The Max Linder Collection

Max Linder at his most dapper

THE MAX LINDER COLLECTION (Four Films Starring Max Linder)

Kino Lorber, DVD, Release Date May 27, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

You want to talk about instant sensations? Less than a year after Charlie Chaplin's 1914 film debut, he was one of the most popular entertainers in America and the country had caught a acute case of Chaplinitis that would linger for decades. Demand for his films was so intense he easily parlayed his initial $150/week acting contract into a much-publicized “million dollar contract” in 1917 and soon his own studio. His Tramp was probably the most recognizable fictional figure of the early 20^th century, and Chaplin is frequently described as one of the first international film stars.

Chaplin himself was keen to point out his trail to glory had already been blazed by Max Linder, the French-born star who Chaplin once described as his “professor.” Linder had a similarly meteoric rise to fame, making his screen debut in 1905 (after several years honing his craft in live theater), premiering his urbane “Max” character (a dapper figure with top hat and cane whose slapstick exploits generated even more laughs from their incongruity with his apparent suavity) in 1908, and signing a “million franc” contract in 1912. Max was instantly recognizable to European audiences and was at the very height of his popularity in the years immediately preceding the Tramp's arrival on the world stage.

Max wasn't entirely displaced by the Tramp as there was plenty of room for more than one draw at nickelodeons and other theater houses, but Linder heeded the siren call of an American studio that wanted a competitor to Chaplin. The career gamble was mostly a failure as American movie-goers weren't quite as enchanted by the “sophisticated slapstick” of Linder's European dandy-about-town, preferring the more knockabout exploits of Chaplin and peers. While moving back and forth from France to America over the next several years, the star was never able to regain his former dominance. Linder also battled severe depression during this period, a battle he would lose in 1925 when he and his young wife committed suicide in Paris in 1925.

The films on Kino Lorber's “The Max Linder Collection” do not represent Linder at his commercial peak, but provide strong evidence that his less lucrative films of the 1920s merit a place of pride in his often-overlooked legacy. “Seven Years Bad Luck” (1921, 64 min.) spins the kind of thin narrative line upon which Linder liked to string his inventive gags and set-pieces. Linder (playing a character with his stage name) is engaged to be married, but fears an ill fate when he breaks a large mirror in his room. In his effort to avoid any risky situations, he generates nothing but risk. The film features one of the earliest instances of the oft-copied mirror gag (two actors ape each other's movements through both sides of an empty mirror frame) and a lengthy chase scene (consuming much of the final half hour) that begins on a train and ends in a lion's cage at the zoo. Linder is not quite as gymnastic as either Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, but his combination of determination and ingenuity spark the action and the laughs in a film that cannily pays only the slightest attention to plot-based needs.

Poster for Be My Wife

“Be My Wife” (1921, 58 min.) is somewhat more burdened by story and suffers for it. Max competes for the hand of the lovely Mary (Alta Allen) with the portly Archie (Lincoln Stedman). Some of the film's best bits involve Max trying to avoid Archie's pesky dog (though viewers might have concerns when the poor dog gets tossed out a window) but it bogs down in a series of irritating miscommunications that advance the shopworn plot to its inevitable conclusion. It's the least successful film on the set, at least to my taste, but still of interest if for no other reason than the fact that the beefy Stedman is a mere fourteen years old here but looks and plays a completely convincing adult. Tall, thin, stern-looking Caroline Rankin also cuts a unique and memorable figure as Mary's judgmental, protective aunt. 

Linder laughs at danger in The Three Must-Get-Theres

“The Three Must-Get-Theres” (1922, 57 min.) sees Linder, eager to connect with American audiences, dropping his signature character and donning period garb as the not-so-dashing Dart-In-Again in a parody of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s smash hit “The Three Musketeers” (1921). Dart-In-Again spends the first reel trying to mount a donkey (oh get your mind out of the gutter) and repeatedly kissing his very clingy father goodbye before stumbling (sometimes literally) into royal court intrigue and battling the evil forces of Cardinal Richie-loo. There are some nifty bits of slapstick and swordplay, but the film is most successful as a send-up of the macho movie hero; I laughed hardest at a scene when the overconfident Dart-in-Again bursts in to a room to present his professional credentials with the line: “Here's a letter from my daddy.” The period movie is loaded with intentional anachronisms (phones, motorcycles, a reference to the NYC subway) and gleefully showcases it silliness as men dispatched by the deadly blade of Dart-in-Again keep moving and even speaking after their deaths. The humor is broader than any barn side and no less satisfying for it.

