THE ILLUSIONIST - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2010.

 

 

If there is such a thing as a match made in heaven, the animated movie The Illusionist just may be the most convincing evidence of it we'll find here on Earth. This delightful movie is the latest effort by Sylvain Chomet, the gifted director responsible for The Triplets of Belleville. For this new feature, Chomet is adapting an unproduced screenplay by master French filmmaker Jacques Tati. Tati was a comic figure in the mold of Charlie Chaplin, playing the befuddled Monsieur Hulot in a series of films he wrote and directed, including Mon Oncle and what I consider to be his masterpiece, Playtime [review].




The central character of The Illusionist is a magician who looks and acts very much like Hulot; which is to say, Chomet has modeled the stage performer Jacques Tatischeff on Tati--tall, thin, a bit of a hound-dog face. The Illusionist is as Chomet imagined the author would have made it, rejigged slightly for the cartoon format, but otherwise very much in the spirit of the tale's originator.




 

 

The Illusionist is set in the late-1950s (the movie's most concrete reference to a specific time is a newspaper with a headline about the chilly relationship between Nixon and Khrushchev, which would have been during Eisenhower's Presidency). An aging stage magician, finding himself out of work in France, hits the road in search of a new gig. In London, he is upstaged by an hilariously effete rock band before being reduced to playing an outdoor party. There, a drunken Scotsman invites him out to his village, where the magician sets up in the local pub. His act goes down a storm. His tricks have a particular effect on the poverty-stricken, teenaged barmaid Alice, who isn't aware that the objects the man makes appear out of thin air aren't actually coming out of thin air. She believes magic is real and that the conjurer can make anything he wants.




Enchanted as she is by Tatischeff, Alice follows him when he leaves for Edinburgh, and touched by her devotion, the magician takes her under his care. Her appetite for new things is too hard for him to keep up with, however, particularly in light of his profession's flagging popularity. New technology and new sounds are pushing out the old music hall routines--Alice and the magician live in an apartment building with acrobats, ventriloquists, and clowns, all of whom are having trouble keeping their acts alive. Eventually, Tatischeff has to start moonlighting doing other jobs just to make ends meet.




Describing the basic plot of The Illusionist does it little justice. Tati emulated silent comedy, and he was more interested in humorous scenarios, quiet slapstick, and elaborate scenic concoctions than he was in traditional narrative. His movies rarely had dialogue--and indeed, there are only a handful of complete sentences spoken here, and most of those are either in French or Gaelic (I believe). In the same way Chaplin resisted talkies because they restricted which borders a movie could cross, so too did Tati strive for the universal by favoring behavior over banter. Laughter knows no language, and he communicated more with a gesture than most do with whole paragraphs.




 

 

It is to Chomet's supreme victory, then, that he so perfectly conjures his own illusion: the essence of Tati. The magician is an exact replica of Hulot, and yet doesn't exist as some mere carbon copy. This isn't another soulless digital manipulation made for a cola commercial; rather, this is more like an animated séance, of bringing the legend back from beyond the grave, and by using traditional hand-drawn animation (with just a smattering of digital effects), Chomet creates a supernatural dreamscape for Tati to once again perform his pratfalls, huff his harrumphs, and fill new audiences with laughter. The Illusionist is beautifully rendered. The backgrounds teem with a warm nostalgia while the portrayals of everyone from a sad-eyed French chanteuse to a greedy booking agent meld Tati's perception of human nature with the incisive wit of caricature. Chomet also takes liberties with the animals that occupy his world, giving them their own personalities far beyond what Tati could have achieved with the real thing. (Though, I must say, I would have loved to see the flesh-and-blood actor messing around with an honest-to-goodness rabbit.)




As traditional hand-drawn animation continues to become just that, "tradition," it's hard not to greet every movie that bucks the trend as the last of a dying breed. Fittingly, Tati's screenplay already had plenty to say about changing tastes and the obsolescence of old-style entertainment. This gives The Illusionist a surprisingly bittersweet tone in its final act. As his peers drift into other things or have their souls crushed, so too does Alice find other distractions, losing her need for the old man. For Tati, who was as fascinated and amused by technology as he was concerned about its effect on society, the ending is surprisingly concrete. Perhaps this contributed to why he never made The Illusionist himself, it would have required his saying good-bye to an art form he wasn't ready to let go of. Instead, Chomet has made that farewell for him, and done so as tribute. The Illusionist is its own long-distance wave goodbye to a one-of-a-kind performer, a wonderful ode to all that could have been.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review as originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2008.

Happy-Go-Lucky is one of th more lauded filmes from British director Mike Leigh, who is known for telling stories of the working class that chronicle their fancies and their doldrums in a modern style that resembles the Kitchen Sink cinema from the 1960s. In this latest offering, Leigh could have easily adopted Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" as the movie's theme song, as it seems to be what he's encouraging his audience to do: smile, even when it's not that easy to do.

Sally Hawkins, last seen as Colin Farrell's girlfriend in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream [review], stars as Poppy, a kindergarten teacher with a relentlessly upbeat outlook on life. Practically a child herself, she's equally at home in the classroom or on the dancefloor. Like any single young woman at age 30, she still likes to go out drinking with her girlfriends, but she's also slightly adventurous, booking weekly trampoline sessions and joining a co-worker for flamenco lessons because it sounds like fun. At the beginning of the movie, Poppy's bike is stolen, and instead of lamenting over it, she decides to learn to drive instead.

Poppy's driving instructor is one of the first of several challenges to Poppy's worldview. Scott (Eddie Marsan, Hancock [review]) is an angry little man with a lot of pent-up issues. He takes his job way too seriously, and he is easily provoked. Thus, he and Poppy get on like paper and a match, since she seemingly can't take anything seriously. In fact, she's often exhausting to watch, so I can't imagine what it must be like to be around her. Poppy can't let any comment pass without tossing out a silly joke, and she rarely answers a serious question with a serious answer. Honestly, I found her to be extremely annoying at first, and I was dreading spending two hours in her company.

Then came the first flamenco lesson. My whole attitude changed watching her interact with the class. Regardless of how stern the lead dancer's demeanor, Poppy always maintains her smile and her gung-ho attitude. She doesn't necessarily follow instruction, instead looking around the room at the other students and trying to elicit a reaction from them. Watching her pantomime amongst the group, a silly grin on her face and a knowing look in her eyes, it occurred to me that Poppy was like other clowns in motion picture history, characters like Chaplin's Tramp or Tati's Hulot. Though she is clearly more vocal than these mostly silent characters, she is like them in that she realizes that the rest of the world is too uptight and is doing her level best to keep from letting it grind her down.

