forever, “The Bridge” (1959) cuts away abruptly from this courageous stand to a nearby house where savvier veteran soldiers have wisely maintained a low profile (i.e., hidden out). An officer curses “the idiots” out there; if they had just let the Americans through, they could have blown up the bridge by now and been done with this useless target.

It's a nasty way of undermining what seems to be the only redeeming aspect of the battle, but that's really director Bernhard Wicki's entire point. This battle, like the entire war, is utterly senseless and audiences are not meant to take away any heartwarming lessons about resiliency or bravery, only to shake their heads at the utter futility and stupidity of it all.

Plenty of war films had explored such bleak territory before, Stanley Kubrick's magnificent “Paths of Glory” (1957) being the first to leap to mind, but “The Bridge” is often credited with being the first post-war German film to tackle the subject with so little sentimentality, as an indisputable anti-war film that sings no hymns of courage to the fatherland. What's surprising is that Wicki pulls off this trick without portraying anyone as an outright villain, with the possible exception of the officers who secrete themselves in bunkers and war rooms well away from the baby faces they will order to their deaths. The commandant who “trains” the children actually assigns them the insignificant task of defending an insignificant bridge because he hopes it will protect them from the worst of the action; that he is mistaken is a testament that he is playing a game with no winning moves.

Wicki was an established actor whose only previous directorial experience was on a documentary. For his narrative feature debut, he optioned the rights to a recent popular novel by Gregor Dorfmeister (using the pen name Manfred Gregor) which recounts, in condensed form, the author's experience as a sixteen-year-old conscript who was the sole survivor of a similar battle in his Bavarian home town.

Presumably, both Dorfmeister and Wicki deserve credit for the vivid sense of place and detail that makes the film feel so authentic. Removing the flashback structure of the novel, the film begins shortly before the fight where life is as normal as it can be during what everyone hopes are the final days of the war. Parents look on with fear every minute, praying that their boys, busy flirting with girls and playing in treehouses that will later become gun turrets, can hold out just a few weeks more and be spared the suffering of their fathers and older brothers. The kids, meanwhile, eagerly await the arrival of their draft notices; unfortunately their wishes are fulfilled as the German war machine has run out of spare parts.

The film employs a few heavy-handed techniques, including a couple of fades that mash together some too-conveniently-matched images as clunky transitions, but mostly strikes a naturalistic tone with leisurely tracking shots that match the easy pace of childhood (even during war) eventually giving way to the more frenzied cutting of battle and its gallery of frightened young faces. The fog-shrouded bridge sequences move into more surreal territory but in the context of the insanity of teenage boys being asked to pick up guns and fire into the darkness, who's to say there's any functional difference between real and surreal.

Wicki's film was a critical and commercial success, both at home and abroad, and netted an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Picture. It brought Wicki an opportunity to direct in Hollywood with stars such as Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando, but a follow-up hit proved elusive. Wicki returned to Germany and only directed a few more films, settling instead for being a larger-than-life figure (in physical stature as well as by reputation) and a mentor of sorts, more by inspiration than direct collaboration, to the directors who would comprise much of the New German Cinema and who were in desperate need of a veteran role model even while they were gleefully rejecting “papa's cinema.”

If Wicki never quite eclipsed his debut narrative feature, consider it the peril of starting near the top.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Shoddy clips from the “Against The Grain” extra (see below) give you a sense of just how much restoration wen into this 2K transfer. The black-and-white photography is bright though with a fairly modest level of contrast. Image sharpness is a bit below the topline Criterion high-def transfers and you'll see the occasional slight soft spot here and there, but this is a very strong transfer that handles some trickier scenes like the fog-shrouded night sequences quite well.

Audio:

The linear PCM Mono track is clean and efficient with a slightly flat sound throughout. Nothing spectacular but no flaws to speak of either. Optional English subtitles support the German audio.

Extras:

Criterion has included several short extras on this Blu-ray release.