The disc also includes one short film, “Max Wants a Divorce” (1917, 27 min.) The short was one of Linder's first American flops, but has its merits. Max is newly married, but receives notice of an inheritance that requires him to be a bachelor. After bribing his bride (Martha Mansfield) with a pearl necklace in order to go along with his scheme, he arranges to be caught cheating so they can divorce and later re-marry after he cashes his inheritance check. Jealousies and general incompetence prevent a simple plan from falling to pieces, and some of the ensuing mayhem is quite amusing if not exactly inspired.

Video:

The copy on the back of the DVD case (housing the single disc that contains the three features and one short) states that the films have been “meticulously restored from archival materials.” Unfortunately, the only information regarding these restorations is presented as pre-credit notes for two of the films. “Be My Wife” was restored in 2008 by Lobster Films in collaboration with Fondazzione Cineteca Italiana, Milano from two original nitrate color-tinted prints with addition digital restoration in 2014 by Lobster Films.

The original American version of “The Three Must-Get-Theres” disappeared and this edition was restored in 1995 by Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek from a nearly complete copy in the Netherlands Filmmuseum with supplemental material from the collection of filmmaker Gerhard Lamprecht. English titles were adapted from a German release.

No information is included on restoration (if any) of the other two films in the collection except for the notation “Digital restoration and special contents by Lobster Films.”

As you would expect with silent films over ninety years old, even restored versions are far from flawless. Of the two that clearly indicated as restored, “Be My Wife” is the strongest with only a few scenes (esp one where Mary goes to a clothing store) showing significant wear. “The Three Must-Get-Theres” displays minor damage in many shots, vertical scratches or white/dark splotches on the print, but it still holds together fairly well overall. “Seven Years Bad Luck” may be the best looking of the bunch with only relatively minor wear visible throughout. “Max Wants a Divorce” is in much rougher shape than the other three, looking like a well-worn print in various states of deterioration from scene to scene. The action is still clear but the image is soft in most shots. Still, it's a wonder it survives at all.

Audio:

The films are each accompanied by relatively recent scores: “The Three Must-Get-Theres” by Maud Nelissen, “Be My Wife” by Eric Le Guen, “Seven Years Bad Luck” by Robert Israel, and “Max Wants a Divorce” by Donald Sosin. Obviously the music is the only sound for these silent films and the Dolby Digital mix presents the various scores clearly and without distortion.

Extras:

Unfortunately, Kino Lorber has not included any extras, opting to save room on the single DVD for the 205 minutes worth of films in the set. A booklet or a text feature on the disc with more information about the restorations and/or background on Max Linder would have been nice, but then again I guess that's what the Internet is for.

Final Thoughts:

Before Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, there was Max Linder. One of the very first superstars of cinema, his fame has been eclipsed by the comedians for whom he helped pave the way, but this collection from Kino Lorber provides viewers a taste of his American-produced films. Since Linder was best known to audiences for French short films, this set doesn't showcase him in his popular prime, but the films certainly show off his wit and talent. I had a lot of fun “discovering” one of the true titans of silent cinema with this set, and I hope you will too.

Dillinger is Dead

DILLINGER IS DEAD (Ferreri, 1969)

Criterion Collection, DVD, Release Date March 16, 2010

Review by Christopher S. Long

Marco Ferreri’s films are completely insane but “Dillinger is Dead” (1969), while batshit crazy, is a classically constructed film in the old school sense. It follows a single character in a single location over the course of a single evening. Aristotle would have been proud.

Proud, yes, but confused as hell.

As is the case with Ferreri’s stark raving mad “Bye Bye Monkey” (1978), the best way to approach “Dillinger is Dead” is with a straightforward plot summary since that won't actually spoil anything. A gas mask designer (never named in the film, but called Glauco in the script) heads home after a boring day at work. His beautiful but slothful wife (Rolling Stones fan Anita Pallenberg) never gets out of bed, and his maid (Annie Girardot) is done working for the night (sort of) so he’s left on his own to kill time in this ancient pre-Internet era. 