Happy-Go-Lucky is Mike Leigh's study of this kind of figure. The movie is the writer/director's way of deconstructing the clown in order to see what makes her function. Throughout the film, he continually disarms Poppy, tossing her challenges she can't get out of by cracking wise. Her driving instructor, an abused student in her class, the recriminations of her middle sister (Caroline Martin), the prodding of her long-suffering roommate (Alexis Zegerman)--all of these people pick at the clown's mask and question if her brave face is real. It's to Poppy's credit that she is able to dial it down and prove that she can handle the bad as well as the good. Like all people who make us laugh, she is a caregiver, intent on alleviating the sadness of others even if it means harboring her own. She can be fierce, such as when she witnesses a boyfriend yelling at her youngest sister (Kate O'Flynn), but she can also be extremely empathetic. When she randomly encounters a homeless man (Stanley Townsend) in the middle of a psychotic episode, she sits with him rather than running away, answering all of his half-finished utterances with affirmative responses. It's a beautiful acting moment, centering on a look that Hawkins and Townsend exchange at the end of the scene, the masks clearing away for both of them for one truly honest moment.

Sally Hawkins is actually superb throughout. I don't think I would have wanted to strangle her as much as I sometimes did were she not. She makes Poppy a complete character, not just a collection of catchphrases and nervous ticks. She never once breaks character or appears to be an actress performing a role, every moment is authentic. During much of the joking, there is obviously more going on behind it. The outward expression may be physical, but the true weight of the performance is all mental. Thus, when it's revealed how much strength is really backing up the buffoonery, we can believe it.

Mike Leigh's shooting style is often stark, letting the setting and the actors dictate where he takes his camera. Once or twice, he indulges in a larger shot, pulling back to show us the landscape, but it's not just decoration, it's purposeful. The world these characters live in is just as important to their state of being as anything else. Over the course of the various conflicts, he slowly moves in closer, until in the final confrontation between Poppy and Scott, their heads take up the entire frame, and he rapidly cuts back and forth between them. (Though, such is the gravitational pull of the Poppy character, in all of the conversations, Leigh has no choice but to quickly cut back to Hawkins to catch her rejoinders.) There's a psychology to how Leigh sets up Happy-Go-Lucky, but it's not forceful or overbearing. The characters, their environment, and the greater narrative are all perfectly entwined. The final scene of the film is a little on-the-nose in comparison to the rest, but better to drift out of a story like this than superimpose a false dramatic arc over the top.

I doubt Happy-Go-Lucky is going to make Mike Leigh a household name. If anything, he's like Woody Allen in that he puts out a consistent stream of product that tends to cover a lot of the same ground, and when either of them hits the mark, they hit it quite well. Happy-Go-Lucky is a good movie propped up by excellent actors, and as seems to be its intention, is sure to leave you smiling.

THE CAMERAMAN - #1033

Buster Keaton was an independent producer and director making his own starring vehicles in the silent era when, in 1928, he decided to sign on with MGM and let them foot the bill. This was despite warnings from his friends and peers, who didn’t see why a successful artist would give up his freedom and control. Keaton probably should have listened, as MGM immediately paired him with a director, Edward Sedgwick, and though their collaborations yielded some excellent funny business, it does feel like something is different in the two features offered on Criterion’s release of The Cameraman. 

Before criticizing things, though, it should be noted that there is much to rejoice about in this new 4K restoration. Though still missing three minutes of footage, this is the most complete version of The Camerman that anyone has seen in quite some time. The picture is clear and beautiful, and it allows for a fresh perspective of this pivotal moment in Keaton’s career. The score is also very good, enhancing the picture as necessary without overplaying the comedic actions or trying to hard to mimic what is onscreen (the same cannot be said for the music on the second film). 

The scenario as devised by Clyde Bruckman and Lew Lipton sees Buster playing a street portrait photographer who falls for a beautiful girl (Marceline Day), whose picture he takes before she is whisked away by her boyfriend (Harold Goodwin). The fella, Stagg, is a cameraman for MGM newsreels, and Buster decides to get his own movie camera and join the freelance crew as a way to get close to Sally. What follows are plenty of mishaps as Buster tries to figure out the business, finds a monkey to be his pal, and gets tangled in a Chinatown gang war. The latter sequence is incredible for the chaos and mayhem that erupts on the screen. There is a real sense of peril, and we fear for our stone-faced hero. 

This is probably the closest we get to a vintage Buster Keaton situation. His previous comedies all have a sense of danger, as his elaborate set-ups and stunts would consistently put him in harm’s way, only for him to stumble through unharmed. Most of the gags in The Cameraman are dialed way back from what audiences would have expected from Buster. Weirdly, we get more wordplay in the title cards than ever before, which is not really what we signed up for. We also get more romance. If anything replaces the danger, it’s an increased sweetness. Sure, we’ve seen Keaton work the love angle before in pictures like Battling Butler, but there is a dogged earnestness to The Cameraman that is almost less effective because it replaces his trademark cluelessness with confidence. 

In truth, The Cameraman and the second feature on the disc, 1929’s Spite Marriage, also directed by Sedgwick, remind me more of classic Charlie Chaplin than classic Buster Keaton. The relationship of City Lights comes to mind, where we root for the Little Tramp to win the blind girl’s heart. It’s not that we don’t also root for Buster in his other films, but I think we are more inclined to see him take a licking, his famously rigid face keeping us from being nearly as invested in his well-being. Perhaps this was what MGM was hoping to undo, thinking that maybe making him more like Charlie he could start to outpace the other man’s success. 

It’s hard to say. And it’s also still hard not to like both The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. Both are very funny. Spite Marriage even features one of Keaton’s most lauded bits, when he has to put his drunk wife to bed. It a routine he would perform live for many years to come. It’s just some of the inventiveness is gone. The precarious situations, the elaborate sets, the prop work, the daredevil stunts--these are all dialed back. 

You know what it is, actually? It’s that Buster Keaton was always the little guy standing up to an indifferent world that consistently outsized him. Just as MGM took away his full control, so too did they shrink the threats. It levels the playing field, it’s not nearly the contest it once was. Buster is still the champ, but fighting in his own weight class, and so the victory is not as sweet. While the performer has the charm to be a rom-com lead, it’s not what he really made his name on, and it’s a classic example of the business side of show business not really understanding the show.

 This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

THE GOLD RUSH - #615

If you’re looking for a movie to watch this New Year’s Eve, there is no better place to look than Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 masterpiece The Gold Rush.

The final act of Chaplin’s silent comedy kicks off on New Year’s Eve, with the auteur’s Little Tramp character hoping to meet up with the dancehall beauty Georgia (Georgia Hale). It’s a union that is not to be, at least initially, as Chaplin of course prefers a little melancholy in his romance. Not to mention his belief that new beginnings need to be earned, which is all the more reason for him to set this pivotal moment of his film during the holiday.