A new interview with novelist Gregor Dorfmeister (2015, 23 min.) is easily the most interesting feature in this collection. Dorfmeister was still in his twenties when he published his first novel, “The Bridge.” Interviewed here at age 86 he recounts the startling autobiographical details that inspired his book. He notes that being in the Hitler Youth was fun because it was mostly about playing sports. Another of his novels was adapted as the Kirk Douglas film “Town Without Pity” (1961) but Dorfmeister focused more on his lengthy career as a journalist.

A new interview with German director Volker Schlondorff (2015, 10 min.) provides a brief appreciation of the important role both “The Bridge” and Wicki played for young German audiences and later for the New German directors of the '60s and '70s. Schlondorff describes Wicki as a kind of spiritual godfather to the NGC.

The disc also includes an excerpt (14 min.) from a 1989 episode of the German television show “Das Sonntagsgesprach” in which Wicki discusses his experiences during the war (he was interned in a concentration camp for a year and later left the country) and in making “The Bridge.”

“Against the Grain: The Film Legend of Bernhard Wicki” (9 min.) is an excerpt from a documentary by the director's widow Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss. This is the only disappointing extra on this set as about half of it consists of clips from the film.

The slim fold-out booklet includes an essay by critic Terrence Rafferty.

Final Thoughts:

We don't often hear a lot about German cinema from the end of the war until the New German directors rose to prominence. “The Bridge” is one of the more prominent German films of the 1950s and has been presented with a strong transfer and some interesting, if not particularly extensive, extras on this Criterion release.

Kinoshita and World War II

Port of Flowers

KINOSHITA AND WORLD WAR II (Four Films by Kinoshita)

Eclipse Series 41 (Criterion), DVD Box Set, Release Date December 16, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

Perspective is everything. While watching “Army” (1944), the fourth title in this Eclipse set of director Keisuke Kinoshita's World War II-era films, I couldn't help but being put off by what seemed to be the film's incessant drumbeat for war. Beginning in 1865 and accelerating to the present, “Army” depicts Japan as the aggrieved party nobly seeking revenge against a century-long conspiracy of Russians, British, Chinese, and American forces. A character who briefly speculates that, if not for good fortune, Japan might have lost a previous battle is immediately castigated for his lack of patriotism; Japan always wins because it is divinely predestined to do so. A few generations of patriarchs (including Ozu superstar Chishu Ryu) in the film's central family want only for their sons to grow up strong and brave enough to die in the name of the emperor because there can be no greater honor.

It was somewhat eye-opening then to read Michael Koresky's excellent accompanying liner notes in which he explains that the film's debut was considered scandalous in some quarters and that one army general branded Kinoshita a traitor. The baffling charge centered on the film's climactic scene which dares to depict a mother (the remarkable Kinuyo Tanaka, who later become one of very few Japanese women to direct films in the '50s) profoundly terrified by the sight of her son marching off to war. I guess she was supposed to be jumping up and down with joy at the honor. 

Army

Koresky argues that the scene reflects the complexity of Kinoshita's moral vision even while working under the restrictions of war-time censorship. That's undoubtedly true, but Kinoshita certainly did his share of flag-waving in the first four films included in this set. One of the (unsurprising) lessons gleaned from this collection is that propaganda is universal.

If American viewers are somewhat disturbed by the sight of the characters in “Port of Flowers” (1943), Kinoshita's debut feature, roundly cheering the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor, keep in mind that in America a smiling Superman was encouraging young readers to “slap a Jap.” Kinoshita's first film is actually a patriotic soft-sell revolving around a plot by a couple of city slickers to con a village of country yokels. A phony business plan involving a local shipyard inadvertently becomes a crucial element in Japan's newest war effort and the bad guys are strongly encouraged to have a change of heart and join the national project. That's the theme that unites the first four films in the set: put aside your personal agendas and work together for national defense. Superman wanted everyone to buy war bonds too, didn't he?

“The Living Magoruku” (1943) provides a dramatic variation on the first film's comic take. In order to honor their warrior ancestors, the Onagi family has left a large plot of land undeveloped for centuries, but now they are called upon to open the field for crops needed to feed the wartime populace. The younger villagers insist on the need for change while the older Onagis resist in the name of tradition, making for a delicate balance in the narrative: some old traditions must make way to support the new order which, itself, claims the justification of millennia of tradition. Duty to ancestors remains paramount, but families must now learn to think collectively, not just in terms of a single bloodline.