Glauco is a twitchy ball of short attention span. He sits down to eat his prepared dinner, but doesn’t like the wobbly flan, so he starts to cook a steak. But, no, he doesn’t want steak, so he makes pasta instead. But that has to wait because he wants to watch something on TV, but not that thing on TV; something else instead. While rummaging through the spice closet, he discovers something else to distract his attention: a gun. And not just any gun, but a gun wrapped in a newspaper carrying the headline stories from the day after John Dillinger was shot. So he plays with the gun. And cooks dinner. And plays with the gun. Then eats dinner. Watches TV. Plays with the gun. Watches home movies. Plays with the gun. And so on.

Glauco is played by the great Michel Piccoli who was passed around like a bong to most of the great European directors of the era (Melville, Godard, Varda, Demy, Clement, Buñuel, Costa-Gavras, even Mario Bava.) He turns in a marvelous, mostly silent, mostly solo performance. At first it seems like Glauco is just a bit stir crazy but as the evening wears on he regresses gradually into childhood. He clutches at the breasts of the women in his home movies, pretends to swim in the ocean on the screen and becomes obsessed with his special new toy. He cleans the gun like a military expert, reassembles it, points it at the mirror (the “You talkin’ to me?” is subtextual here), pretends to blow his brains out, and even paints it fire-engine red with white polka dots.

If you’re the sort to waste your time worrying about what movies mean, you can do so at your leisure here. The title suggests that a certain kind of machismo “is dead” and poor Glauco doesn’t quite know what to do with himself in a feminist late-60s world. Or maybe it’s a “Targets” style study of sudden psychological breakdown. Or just a total lark by crazy-ass Ferreri. Have at it, interpretation addicts.

The film’s effectiveness stems not from the why, but the what. Ferreri’s sometimes hand-held camera, awkward POV shots, haphazard zooms, and his less-than-immaculate compositions bring an amateurish intimacy to the proceedings. We hover somewhere right next to this strange, lonely man as he wanders through the house in something approaching real-time. There’s some method to his madness, some motivations for his constant shifts in focus, but we’re not privy to them. He eats. He watches TV. He paces around. And we watch, wondering if and when he is finally going to snap. Piccoli says that Ferreri kept him mostly in the dark, showing him only a 10-page script and telling him what to do each day on the set with little explanation. Ferreri wasn’t flying by the seat of his pants. He had a meticulous plan, but he also wanted to make sure his actors couldn’t screw anything up by psychologizing their roles. Mission accomplished.

“Dillinger is Dead” is surrealist in the most transgressive, violent manifestation of the term. The film strongly implies a sense of alienation in the modern world that can’t lead anywhere but total dysfunction. The status quo is untenable and the only way out is to opt all the way out, no matter what needs to be done. That doesn’t make Glauco a hero, but he is at least a perfect case study for Ferreri’s glowering, darkly humorous view of bourgeois society.

“Dillinger is Dead” was a surprise critical hit for Ferreri whose eccentric work was not always popular with the cognoscenti. It kicked off a brief period when Ferreri was in favor, one that lasted up until “La bouffe” (1973.) 1974 brought the off-the-rails sort-of-Western “Don’t Touch the White Woman” (also with Piccoli) and with an exception or two Ferreri soon fell off the critical radar. Until recently, his films were largely unavailable in America but a few have begun to trickle out on DVD. Last year witnessed the American theatrical re-release of “Dillinger is Dead” by Rialto Pictures, which will, we can hope, pave the way for the release of the bulk of the prolific director’s work in Region 1.

Video:
The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The progressive, anamorphic transfer was approved by director of photography Mario Vulpani. It’s very solid work that perhaps isn’t quite on par with the very best Criterion transfers, but is still more than satisfactory. The colors are bright (Glauco’s red apron – good grief!) and the image resolution is sharp. No complaints.

Audio:

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Mono. The sound mix isn’t too complex and it all sounds clean and sharp. There are a lot of pop songs and TV broadcasts played throughout the film and they are all well-presented. Optional English subtitles support the Italian audio.

Extras:

Since “Dillinger is Dead” is the first Marco Ferreri film in the Criterion Collection, we could have hoped for more extras. The three that are included are interesting but not particularly deep.