New Year’s represents many of the same values that Chaplin put into his all of his films. It is a holiday that encapsulates his view of America, and so perfectly fits here in The Gold Rush, a philosophical piece of slapstick that embraces one of the great American myths. Just this past holiday my dad drove me past a mountain stream in Northern California that used to be a major source for gold. He wistfully told me how there is believed to be an untapped reserve still buried in the mountain, just waiting to be uncovered. Such was the dream of many men heading west in the 1800s. There were riches to be found in the California hills.

And for Chaplin, riches to be found in the California valleys, as well. For what is the promise of early Hollywood but another gold rush, another chance for Americans to make a bid for success and riches? As in all of the Tramp films, the character in The Gold Rush represents the little man in search of something better, standing up to adversity--be it the weather, beast of the forest, or his fellow man, prone as they were to prejudice and bullying. Here the Tramp goes to a remote outpost on the hunt for his fortune, finds romance, and thanks to his own positive demeanor, also forms bonds that bring him both the kind of financial windfall and emotional payout he could only dream of. The fact that it all goes wrong on New Year’s Eve is just all the more incentive for him to turn things around. One opportunity missed only spurs him on to find another.

This, of course, is all subtext, but when we consider other films with the Tramp character, such as The Kid or The Immigrant, it’s not hard to extrapolate a deeper meaning from the inventive pratfalls. Of which there are many. Some of Chaplin’s finest and most enduring routines are present in The Gold Rush, including the dancing dinner rolls and the visually stunning climax where he and his partner (Mack Swain) struggle to escape a house teetering on a cliffside. My favorite bit is probably the dance floor scene with the dog where, typically, the Tramp’s attempts to cover his own weakness nearly blows up in his face. In that and all the rest, the charm of the Tramp is his good-natured tenacity. He’s the right kind of good guy and awfully easy to root for.

Like so many of us, the Tramp is often misunderstood and misjudged. Right up to the end, as it turns out, when even after he’s found his gold, he’s mistaken for a stowaway on the boat taking him back to civilization. This may be the most heartwarming message of all, reminding us that no matter where we go or what we achieve, we still are who we are, and should maybe not forget that--because being who we are is perfectly okay, it’s what got us where we are. For the Tramp, it not only reminds him that it was his friendship that carried him through while giving him another opportunity to fall on his keister, but also gives Georgia her chance to show she has a charitable heart, as well.

If you’ve never seen a Charlie Chaplin film before, this is a pretty good place to start. And if you’re a fan, it’s a good one to revisit--though, avoid the 1942 version where Chaplin added voiceover. He may consider it his “definitive” cut, but the narration adds nothing to the material; rather, it only detracts from the viewer’s emotional connection to the comedy by interpreting everything for them--which is the most important part. The Gold Rush will ring out this or any year in a way that will remind us why we all do what we do, showing us the good in our fellow man and reinforcing the optimism inherent in an American Dream we all should still want to believe in even if sometimes we can’t.

THE PARTY - FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION CHANNEL

This review originally written for DVDTalk.com.

Peter Sellers reteams with his Pink Panther [review] co-conspirator Blake Edwards to cut loose and indulge their love of silent film comedies. The concept for The Party is something Chaplin or Keaton could have done wonders with, and though the movie does have quite a few verbal jokes, the majority of the more elaborate gags could run without sound and still inspire a huge round of guffaws.

Sellers plays Hrundi V. Bakshi, a recent transplant from India to Hollywood trying to make his way as an actor. After a particularly disastrous day on the set, where Bakshi's clumsiness brings the production crashing down, a mix-up causes him to be invited to the studio head's glitzy soiree rather than be fired. From there, comedy ensues, as the good-natured Bakshi just tries to fit in. He loses his shoe, runs afoul of parrots and dogs, tries to communicate with starlets, and even learns to play pool from a cowboy actor (Denny Miller), who is the only person in the movie that has an accent more extreme than Sellers.

The Party is a fantastic showcase for Peter Sellers' true talents. Not only does he completely lose himself in the role, but his physical agility as he traverses the many architectural oddities in the thoroughly modern home (inspired, perhaps, by Tati's Mon Oncle?) lets the actor show just how marvelous of a comedic athlete he is. The Party is one of those films I can watch a million times, and it never fails to make me laugh. I can even put it on while doing other things and check back in and out as the task demands, and every time I check in, I know it will make me smile. It's no hyperbole to call it a masterpiece.

I think a big reason for that is it's all just so good-natured. While there is definitely a sense of making fun, the only people really being made fun of are the stuck-up fatcats whose old-world mentality and opulence are becoming passé. Note the exchange that Bakshi has with the impossibly tall daughter of the hosts (Kathe Green) about the painted elephant, and how quick she is not to offend. It's 1968, and Edwards and Sellers are definitely "with it," seeing a more colorblind world on their horizon (those incorruptible optimists!) and adjusting accordingly. Though a Brit playing Indian would be a little harder to pull off today, Sellers' caricature is less about racial stereotyping and more about capturing the genuine anxiety of a well-meaning outsider. The scenes where he wanders the room alone, on the outskirts of the crowd, have a surprising pathos, identifiable by anyone who has ever ended up at a shindig where they don't know anybody. I would guess that's why they chose Claudine Longet to play the love interest. She is also an immigrant, though one assumes she would have an easier time since she's a cute French girl (read: pretty and white). Still, theirs is a sweet courtship. Plus, we get the singer's performance of the super sugary Henry Mancini-penned pop song "Nothing to Lose." (Not to mention the awesomely cool-daddio title number.)

I should note, though The Party is very funny, it's not a gutbuster. The largely improvised comedy is of a kind that is observed and absorbed more than it is convulsively reacted to. As noted, it's more Chaplin and Tati than it is Jerry Lewis. Its slapstick is designed around character and as a send-up of the unnecessary conceits of the modern age rather than just silliness for the sake of being silly, and one could argue that The Party has likely aged better than most just for that reason.

PARADE - #731

Following last week’s review of Charles Chaplin’sLimelight, I considered how Jacques Tati’s final film, the 1974 television feature Parade, might make a good follow-up. The French comedian was an acolyte of Chaplin’s, with his own M. Hulot being a tight-lipped descendent of the earlier director’s Little Tramp. Parade makes for an interesting companion to Limelight, even if it’s not entirely successful or nearly as fulfilling as the Chaplin picture.