“Jubilation Street” (1944) is very much of a piece with the British homefront films of WWII like Powell and Pressburger's “A Canterbury Tale.” Tokyo residents are asked to maintain a stiff upper lip just like Londoners and the story focuses on the travails of one tiny neighborhood in Tokyo that is forced to relocate because of the war. Multi-generational businesses must close or shift production to support the wartime effort, and even crotchety old men very set in their ways must acquiesce to changing conditions. The film restricts itself almost entirely to a single street yet explores its tight spaces to tell the story of an entire nation and, by extension, much of the world.

Morning for the Osone Family

Kinoshita's alleged offense in “Army” shut him down for the duration of the war which only meant waiting a little more than a year until he made his first movie under guidelines set down by the occupation forces. “Morning for the Osone Family” (1946) represents a startling sea change from the other films in this set. The two eldest sons of the title family express their opposition to the war repeatedly and are persecuted by government officials for their principles, either imprisoned or forced into service. A domineering uncle tries to take over for his deceased brother as family patriarch but the army general's abusive nature comes to serve as a stand in for the military hubris that doomed Japan. Blame is placed exclusively on the belligerence of the entrenched military powers with the civilian populace depicted as victims rather than enablers. The most positive take situates Kinoshita as finally being in a position to express his true feelings, though it's reasonable to wonder if his abrupt shift suggests he was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep working under either regime. The director's accomplished and sensitive post-war career argues for the former.

The camera work in all five films (with Hiroshi Kusuda as cinematographer on all but “Army”) is unobtrusive but still remarkably deft at observing an array of characters who, even while eagerly joining the national effort, have distinct personalities, fears and desires. Even supporting characters are given sufficient attention and nuance to avoid serving as mere stereotypes or narrative placeholders and that may be this quality that most distinguishes and unifies these films. These spaces and the characters inhabiting them feel authentic, perhaps enough so that you dare to hope these sophisticated people don't really swallow the rhetoric being spewed, but rather endure it. 

Video and Sound:

It's been a while since we've had an Eclipse release. In case you forgot, this is Criterion's no-frills sub-label which usually features unrestored transfers. The quality varies wildly among the five films in this set. “Port of Flowers” shows extensive damage and deterioration both in image and sound; the hollow, distant voices sound like they come from a separate radio broadcast. “Jubilation Street” has some very rough patches as well, particularly with a sound track occasionally overwhelmed by static. “Morning” shows a lot of scratches and some staining as well though sound is acceptable. “Magoroku” fares somewhat better though there are intermittent registration issues and variable brightness levels within shots; much better sound though. “Army” has plenty of scratches and other damage as well but the quality is consistent enough that it's not too distracting.

Missing frames abound through the set, but no doubt all of the problems are attributable to the source prints. For the most part the actual sharpness of the image is pretty good throughout aside from the occasional soft scene and that's really the most important thing.

The audio problems are a bigger drawback than the image concerns. This will be the worst audio quality you've heard from Criterion/Eclipse in quite some time. Fortunately optional English subtitles support the Japanese audio but there are times you might want to just turn down the volume a bit when the static becomes too much to take.

Extras:

This is Eclipse so no extras, but we do get liner notes from Michael Koresky on each film. His clear, informed writing has been a major asset to Eclipse releases for some time now and that's once again the case with this set.

Set Value:

Keisuke Kinoshita is best known in the States for “The Ballad of Narayama” (1958) and “Twenty-Four Eyes” (1954), both of which are also included in the Criterion Collection. The release of these early films by the Eclipse set will go a long way to broadening appreciation of a director whose profile outside of Japan deserves to be expanded. It's always fascinating to see the war time propaganda of countries you are less familiar with; it is simultaneously comforting and dispiriting to see just how much American and Japanese war films are alike. I'd still take “Narayama” and “Twenty-Four Eyes” over any of these early works, but each of the films in the set is quite compelling. Let's hope there are many more Kinoshita films on the way.