Tarantino Returns with Visual Feast for
Film Buffs and Fanboys
New Chaplin DVDs a visual, comic, and
historical treat
By Christopher P. Jacobs
Movies Editor
By Greg Carlson
Assoc. Film Editor
he summer and fall have
been especially busy for me, finishing up shooting and editing
on my feature-length movie "Dark Highways" (which
opens theatrically Nov. 28, by the way), but it's been a
bountiful time for collectors of classic films on DVD. Key
works by legendary movie comedian Charlie Chaplin have been
especially well served by two new box sets that came out in
July.
Unfortunately, none of these discs include
audio commentaries, but all have incredibly sharp and clear
image quality that may surprise people who expect old movies to
be contrasty, scratchy, and jerky-looking. They also include a
number of valuable supplementary materials.
The most impressive and best introduction
to Chaplin is the eight-disc set (four double-disc packages)
licensed from the Chaplin estate and released by Warner
Bros./MK2. This includes what many consider Chaplin's best
silent feature, "The Gold Rush" (1925), his last "silent"
feature "Modern Times" (1936), which included sound
effects and limited dialogue, and his two best sound features, "The
Great Dictator" (1940) and "Limelight"(1952).
Each film includes a bonus disc packed with special features
related to that film.
Perhaps more interesting to those already
familiar with Chaplin is the seven-disc set of all 28 short
films he made for the Essanay and Mutual film studios during
1915-17. This was the period immediately after Chaplin left the
Mack Sennett studio, where he had skyrocketed to fame in over
40 films made in 1914. The Essanay and Mutual shorts are
divided over three discs (all released individually some time
ago). A new seventh disc in this set is "Chaplin's
Goliath," a 52-min. Scottish documentary about Chaplin's
large co-star in this period, Scottish-born Eric Campbell, who
died tragically at a young age.
This collection of shorts includes several
timeless comedy classics. However, when viewed chronologically,
they present an invaluable record of Chaplin's development as a
comedian, a filmmaker, and a storyteller. The fascinating
outtakes and behind the scenes footage that are incorporated
into "Chaplin's Goliath" give a glimpse into his
filmmaking techniques. Brief program notes are included for all
the Essanay pictures, and the Mutual shorts have a printed
essay by historian Sam Gill on Chaplin's career in this period.
Among the best of the 16 Essanay shorts
are "A Night at the Show," "The Tramp," and
"The Bank" (this latter film featuring former Grand
Forks resident, Carl Stockdale). One short in the set,
Chaplin's "Carmen," is amusing in itself, but even
more interesting as a contemporary parody on a then-recent hit
film (Cecil B. DeMille's "Carmen") in a vein
comparable to current-day films like "Airplane," "Scary
Movie" and "The Naked Gun."
Highlights in the series of 12 Mutual
shorts are "One A.M.," "The Cure," and "Easy
Street," although "Behind the Screen" stands out
as an entertaining record of filmmaking during the silent era,
besides being a fun comedy. The original title cards have been
recreated for the Essanay and Mutual shorts, but a minor
drawback is that these were done on relatively low resolution
video, compared with the sharper film image.
"The Gold Rush" places Chaplin's
familiar "Tramp" character in the bitter winter of
the far north, and is the centerpiece of the Warner box set.
The main disc contains Chaplin's re-edited 1942 version,
released with music and narration by Chaplin himself to replace
the intertitles. Although the picture quality is stunningly
clear, this re-issue lacks some of the power and charm of the
original 1925 cut (as well as truncating the ending and
obscuring some of the motivation). Luckily, the 1925 version is
included, intact, on the bonus disc, with a new recording of
music originally played with the film at the time of its first
release. It also includes a 26-minute documentary, a 6-minute
introduction, 250 stills, posters, trailers, and excerpts from
other Chaplin films.
"Modern Times" includes many of
Chaplin's most memorable scenes (notably his character going
crazy on an assembly line and getting caught inside a huge
machine). The bonus disc includes five minutes of deleted
scenes, a selection of short films related in theme or content,
stills, posters, trailers, and again, an introduction and
documentary.
"The Great Dictator" was
Chaplin's first "all-talking" film, a heartfelt
political satire against Hitler and fascism, that went into
production just before World War II broke out. The bonus disc
with the feature includes a 55-minute documentary on Chaplin
and Hitler (who ironically were born days apart), 25 minutes of
color home movies taken on the set during shooting "The
Great Dictator," a 7-minute sequence deleted from one of
Chaplin's silent shorts that was later reworked into the "barber"
scene of "The Great Dictator," as well as posters and
scenes from other Chaplin films.