Actually, the closest relative to Parade might be Federico Fellini’s 1970 documentary I clowns [review]. Fellini was another director with a passion for live performance, and I clowns captured several renowned circus clowns at work. Tati uses his own stageshow as a blueprint, but he showcases the event in a circus environment. His set-up is notable for two things: it’s inclusion of the audience, including planting performers in the crowd (if, indeed, the entire audience isn’t just people cast by Tati for the event); and a split between the old and the new, with the younger clowns being set apart not just by their fashion, but relegated to the side of the stage where they have a kind of workshop, often mimicking the main action in the center ring, sometimes joining it.

I should note here, when I say clowns, I do not mean of the greasepaint and red nose variety, but in the broader comedic sense. They are silent performers, engaging in physical slapstick and sleight of hand. Tati himself has several skits where he pantomimes different kinds of athletes. There is also an elder magician who engages in card tricks and the like, and who enters into a competition with one of the scruffy youngsters. While the older men are dapper and composed, the new generation are hippies and flower children. Yet, Tati isn’t looking to separate, he’s seeking to find what is similar in the shared comedy and bring it all together.

In addition to these clowns, there is a donkey act, an orchestra, and a tumbling troupe. They all perform with varying results. Some bits land, some fall flat. There is a quiet tone to Parade that seems both generational and cultural. The clowning has a certain reserve, and there aren’t many guffaws to be had. Still, it’s pleasant entertainment, and Parade really only goes off the rails in the second act, when Tati embraces modernity too tightly. An extended psychedelic rock performance looks like it would have been out of step even back then, and now just seems laughable. This isn’t exactly your grandfather’s rock-and-roll, more like what his grandfather might think is rock-and-roll.

Which maybe is the problem overall with Parade. With Limelight, Chaplin saw vaudeville as an art vital enough to build a story around, and so it came off as more than just a nostalgic trip through a comedian’s greatest hits. Tati, it seems, is trying to show that his old routines can compete in the then-current marketplace, but never really reignites the spark that probably inspired his career path to begin with. A mild exit for an otherwise gifted artist.

LIMELIGHT - #756

“I thought you hated the theatre?”

“I do. I also hate the sight of blood, but it’s in my veins.”

As I write this, it’s Charlie Chaplin’s birthday. Born April 16, 1889, he would have been 127. This puts him at more than 60 years old when he made his final American film, the bittersweet tribute to vaudeville, Limelight. Though he had a couple of more movies to come following his exile to Europe, of all of his efforts post-1950, this one feels like the final curtain, a summing up of a well-spent career, with a few touches of real life for those looking to see the man in his art.

Chaplin stars in Limelight as Calvero, the last of the great stage clowns, known for his wordplay and hobo persona. (Perhaps it was the presence of the former that discouraged the performer from actually making the film about his own Little Tramp, a character born of silent cinema.) Calvero’s act has passed into the history books, drowned in alcohol and anxiety. As the picture begins, he stumbles home from the bar, only to realize his downstairs neighbor Theresa (Claire Bloom, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold [review]) has locked herself in her flat with the gas on. The old man kicks in the door and rescues the young woman from suicide, letting her sleep it off in his apartment where the air is clear. Terry is a dancer who is despondent over many things. She let the love of her life, a composer (Sydney Chaplin) get away, and her sister’s turning to the streets to pay for her dancing career has left the girl unable to take the stage, the guilt is too much to handle.

In fact, following the attempted suicide, Terry is so upset, she can’t walk, her mind has completely shut down the lower half of her body, not unlike how nerves and booze have overtaken Calvero’s ability to step in front of a crowd. The pair of artistes bonds over their respective blocks. Calvero swears off the sauce and nurses the girl back to health, giving her pep talks, all the while dreaming of his old routines, sometimes inserting Terry into the act, sometimes waking up in terror, realizing his dream self is playing to an empty house. Helping her gives him purpose, and a chance to lead by example.

It’s a lovely and loving relationship, one that could have been tainted by Chaplin’s real-life dalliances with younger women, but the honesty with which he presents their shared experience avoids any actual creepiness. Calvero’s view of Terry is paternal, despite the cover story that they are married as a means to fend off gossip. In fact, there is a frankness throughout Limelight that is surprisingly fresh, even if the script must tap dance around saying some things outright. Calvero first thinks that the whispers about his new roommate being a prostitute are true, and that she tried to kill herself due to consequences stemming from the profession. Though the truth is far more mundane, the way in which the elder statesman is prepared to accept the younger’s indiscretions--he notes that he himself is an old sinner--makes for a sweet dynamic between them. They accept each other’s faults only in so far as they encourage their companion to overcome them.

Chaplin was likely looking for a little acceptance himself, following accusations of Communism and FBI smear campaigns due to some of his less idyllic carnal affairs. (Check a recent episode of You Must Remember This to hear how this affected the auteur’s previous release, Monsieur Verdoux [review]). Later in the film the clown demands truth in both performance and life, as it’s the only thing he knows to be steadfast in a fickle world.

Despite all of this off-screen drama, Chaplin does not allow for any cynicism in Limelight. Quite the contrary, the film is entirely romantic, in both its love stories and in its view of the theatrical community. Behind the laughs beats a great big heart, and Limelight is less a comedy and more of a melodrama. Working with a plot structure more befitting a play--and often staging his scenes in small spaces like in a theatre, focusing on the two characters in conversation rather than the surroundings--Chaplin draws from a variety of theatrical traditions to create something perfectly cinematic. The filmmaker pulls out and goes wide, funnily enough, when in the theatre space itself. The cutaways to the dream sequences, showing Calvero on stage, and later showing Terry dancing, give us both the breadth of the performance space, but also the size of the crowd. In a way, his framing suggests that our own lives are small, and its art that gives them larger meaning, transcending borders so that people around the world may share all that they have in common, including not just our own foibles, but also the natural world in which we live and operate (mother nature and human nature). Most of Calvero’s routines center around animals (worms, sardines) or compulsions (love). The only exception being a fun skit featuring Chaplin and the great Buster Keaton--a comedian down on his luck for real--as two inept musicians that ends up being Calvero’s ultimate encore.

It’s interesting to consider that Chaplin himself must have seen many tides turning, and rather than submit to the trends, he instead dug in his heels and tipped his hat to where it all began for him (including street performers). Not that Limelight is a completely fanciful representation of theatre life. There is a toll to be paid for the spontaneity and joy of stagecraft. Not just age and passing fads, but also the isolation and the physical and mental demands come to bear for the comedian and the ballerina alike. Chaplin sees a kindred spirit in the dancer--both disciplines require perfection and control, but they also allow for improvisation, for injecting one’s personality into the material.