The disc includes newly recorded (2009) interviews with Michel Piccoli (13 min.) and film historian Adriano Aprà (20 min.) Piccoli speaks of his first meeting with Ferreri and about their close friendship. Aprà’s interview provides a perspective on Ferreri’s career and analyzes “Dillinger” in some detail. Aprà appears on TV in the film.

The only other substantive extra is a 1997 round-table discussion (13 min.) recorded weeks after Ferreri’s death. The feature includes clips of Ferreri speaking shortly before his death and excerpts from the discussion by his friends Bernardo Bertolucci, Francesco Rosi, and film historian Aldo Tassone. The excerpts are taken from the May 14, 1997 episode of “Le circle de minuit.” The show is hosted by Laure Adler and directed by Pierre Desfons.

I wish modern trailers could be more like the Trailer included here. It doesn’t tell you a damn thing about the movie and shows plenty of cleavage. That’s quality.

The 32-page insert booklet includes an essay by film critic Michael Joshua Rowin and excerpts from interviews with Marco Ferreri: the April 1969 issue of “Ombre rosse,” interview conducted by Goffredo Fofi and Ruggero Savinio, and the November/December issue of “Cinemesessanta,” interview conducted by Giacomo Martini.

Final Thoughts:
“Dillinger is Dead” is a one-of-a-kind experience. I suspect that’s true of every Marco Ferreri film though I haven’t seen enough to be an expert on the subject. Though it appears downright amateurish at times, it’s a finely calibrated exercise in inspired lunacy that displays a formal mastery not often associated with Ferreri’s work. The scenes of Glauco bathed in the light of the projector, literally becoming part of the home movies flickering across the wall, are pretty damned brilliant. And so is the movie.

The modest collection of Extras is a disappointment but I’m not sure how much archival material exists about Marco Ferreri. In any case, the Criterion release of “Dillinger is Dead” is strongly recommended.

Lola Montes

LOLA MONTES (Ophuls, 1955)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray/DVD, Release Date Feb 26, 2010

Review by Christopher S. Long

I acknowledge that auteurism is often applied as a lazy critical shorthand. I understand why directors are often amused by the many brilliant creative decisions attributed solely to their vision that were really not their ideas at all or were just pragmatic solutions to the unexpected problems that crop up during any shoot. Still, when people say “I don't believe in the auteur theory” I honestly don't know what the hell they're talking about. I think they mean they really like actors a lot and that directors aren't nearly as cute. But if they sincerely doubt that a true auteur (there aren't a lot of them) can shape any material to suit and express his or her vision, then I point them in the direction of Max Ophuls’ final film “Lola Montès” (1955.)

Ophuls didn’t originate the project and wasn’t even the studio’s first choice as director. He was forced to work with a screenwriter he didn’t want (Cecil Saint-Laurent), a bombshell actress he had minimal respect for (Martine Carol), and was required to shoot in CinemaScope, color, and stereo, none of which made him happy according to his son Marcel Ophuls. The net result is pure Ophuls, his signature recognizable in nearly every scene and, despite its very poor initial reception, one hell of a movie.

Ophuls is the then-and-now master of the tracking camera and he indulges his sinuous obsession as much here as in “The Earrings of Madame De…”(1953). As his camera tripped along with the dancers of “Madame De…” here it twirls with the acrobats and clowns of the circus in which the title character performs. The real Lola Montez was an infamous courtesan who toured/tore through multiple continents, parlaying a mediocre combination of dancing, singing, and acting skills into a spectacular piece of performance art. Born in Ireland, she transformed herself into a Spanish seductress and later the Countess of Landsfeld, a title granted her by her lover King Ludwig I of Bavaria (played perfectly in the film by Anton Walbrook), one of the many conquests that helped make her Lola Montez.

In the film, Ophuls spins Montez’s carefully cultivated legend into a legend of his own, one so far removed from the original script that Saint-Laurent was only given a “based on the novel by” credit even though there was no novel. Ophuls’ Lola spends her latter days as the star attraction of a cut-rate circus that exploits her scandalous life story for mere pennies. The ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) teases the crowd with tales of her bawdy exploits while Lola, seldom doing anything other than sitting center stage and being Lola, flashes back to various moments in her life, ones that bear only a passing resemblance to the version being recounted by the ringmaster.