"Limelight" is Chaplin's last
important film, a long, emotional (some might say overwrought)
drama of a friendship between a fading music hall comic and a
suicidal ballerina. The bonus disc includes a 59-minute audio
track of the film's Oscar-winning music score, a 7-minute
sequence from an uncompleted silent short whose premise was
revised and used in "Limelight," more color home
movies, this time of Chaplin's family in 1950-51, along with
200 photos, posters, trailers, a documentary, introduction, and
more.
When looking in video stores for Chaplin
films on DVD, don't just look for a box with "Chaplin"
in big letters. Be sure to check the label for the distributor.
The names to look for are "Image Entertainment," "David
Shepard," or "Blackhawk Films" for the earlier
titles, and "Warner Brothers Home Video/MK2" for the
newest sets with all the bonus features. These were made from
original camera negatives in many cases, or the best surviving
prints in others, and have been carefully restored with
appropriate music scores added to the silents.
Avoid any discs from Madacy, Delta, or
Koch Video. These are generally taken from inferior film prints
or outright copied from someone else's video release, with
resulting poor picture quality. They also usually have generic
music tracks added that may or may not fit the scene playing on
the screen. Many often include false information in their
program notes, as well.
"Kill Bill Volume 1," the first
film from Quentin Tarantino since "Jackie Brown" in
1997, is an audacious return to form for the egomaniacal
filmmaker. In his movie performances (thankfully absent in "Bill"),
his press interviews and his TV appearances, Tarantino
inevitably comes off as a braying, boorish big-mouth.
Fortunately for moviegoers, the director is as talented behind
the camera as he is insufferable in front of it. "Kill
Bill" is another QT mash note to the retro-cool memories
of the popular culture that obviously left an indelible
impression on the moviemaker in his formative years.
Nothing short of an intertextual minefield
that confidently challenges its hardened viewers to identify
all of the tributes and references, "Kill Bill" is a
candy-colored homage to samurai movies, spaghetti westerns,
yakuza flicks, blaxploitation yarns, and kung-fu epics. You
don't even need to wait past the opening credits before the
first salvo is fired: a one-two punch that trumpets "Our
Feature Presentation" with a vintage 1970s tag and the "Shaw
Scope" banner. It's an announcement that Tarantino is
acknowledging his status as the ultimate
distiller/recycler/alchemist - if the product wasn't any good,
you'd say he was an outright thief.
The thing is, Tarantino whips up this
bouillabaisse like he was born to do it, and the result is
trippy, fun, and somehow fresh. The plot is blood simple: Uma
Thurman is a deadly assassin nearly done-in by her former
colleagues on her wedding day. Miraculously, the bride survives
the attack, which includes a rather nasty bullet to the head,
but spends the next four years in a coma. As you might imagine,
upon waking up she is more than a little bit pissed off. Cue
revenge motif, as the bride makes it her business to hunt down
and kill each of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination
Squad.
What follows is a feverish tour de force
of visceral action, in which the director is aided immeasurably
by world-class DP Robert Richardson (who has to be one of the
best cinematographers in the world), editor Sally Menke, and
production designers David Wasco and Yohei Taneda. The icing on
the cake is the excellent music, courtesy of the RZA, with some
additional help from Al Hirt, Quincy Jones, Nancy Sinatra,
Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, and a host of others.
Tarantino has always demonstrated a flair for reinvigorating
old tunes, and it is unlikely that anyone who sees "Kill
Bill" will be able to disassociate the creepy whistling of
the "Twisted Nerve" theme from the image of Daryl
Hannah's nurse-from-hell Elle Driver strolling down a hospital
corridor.
There is so much on display in "Kill
Bill," it is impossible to cover all the bases, but the
final "House of Blue Leaves" set-piece, which unfolds
in a stunning, bi-level, combination teahouse and disco (that
rivals Jack Rabbit Slim's in "Pulp Fiction"), is
utterly unforgettable. The Bride faces Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii
and her underworld army, the Crazy 88, in a heart-stopping,
Grand Guignol bloodbath that spews fountains of hemoglobin over
every available surface. Chiaki Kuriyama, as depraved
schoolgirl, Go Go Yubari, wields mace and a chain with
such elegance and skill, it is no wonder she brings out the
best in the bride and her own weapon of choice: a custom
Hattori Hanzo steel. Along with O-Ren, the two make formidable
foes, and Thurman meets the challenge with the best performance
of her career.