The final act of Limelight has some O. Henry-level twists, including ironic sacrifices and difficult decisions. Yet, even with the heavy foreshadowing--Calvero tells Terry pretty much exactly how it will go--by the time the change-ups and misunderstandings occur, you’ll be so invested in the characters and the drama itself, the artifice won’t bother you. Plus, the artifice is kind of the point. Limelight is as much about the movement of the bodies on stage as how they affect one another offstage--though no moreso than the movement in the ballet Chaplin pauses to show us, featuring both the clown and his admirer, and which itself draws from traditions of the Commedia dell’arte. In Chaplin’s narrative, the history of the stage is as interlocked as humanity’s. We all build on what came before, and so by extending a hand, the old can aid the young with their experience and wisdom, and maybe themselves get a new lease on life.

And, of course, as throughout, Chaplin walks it like he talks it. The ultimate message of Limelight? Always leave them laughing.

A few images from this review were borrowed from my old alma mater, DVDTalk.com. Read Justin Remer's review here.

JOUR DE FETE - #730

The journey to bring Jour de fête, Jacques Tati’s 1949 full-length directorial debut, to screen was not one I had been familiar with. When making the comedy feature, Tati shot simultaneously with two different cameras. One used a then-untested color process, and the other recorded the performances in standard black-and-white, a precaution just in case the color process didn’t work. This concurrent fascination with and distrust in technology is amusing, given how this would be a regular theme in Tati’s later M. Hulot films. It seems art did imitate life in this case.

It also turned out to be a smart move. The color labs behind the film shut down before ever processing a reel, and so Tati released the black-and-white version to cinemas. In the 1960s, he would revisit Jour de fête and hand-color certain elements, as well as putting in some new footage, but it wasn’t until 1995 that a full version was finally made from his original color negatives. All three options are given here, in Criterion’s lead disc of their The Complete JacquesTati collection. I opted for the 1995 release, which looked pretty good, even if the color is not as vibrant as a 1940s Technicolor picture from Hollywood.

In Jour de fête, Tati stars as Francois, a bicycle-riding postman for a small village. On the “big day” referred to by the title, Francois’ village is preparing to host a traveling street fair. The run of the movie shows the carnies getting ready, the town’s participation in the festivities, and the hangover the morning after, focusing mostly on how Francois gets through his day. The mustachioed public servant is the object of regular ridicule from his customers and neighbors, and even the visiting carnival workers get in on the act. They can read this rube from a mile away. He’s eager to please and none too bright.

Francois’ main problem is combining defensiveness with hubris, and so most of his misfortune occurs by his trying to prove he is a big man. He’ll go from nearly being beaned by a falling pole to instructing the men on how to put it in the ground. Seeing a film that claims American postal workers are using helicopters and airplanes to deliver letters faster and farther makes Francois work on his speed techniques--with a little help from the roustabouts who run the merry-go-round.

It’s one of Jour de fête’s best gags, the gangly bicyclist riding his bike in a stationary position while the carnival ride spins round and round. It’s a whole lot of effort just to end up in the same place. Francois is too self-assured to see his own ridiculousness. That’s perhaps why we laugh along with those teasing him rather than feeling sorry for him: he kind of deserves it. Late in the film, when he discovers one prank has left a ring of ink around his eye, Francois fails to laugh at himself. Instead, he deflects and lays into criticizing his coworkers for being slower than he is--making it all the more hysterical when, shortly thereafter, Francois’ bicycle takes off on its own, and he must run after it in a lengthy chase sequence. Instant karma.

The trouble the bike gets into and the distance it goes shows the kind of inventiveness that would be Tati’s calling card. It’s a little bit Buster Keaton, a little bit Charlie Chaplin. Having honed his skills in a series of comedy shorts, Tati appears confident in his humor here. His gags are mostly physical and largely pantomime, they are never really dialogue-based, borrowing more from the silent titans than contemporary movie comedians. Francois probably talks in Jour de fête more than Hulot in any of the other films combined, his repeated exasperated declaration “That takes the cake” getting more silly each time it’s uttered.

An example of the look of the color film.

Yet, Tati also takes full advantage of the soundtrack. Audio effects are important throughout, such as the aforementioned scene in the post office, where every time Francois steps out of the room, we hear an even more outrageous sound cue, only for his coworkers to barely react. A scene early in the film, when the actions of a carny and a local girl sync up with an English-language western being shown in the fair’s cinema tent, is vintage Tati, combining human emotion with a modern device in a way that allows one to supersede the other--a glimmer of the sort of commentary that would eventually make Playtime [review] such a vital masterpiece. So, despite being less vivacious and funny than Tati’s next several films, Jour de fête is still a worthy precursor.

PIERRE ETAIX: YOYO - #655

Pierre Étaix's second feature, Yoyo, finds the director and star confidently assuming the role of auteur. This 1965 vehicle is not only a great showcase for the performer's talent, but also a tribute to his heroes and the comedic tradition that informed the Étaix persona. It's a celebration of comedy, but also one clown's celebration of self.

Yoyo opens in the 1920s. Étaix plays a lonely millionaire who spends his fortune on elaborate entertainments to cure his ennui. Model boats, dancing girls, live music, alcohol--none of it can ease the man's true problem, his broken heart. The millionaire pines for a lost love.

This opening scenario is crafted as a silent film, albeit one with sound effects rather than a musical score. Étaix shows the millionaire's opulent life and the intricate design of his house via a series of sight gags. There is an important visual theme running through all of Yoyo, as Étaix explores the notion of illusion as it pertains to entertainment and how that relates to the illusions we create in our own lives. The millionaire is seeking happiness through simulacrum. None of his pleasures are real, they are designed.

Fate intervenes twice for the millionaire. First, when a traveling circus stops by to perform on his estate, and he realizes that his former lover is amongst their performers. She is a clown, as is her son, the young boy Yoyo (Philippe Dionnet). The child is inexplicably drawn to the millionaire's home, and he sneaks around the mansion, examining its many treasures, until the troupe's elephant, the boy's own guardian angel, comes looking for him. The connection should be obvious: Yoyo is the son the millionaire didn't know he had. A sort of paternal sixth sense has drawn them together. Fate's second intervention is the stock market crash, which forces the millionaire out of his home. With nowhere else to turn, he joins his long-lost family on the road, becoming a performer alongside Yoyo and his mother. Étaix times the onset of the Great Depression with the advent of "talkies," and so Yoyo shifts from silent expression and title cards to full dialogue.