The flashback structure is awkward, downright clunky at times, but Ophuls’ mise-en-scene stitches everything together. Cinematographer Christian Matras, Ophuls’ collaborator on his last several films, and his camera crew built up marathon endurance with a winding camera that constantly doubles back on itself and opens up new spaces that make sets look infinite. Ophuls may not have wanted to work in CinemaScope (then 2.55:1) but he exploits it to tremendous advantage with action constantly taking place at the edges as well as the center. What better environment for that than a circus? Perhaps to show his resistance, though, Ophuls masks several scenes, forcing them back to Academy ratio or something in between. Even more notably he explores the vertical as much as the horizontal, and a camera that starts on the ground is likely to finish above a chandelier, revealing new planes of action, adding new characters to each scene as it rises. This is real 3-D technology.

Much has been made of the shortcomings of lead actress Martine Carol, cast primarily for her ability to fill out a dress and to fuel the fantasies of adolescents of all ages. It’s fair to say that she has limited range, but the role doesn’t require much. Under the camera's gaze Lola is an object of curiosity, and even her personal recollections don’t reframe the story from her perspective. I’m not sure this does justice to the historical figure who has been adopted as a feminist icon in some circles. One of the few moments when we see that “What Lola wants, Lola gets” is her aggressive seduction of a rosy-cheeked university student/leftist revolutionary (Oskar Werner, later to be Jules to Jim) who, like every man who has shared her company, becomes devoted to her for life. Much of the rest of the time, Lola is oddly passive or at least restrained. Carol doesn’t bring the white-hot intensity to the role that one might expect, but her reserved performance is well-suited to Ophuls’ purposes and it’s not her fault that unimaginative audiences laughed when she played a 16 year-old version of herself.

Though Ophuls appears fond of Lola, he depicts her life as more tragedy than triumph. Undone by historical forces beyond her control, she is forced to become a sideshow attraction, now no longer in charge of crafting her public image. In the film’s grotesque finale, Lola stands in a cage, hands extended through the bars so that men who have ponied up a dollar apiece can kiss her. Ophuls’ roving camera, of course, cuts a path through the crowd of horny gawkers, pulling away from Lola and ultimately closing the curtain on the film and her life.

“Lola Montès” was, to say the least, not well received. After an infamous and rowdy debut screening, it was savaged by critics both as lousy art and as a waste of money. It was, to date, the most expensive European production and failed to recoup its budget. The desperate studio heads decided that the best solution was to chop it down to a 90-minute mutilated and defanged version that might play a little “easier” to a broader demographic. Harvey Weinstein must get teary-eyed just thinking about it.

After lingering for more than a decade in this pathetic state, the film was purchased by producer Pierre Braunberger who went to painstaking efforts to restore the film as close to its original version as possible. Braunberger died in 1990 but later his daughter Laurence picked up the project. Over the last several years, the film has gone through extensive digital restoration which has reconstructed its original color and stereo track. It was released in its new/old state in 2008 and was a hit at Cannes and later in a theatrical run.

Now Criterion has made “Lola Montès” available in its original form (or at least as close as can be) on both SD and Blu-Ray and it is a joy to behold. Each scene is an audio-visual treat unto itself, worth soaking in over and over again. Saddled with a writer, a star and a format he didn’t want, Ophuls produced a personal work with the technical polish of a true virtuoso. In other words, an auteur. 

Video:
The film is presented in its original 2.55:1 aspect ratio. CinemaScope was one of several innovations introduced by movie studios in the 1950s to combat the very real threat of television. “The Robe” was the first feature released in ‘Scope in 1953 by 20^th Century Fox and other studios were eager to follow suit. European studio Gamma Films wanted the potentially scandalous spectacle of “Lola Montès” filmed in glorious ‘Scope to pack the house. Ophuls might not have been thrilled with the idea but viewers like us can certainly appreciate it. This was also during the brief time before CinemaScope became more or less standardized at 2.35:1 due to changes in optical sound recording. The 2.55:1 is no doubt best appreciated on the big screen, but still looks great in this digitally restored transfer of a film with a lengthy restoration history (see above.)