Interestingly, though Yoyo is kind of designed as a mini-history of 20th-century entertainment, Étaix only pays tribute to motion pictures as sly asides. Yoyo's youth is spent traveling from town to town, perfecting his act with his parents and dreaming of one day having a real home like the one where he met his father. On one stop on their tour, the millionaire despairs to see that another circus has beaten them to the punch. The camera pans to a poster advertising a different show, and cinephiles will recognize Giulietta  Masina and Anthony Quinn from La Strada [review], Federico Fellini's cinematic tribute to the traveling circus. Indeed, little Yoyo's make-up is not that dissimilar to Masina's. Plus, both films pay tribute to Charlie Chaplin. Étaix does it twice, actually. First Yoyo's mother borrows the Tramp's act for her own, and later, when the narrative shifts to WWII, Étaix upends The Great Dictator [review] by showing Hitler similarly cosplaying as Chaplin's signature character. It's around here that Étaix takes over playing Yoyo as an adult, showing the clown performing for Allied soldiers before being captured by the Germans. It's actually a bizarre coincidence that years later Étaix would have a role in Jerry Lewis' infamous 1972 disaster The Day the Clown Cried, about a clown who performs for the prisoners of a concentration camp. Smartly, Étaix skips right over Yoyo's incarceration, instead moving straight to the post-War period when he returns to the circus.

(Quick Sidenote: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there was a mutual appreciation between Pierre Étaix and Federico Fellini. Only in researching for this series did I realize that I knew Étaix from his segment in Fellini's documentary I clowns, released in 1970, and reviewed by me here. Criterion fans might have also seen Étaix in a small role in Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre [review].)

The war is addressed only indirectly following Yoyo's freedom. A soberness settles over the character, however, and he pours most of his energy and money into finally rebuilding his chateau. Étaix has split Yoyo into two halves, and the back part basically shows the son reliving the mistakes of his father. As he isolates himself, Citizen Kane-style, he becomes estranged from what matters. Yoyo finds new fame on television, but at the sacrifice of spontaneity and audience connection. Another illusion is shown here, as what we initially take as a despondent Yoyo performing on the street turns out to be Yoyo on the boob tube--though his skit truly represents what is in his heart.

At the same time, Yoyo also fails to seize on his love for the beautiful acrobat Isolina (Claudine Auger, a.k.a. Domino from Thunderball). Yoyo culminates in the ostentatious housewarming party the sad clown throws for himself. The closing of the picture thus mirrors the opening, as Yoyo's party guests engage in complicated slapstick and the host spends most of the event chasing down his own dissatisfaction with the situation he has created for himself. His redemption comes via another repeated image: the return of the elephant who was his childhood guardian. Yoyo's new friends flee in fear, but the grown man is otherwise reminded of everything the elephant represents, the memories he should have never forgot.

This makes way for Étaix's brilliant closing shot, a poetic return to the traditional performance space, a validation of the circus' capacity to entertain. The ending is almost clairvoyant, as Étaix himself would eventually leave his fame and return to his first love, though that was still half a decade away. Watching Yoyo, the mind boggles imagining the movies Pierre Étaix could have made had he stuck with it. With just his second feature, he shows himself as an entertainer with heart and insight, a worthy successor to Chaplin and the rest. Great comedy always has a bit of sadness, and Pierre Étaix is a clown who has the soul of a poet. Laughter is a sign of one's health and humanity, and like the character he portrayed, this performer's commitment to entertaining others, regardless of where he pursued it, was never more obvious or essential. 

Yoyo plays Thursday, April 18, and Saturday, April 20, as part of the NW Film Center's Pierre Étaix retrospective. View the full schedule here.

MONSIEUR VERDOUX (Blu-Ray) - #652

Writer/director/star Charles Chaplin moves on from his Little Tramp persona and embraces something entirely new in the darkly comic Monsieur Verdoux. Based on the story of a real-life "Bluebeard," and working from a script idea by Orson Welles (who originally was going to direct), the master filmmaker polished an odd little gem in this 1947 Oscar nominee. It's not exactly a gutbuster, but Monsieur Verdoux has a jaunty likability that works in concert and in opposition to its murderous intent, and proves as impressive and thought-provoking as Chaplin's previous effort, The Great Dictator [review].

The titular Verdoux is a former banker who, in the early days of the Great Depression, found himself unemployed. In order to keep his paraplegic wife (Mady Correll) and their son (Allison Roddan) in their home and the life they are accustomed to, Verdoux has taken on a new career: that of a bigamist and gigolo. Adopting several different aliases, Verdoux fleeces multiple women in various French towns, juggling each like a traveling salesman visiting his different accounts. For instance, there is the loudmouth lottery winner Annabelle Bonheur (future denture-cream pitchwoman Martha Raye), who thinks Verdoux is a ship captain who only comes to port every six weeks. There is also the absent Ms Couvais, one of Verdoux's early victims. It's her large family that will doggedly pursue the crook, suspecting foul play. Never mind that the Couvais family is self-serving, bickering, and altogether disagreeable. Then again, you should mind, that's part of Chaplin's point.

Monsieur Verdoux is an unconventional morality play. Its lack of any strict "crime does not pay" sloganeering rankled Hollywood censors, even as Chaplin worked in different story elements to placate them. Verdoux is a scoundrel and a villain, and yet, he has his reasons for the evil that he does. Chaplin plays him as a charming Don Juan with a heart of gold beating underneath his opportunistic veneer. The auteur stacks the deck in favor of those whom Verdoux cares for. His family has had bad breaks, and when the killer encounters a young woman down on her luck (played by Marilyn Nash), he empathizes with her misfortune and spares her a sinister experiment he has been planning. Conversely, the women that Verdoux bilks are genuinely distasteful. Bonheur is a loudmouth and a boor, while Marie Grosnay (Isobel Elsom), the rich older woman who rebuffs Verdoux's advances for the bulk of the film, is a real snob. Is Chaplin challenging our own perceptions by offering us victims whom we won't mind seeing meet their untimely end?

I would say yes. For as with The Great Dictator and many of his earlier silents, Chaplin is as interested in reflecting on society's ills as he is in making his audience laugh. If Monsieur Verdoux is less popular than his previous endeavors, it may simply be that the latter concern takes a backseat in order to put a finer point on the commentary. As Verdoux's scheme runs its course, he doesn't so much defend all that he has done as implicate everyone else as accomplices. His argument is that, in a time when man's greed has allowed so many to go hungry, where everyone selfishly fights to preserve their own creature comforts without a care for their neighbors, no man is truly innocent. On the contrary, Verdoux himself is a necessary scapegoat. His crimes allow the rest of society to toss its collective guilt in his direction.

It could have been heavy-handed, but the turn actually comes off as rather ingenious. As proof of his argument, Chaplin gives us the girl whom Verdoux inadvertently assisted. His kindness allowed her a second chance, and she returns to his life to repay him when his own luck takes a downward turn. It's a simple but effective message: do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. While it may not have the same gory impact as the object lessons of a standard crime film, where a killer like Verdoux would be gunned down in the street, Verdoux throwing himself on the court of public opinion in the final act does basically serve as a kind of redemptive sacrifice. If the plot developments inspire any unease, it's born of the fact that he's essentially right, and you really don't have to be all that cynical to agree.

The fact that this weighty material is crafted with such a lithe hand is a true testament to Chaplin's talents as a performer and a director. Monsieur Verdoux is his first genuine talkie, and he embraces that chattiness with full vigor. While there are still a few hysterical slapstick sequences--namely, his tumbling out a window when meeting Grosnay, or the shenanigans on the boat when he's trying to drown Bonheur--they are nowhere near the extended, balletic, dialogue-free material that made The Great Dictator such a joy. There are no long stretches where actors aren't speaking. Hell, there are barely short stretches. Chaplin doesn't need to be tripping over himself or mugging for the camera to command the screen, he is just as capable playing it straight. Though, I was amused by the fact that, from time to time, you can catch him looking toward the audience as if to double-check if we're still in on the joke.

By the way, this might make a great double-feature with Unfaithfully Yours.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVD Talk. Images here were taken from an earlier standard-definition DVD and were not taken from the Blu-Ray under review.

PIER PAOLO PASOLINI'S TRILOGY OF LIFE (Blu-Ray) - #631

Pier Paolo Pasolini was a notorious author and activist before he became a filmmaker. As a self-described homosexual Marxist Catholic, his viewpoint was, to say the least, unique and his chosen means of expression often abrasive. He began his cinema career as a screenwriter and became a protégé of Fellini--though the two had a falling out when Pasolini struck out on his own to make his 1961 debut, Accatone, the story of a pimp in the Italian slums.

After a decade of increasingly pessimistic movies, Pasolini decided to adopt a new outlook on life. Turning to classic literature, he chose to helm a Trilogy of Life: three films adapting famous books that themselves were a collection of short stories and fables. Working with material by Boccaccio, Chaucer, and tales from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, jumping from Italy to England and then to the Middle East, the filmmaker embraced the ribald and the sensual, turning these well-known parables into a celebration of mankind's pleasures, devotions, and freedoms. Politics and religion were mocked--sometimes lovingly, other times sharply--with Pasolini ultimately letting the human condition--and the human comedy--dictate a narrative free of all expected restrictions (and predictably censored for the same).

It's a surprisingly good fit for the director, even if his newfound blithe spirit was not to last. Shortly after completing the Trilogy of Life, Pasolini rejected the work, claiming that he had succumbed to a particularly thin, knee-jerk liberalism. His next, and sadly last, film turned out to be his most misanthropic and controversial yet. Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom is still one of the more discussed and disturbing pieces of cinema [you can read my review here], both reviled and revered in counterbalancing measures. It's kind of bizarre to consider how Pasolini jumped one to the other. If you saw Salo separately from The Trilogy of Life and had no idea who had made either, I doubt you'd guess it was the same man.

I keep a copy of Boccaccio's The Decameron next to my bed, where I can occasionally grab it and read one of the stories. (Also, to let the ladies know I am edumacated and/or a would-be pretentious intellectual.) The 14th-century tome is credited with having originated the art form of the novella (which is not just a short novel, but that's a discussion for another time). It's basically a collection of short stories, 100 in all, told by ten travelers to pass the time. They are alternately funny, philosophical, dirty, and magical. Despite the book's considerable age, it doesn't read like an antiquated relic. It's lively and bawdy and quite entertaining.

For his 1971 adaptation of the book, Pasolini quite understandably whittles the text down from 100 to about a dozen entries or so (including at least one that is told, rather than performed). His version of The Decameron (111 minutes) also jettisons the framing sequence, instead letting the stories flow naturally one into the other. A few characters connect from one to the next, sometimes stumbling into the neighboring scenario just to kickstart the next tale and send the narrative on its way. For the first half of the film, there is a recurring character of a con man and a thief (played by Pasolini regular Franco Citti; he's in all the films in this set and also in Mamma Roma); for the second half, there is a painter who is struggling to complete a fresco in a church. He is played by the director himself, and so no surprise that the painter's vision gives The Decameron its most fantastical images, including a living painting re-creating classic religious iconography. He also gets to utter the movie's last line, "Why complete a work when it's so beautiful just to dream it."

Pasolini's focus tends to be on stories with either a sexual or religious base, often both, as well as tales that are generally derailed by one person's greed or folly. While much of what we see borders on the blasphemous--a convent full of nuns taking advantage of a man they believe to be mentally deficient; the robbing of a Bishop's grave, etc.--Pasolini is only tweaking the nose of the church playfully. He is creating a connection between earthly and heavenly pleasures, suggesting that each exists in concert with the other. Hence, the penultimate story of the man who literally screws himself to death. He returns from the afterlife to reveal that sex is considered to be a virtue, not a sin, and his punishment will be for other wicked deeds. Granted, he is in Hell, so we don't really know how God and his minions feel about the matter, but the message here is, hey, regardless of the outcome, its worth it.

Pasolini's depiction of medieval living is neither romanticized nor prettied up. The buildings and clothes are shabby, the people are dirty. There are so many rotting teeth in The Decameron, my own mouth started to hurt after a while. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli, who also collaborated with Raffaello Matarazzo and Louis Malle, shoots without much added light, preferring the natural look of sunlight and shadows--however musty some of those shadows might be. Likewise, Pasolini doesn't push his rather large cast--which is made up in large part of non-actors, in the Italian Neorealist tradition--toward big acting. He plays the comedy for what it is, but mostly let's the rest of the behavior just be. It makes for a surprisingly lithe anthology picture, one that sets the tone for its sibling films.

The set-up for 1972's The Canterbury Tales (111 mins.) more closely mirrors the frame of the Geoffrey Chaucer book: travelers on the road to Canterbury in medieval England agree to swap stories to pass the time--though who is telling the tale and where is never really addressed again. Instead, the thread that runs through the movie is that of Chaucer himself, another winking role for Pasolini, sitting at his desk and writing his book. He says little, instead mostly just looking up from his work to smile at a clever punchline or two.

Pasolini has chosen eight stories from the original text, once again favoring ribald anecdotes and morality plays that involve human greed and betrayal. The sections range from the humorous (a wife and her lover trick her husband into locking himself away while they make love, only for her previous lover to show up looking for action) to the more dire and serious (Franco Citti plays the devil come to Earth to observe human misery; three young boys plot against each other after finding treasure). Some of the sequences lack the punch or the narrative flow that made The Decameron more riveting. Laura Betti (1900 [review]) plays the Wife of Bath in a short vignette that comes to very little, and outside of some familiar settings, not much leads the viewer from one story to the next.