With such an intricate restoration, there are occasional inconsistencies in the image quality but overall the transfer is excellent. The image resolution on the Blu-Ray is a solid step up from the SD release, making up for the only minor weakness of the standard transfer. Colors are even sharper than on the SD which was already quite fine.

Audio:

According to the Criterion insert booklet, “Lola Montès” was recorded in 4-track magnetic stereo, an early surround sound technology then only available with CinemaScope.

To capture the original quality, Criterion has presented the Blu-Ray in DTS-HD Master 3.0. I didn’t notice a major difference in audio quality between the Blu-Ray and the SD release. The music sounds perhaps a bit sharper but otherwise they’re fairly similar.

The Blu-Ray includes optional English subtitles.

Extras:

This Criterion package doesn’t offer quite as many extras as we might hope for such an important film, but what we have is still respectable.

The film is accompanied with a commentary track by Susan White, author of “The Cinema of Max Ophuls.” White also provided commentary for the Criterion releases of Ophuls’ “La ronde” (1950) and “The Earrings of Madame De…” Her knowledge is extraordinary detailed. She often falls into the “play-by-play” mode of commentary which isn’t my favorite, describing each movement as it happens, but her analysis is so penetrating that it works well in this case.

The longest extra is a Oct 26, 1965 episode of the French TV program “Cinéastes de notre temps,” a long-time Criterion staple. The episode, titled “Max Ophuls ou le plaisir de tourner” (53 min.) is directed by Michel Mitrani and features clips from Ophuls’ films (in dreadful condition, helping us appreciate the glory of modern restoration) and extensive interviews with Ophuls’ crew and cast from several films, among them Danielle Darrieux, Simone Simon and John Houseman.

“Max by Marcel” is a new short feature (2009, 32 min.) by Max’s son, filmmaker Marcel Ophuls. It discusses the troubled production history of “Lola Montès” from an insider’s perspective (whether that makes it more or less reliable is up to you to decide). Marcel worked as an assistant director on the film. I thought this was a much more interesting feature than the “Cinéastes” episode.

The DVD also includes silent footage (1 min.) of Martine Carole showing off several hair styles from the film. It originally aired on French TV on Aug 3, 1958. Finally, the collection wraps with a Re-Release Trailer from 2008 by Rialto Pictures.

All extra features are presented in HD.

The insert booklet features a superb, incisive essay by Gary Giddins, one of the best essays Criterion has ever offered. When I grow up, I want to write like that.

Film Value:
Ophuls was deeply hurt by the poor reception of “Lola Montès”as well as its manhandling by studio hacks, and it turned out to be his final film. Ophuls died in 1957 from heart disease and wouldn’t live to see the film restored both physically and critically.

Andrew Sarris famously proclaimed “Lola Montès” to be “the greatest film ever made.” That’s a difficult position to defend, but it’s certainly one of Ophuls’ finest moments. And thanks to an extensive, decades-long restoration effort it has been preserved for new generations. Unlike the Lola of the film, “Lola Montès” has been set free to bask in well-deserved glory forever.

The Big Chill

THE BIG CHILL (Kasdan, 1983)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date July 29, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

The suicide of old college friend Alex reunites a group of thirty-something professionals, former '60s revolutionary wannabes who tuned in, turned on, and then sold out. Lawrence Kasdan's “The Big Chill” (1983) is nothing if not unsubtle, providing each of the now solidly bourgeois adults time to bemoan the loss of youthful idealism as the pack spends the weekend after the funeral together to reminisce.

All of them save for drug-dealing Vietnam vet Nick (William Hurt) are now among the elite, but worry that they've paid too high a price for success. Meg (Mary Kay Place) the lawyer was shocked to find out her clients were “scum”; Michael (Jeff Goldblum) cashes a nice check writing for “People” magazine but has to pander to subscribers who only read on the toilet; Sam (Tom Berenger) is an actor with his own weekly TV show but none of the self-esteem one might expect to accompany fame. Dr. Sarah (Glenn Close) appears the most content but still wonders what might have been.