Still, The Canterbury Tales has two superior segments that alternately surprise, delight, and in the case of the second one, horrify. First is Ninetto Davoli, who played a swindled bumpkin in The Decameron, returning here as a shiftless teenager making merry and causing trouble in both work and play. The scenario is Pasolini's tribute to silent cinema, with Davoli doing an imitation of Chaplin's Tramp. The slapstick is funny and the homage loving, with the modern director juxtaposing the "innocence" of the early motion pictures with Chaucer's not-so-innocent characters. (Another Chaplin connection: the revered auteur's daughter Josephine plays the lovely girl May in the opening story.)

The second sequence is essentially the film's big finish. It features a materialistic clergyman being visited by a youthful angel who spirits him away to Hell to take a glimpse at what happens when men of God betray their vows. Pasolini builds a large outdoor set on an English wasteland, with naked demons painted head to toe in garish colors and grotesque scenes of torture and punishment. It's at once both disturbing and hilarious. The director's rudimentary special effects, depicting giant Satanic buttocks releasing wicked priests back into the sulfurous landscape, succeed on sheer audacity. It's hard to laugh when you feel so queasy!

As with The Decameron, perhaps the best element to recommend The Canterbury Tales is the art direction. Pasolini's unique take on ancient living, embracing all the stink and filth, is so vivid, he successfully erases all trace of modernity and creates an alternate world that is believable and intriguing. Even if the movie doesn't gel in terms of narrative, it still looks remarkable. It also seems had Pasolini chosen a better way to end the film, he might have turned what is a very good effort into something great. Sure, the trip to Hell is remarkable, but The Canterbury Tales lacks any final message. There is no summation a la the painted fresco, nor do we get something akin to the libertine's moral that we are privileged to receive at the end of The Decameron (or even the closed circle of The Arabian Nights). Instead, The Canterbury Tales just stops. Ironic for a film about a journey that it kind of doesn't end up anywhere.

Pasolini all but abandons the collected story structuring for 1974's The Arabian Nights (130 mins.), even going so far as to drop the frame from the original source material. Likewise, he steps comfortably away from any overriding religion, instead embracing a more freeform narrative line where man determines his own fate, with only happenstance and our own foolishness to get in the way.

If there is any throughline in The Arabian Nights, it's the clever slave Zumurrud (Ines Pellegrini), who arranges for her own sale to the handsome young Nuredin (Franco Meril). When her "master" refuses to heed her advice, she is kidnapped and they are separated. Thanks to her wiliness, Zumurrud escapes again, and her flight from capture eventually lands her in a city in search of a king. Mistaking her for a man, and following an ancient tradition, the ruling powers put her on the throne. Meanwhile, a properly shamed Nuredin goes searching for his lost inamorata.

As in The Decameron, one aspect of the script tumbles into the next, with Zumurrud's enemies criss-crossing over plot lines and also getting their comeuppance. Pasolini shot the exteriors of the film in the Middle East, with the interior sex scenes taking place on an Italian soundstage--meaning he also foregoes local actors when away from Italy, presumably because actors willing to get nude for his camera would have been harder to find in Muslim countries (as they apparently were not in England; you ever wanted to see Doctor Who's Tom Baker getting' busy? Me neither!). Even so, The Arabian Nights appears even less like studio-based constructions than the preceding films. The legitimate sights serve the production well.

Midway through the picture, when Nuredin has been taken in by a trio of horny sisters who read to him from, one presumes, One Thousand and One Nights, Pasolini diverges from the path and dives down a rabbit hole into more stories. Ninetto Davoli returns as Aziz, who has lost all he has known in the world, including his love and manhood. He is found in the desert by Taj (Francesco Paolo Governale), and the wandering Prince listens as Aziz relates the circumstances by which he came to be so dejected. This leads to Taj forming a new plan to pursue love on his own, and as he puts his scheme into motion, he gathers the histories of those he recruits in aiding him. These stories end up being the most outrightly mystical of any of the tales in all three movies in the Trilogy of Life, suggesting the happy outcome that is soon to come is more fated than the participants realize.

Unfettered as it is from Catholic judgment and any governing morality, The Arabian Nights is the only film where indulgence in our most natural impulses is not punished. Sexuality morphs freely, basically creating an idealized world where all could act as they pleased, the only price that had to be paid was involvement. Aziz has bad things happen because he doesn't govern his own fate, and Nuredin loses Zumurrud when he does not heed her advice. Yet, those who embrace life are rewarded. Even Nuredin eventually. Perhaps this is what soured Pasolini so, he knew his vividly realized fantasy was not to be. There are couple of key scenes of brutal violence in The Arabian Nights, at least one of which (a castration) is shocking enough to be in Salo. One could argue that maybe Pasolini's disillusionment was quite possibly born from the fact that even in an invented world where everyone was free to frolic and love as they saw fit, such attacks were necessary, because otherwise we might take our free will for granted.

The Canterbury Tales also has an English dub that was overseen by Pasolini. Though I generally shy away from dubs, this one makes sense, as the film was shot in England and features plenty of British actors. The Cockney accents fit the material. Additionally, though they don't play within the movie, there is a supplement with the English inserts Pasolini created for the written elements, like letters and Chaucer's book, seen in the film.

Each disc has its own handful of extras, with the lead bonus on The Decameron, Patrick Rumple's 25-minute visual essay "On The Decameron" being essential viewing early on. I kind of wish that I had watched it before watching the movie, because it both lays the groundwork for how Pasolini built his career up to the point of taking on Trilogy of Life, but also gives some insight into how The Decameron is structured and points out Pasolini's influences from the world of cinema and painting, including the material he borrowed from Giotto, the painter whose work becomes the tableau vivant in the last portion of the film.

This vivacious detour by Pier Paolo Pasolini makes for an interesting, albeit tragically brief, third act in an accomplished film career. Trilogy of Life is an anthology of anthologies, three movies based on famous collections of stories from classic literature: Boccaccio's The Decameron, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and the more mystical The Arabian Nights. Over the three films, Pasolini dissects human desire and our capacity for error, examining sin, indulgence, and punishment, building toward a morality where all would be free to love as they choose. The tales collected are funny, sensual, and sometimes poignant, all composed stylishly. Sure, the message doesn't always gel, and some sequences are clunky, but overall, Trilogy of Life is exactly the enjoyable life-affirming experience Pasolini set out for it to be, regardless of his own eventual disappointment in its thematic qualities.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVD Talk. Images here were taken from promotional materials and were not taken from the Blu-Ray under review.