Alex, so it seems, is the only one who didn't knuckle under to societal expectations and look what it got him. He reminds me of the doomed protagonist of Louis Malle's “The Fire Within” whose unfulfilled hope was for things to “stay still around me.” Staying the same is a curse when everyone you know changes; things don't turn out very well for Malle's hero either. The takeaway from both films, emphasized more prominently in “The Big Chill,” is that conformity is the safest solution. It doesn't guarantee happiness, but it's essential to survival and that's all you're genetically coded for anyway. Nick the hold-out will “learn his lesson” over the course of the long weekend and settle down with a good woman and a constructive project, and if we're supposed to feel good about that development all I can think is that I wish this movie was told from Alex's perspective instead. I might have liked him.

I'm now several years older than the Baby Boomer protagonists of the movie yet they seem incredibly old and quite alien to me, so complacently assimilated they can air their self-recriminations for a few days in a safe space then happily go back to enjoying success and being productive members of society, which is what really matters. Sure, suicide is sad, but why not squeeze some lemonade out of it by repurposing tragedy as a gigantic group hug? Michael might even get a good article out of it. You've got to take advantage of your opportunities.

Perhaps the film wouldn't seem so much like a glib celebration of the Boomer generation if not for its paradoxical soundtrack, loaded with great songs but still a detriment to the movie. The film kicks off with Marvin Gaye's “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and rips through the Stones' “You Can't Always Get What You Want,” Procol Harum's “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” CCR's “Bad Moon Rising,” Three Dog Night's “Joy to the World” and pretty much every '60s (to very early '70s) super-mega-famous-cultural-touchstone except for “White Rabbit.” Yes, even The Band's “The Weight.”

These are many of the best rock tracks ever recorded, most of which are among my all-time favorites, but wallpapering the movie (some songs are played nearly in their entirety) with K-Tel's Greatest Hits of the Decade is the audio equivalent of lazy contemporary filmmakers who signify the '60s with the obligatory montage of Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have A Dream” speech, hippies dancing, and aerial footage of a Vietnam jungle being napalmed. These are the songs you've heard 10,000 times now all together so you can make it 10,001!

The overly familiar musical accompaniment undermines any sense that the friends are engaging in any serious self-examinations, settling instead for a heavily-processed nostalgia of the most generic possible kind. The film's real heart seems to be in the upbeat but vapid scene where they all dance to Gaye's “Ain't Too Proud To Beg” while cleaning up leftovers in the kitchen. Mary Poppins would be proud.

There's an undeniable appeal to a long weekend with old friends during which you can instantly tap into a decades-old non-judgmental camaraderie, but deep it ain't. This is more the hippie “Hangover” than a generational commentary or a comment on much of anything at all, save the implicit recommendation that everyone just get with the program and save themselves a lot of grief in the struggle.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This newly-restored 4K digital transfer offers sharp image detail and rich colors as you would expect from a Criterion high-definition release. Not a lot to say here. I'm sure nobody will have any complaints.

This is a dual-format release with two DVDs and a single Blu-ray. The DVD transfer has not been reviewed here.

Audio:

The default option is the original mono track (in LPCM) but Criterion has also included a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround option. I say always stick with the original, but the surround is a nice option. Dialogue is clearly mixed and the music, the main sound attraction here, sounds rich and resonant. For you sticklers, Criterion indicates that “For the alternate 5.1 surround presentation, stereo music masters were used in tandem with elements from the 3-track dialogue, music, and effects stems.” Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the film, none of the extras here are particularly deep, but Criterion has dug up about two hours of material.

The best is a short interview with director and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan (2014, 12 min.) who talks about the challenges of doing meaningful, personal work within the Hollywood studio system.

Appropriately, the two longest features are all about nostalgia. “The Big Chill: A Reunion” (1998, 56 min.) is directed by Laurent Bouzereau. Released for the 15^th anniversary of the film, it consists mostly of interviews with cast and crew. The other feature is a recording of the 30^th Anniversary Reunion which occurred on stage at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Critic Scott Foundas moderates with Kasdan and most of the cast members reminiscing for 44 minutes.

The disc also includes Deleted Scenes (9 min.) and a Trailer (3 min.)

The 20-page insert booklet includes an essay by Lena Dunham (surely marking “The Big Chill” as the most recent film to receive a Criterion essay by a writer not alive when it was released) and a 1983 review by critic Harlan Jacobson that was originally published in the September 1983 issue of “Film Comment.”

Film Value:

“The Big Chill” seems like an odd choice for a Criterion release, but I guess you can put it on the shelf next to “Armageddon.” The transfer's good, at least.