A heavenly (yet costly) Tuesday

As far as "new release" Tuesdays go, 10 May might very well be one of the best ever. For years, Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd has hovered near the top of Filmbrain's "needs-to-be-on-DVD" list, and the day has finally arrived where his dream becomes reality. Though available as a separate DVD, it is included as one of the discs in an outstanding box set entitled The Controversial Classics Collection -- a must-own. Priced around $50, it contains seven groundbreaking American films that dared to address serious social and political issues. Besides the Kazan film, there is the 1932 attack on the criminal justice system, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Fritz Lang's brilliant take on mob justice, Fury, the sexual and racial tensions of an inner city school that is The Blackboard Jungle, the hidden secrets of a small town exposed in Bad Day at Black Rock, the political mudslinging of Advise and Consent, and the Paddy Chayefsky-scripted anti-war satire The Americanization of Emily. While not all are masterpieces, the screenplays for all seven contain some of the strongest writing to ever come out of Hollywood, and are the kind of films that would never get green-lit by today's "high concept" standards. (A Face in the Crowd is Filmbrain's second favorite screenplay of all time. If you haven't seen it, buy or rent it today -- you'll never think of Andy Griffith the same way again. . .)

Also being released today are the first two features from this year's Cannes Jury President, Emir Kusterica -- Do You Remember Dolly Bell? and When Father Was Away on Business (winner of the 1985 Palme D'Or). While neither is as good as the still-unavailable Time of the Gypsies, they offer the opportunity to see the director working on a much smaller (and more personal) scale. A slightly guilty pleasure, Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin is the third in a trilogy of Catherine Deneuve - Michel Legrand musicals. Kind of like a fever dream, this highly saturated tale of incest and a donkey that defecates gold simply has to be seen to be believed. Fun for the whole family! The Criterion release of Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, which chronicles the chaos surrounding the production of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo is made even better by the inclusion of Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, a wonderful short about a bet that Herzog loses to Errol Morris and....well, the title says it all. Probably the best "making of" documentary of all time, Burden of Dreams is as dramatic as the film it is documenting (if not more). And finally, for the region-free set, there is a beautiful UK release of three films by Jean-Luc Godard, the second of hopefully many such volumes. This one contains Pierrot le Fou, the rarely seen Made in U.S.A., and the 80s classic Prénom Carmen. (These are VAST improvements over the Region-1 Fox Lorber releases of Pierrot and Carmen!) Stacked neatly in a pile in front of him, Filmbrain wonders if he'll ever find the time to watch them all. . .

Comments

[Laurie Gallardo]

Thank you for mentioning 'A Face in the Crowd,' a favorite of mine that I feel must be seen to be believed. 'Tis true; Andy Griffith was never the same to me after seeing his performance in this film. Unbelievable. Almost bizarre.

[Filmbrain]

As cynical as Schulberg is, I wonder if he ever imagined that much of what the film addressed would become reality.

[Flickhead]

While the Kazan film is infinitely superior, imagine "Face in the Crowd" back to back with "Wag the Dog" . . . !

Were you aware that Dolly Bell herself appears in Chabrol's "Les Bonnes Femmes"? Huh? Didja??

[Filmbrain]

Why...no, I wasn't. That's an amazing bit of trivia Flickhead. (Who does she play in the Chabrol film?)

I did, however, eat in the Dolly Bell restaurant in Prague.

[dvd]

It's a fine day for Criterion releases - Burdern Of Dreams is the most exciting (although I wish it came in a box-set with Hearts Of Darkness), but don't forget about Hoop Dreams and Life Aquatic, both hitting shelves this morning as well.

[girish]

I'm a big fan of Fritz Lang's "Fury", his first Hollywood movie. It's dark & vengeful and has a courtroom scene in which "documentary" footage is introduced as evidence--a "film-within-a-film" with all the moral ambiguities of moviemaking and its capacity for truth/lying. And all this in 1936....pretty cool.

[la depressionada]

all through the 60s the my cinephile-dad spoke of 2 movies in hushed tones: "they never show them because they're that good and they're afraid." although when i was really little it was unclear who "they" were, by the time i was six or seven it became clear who they were. they were the people, who, you know, didn't agree with us: dow chemical, robert mcnamara (and other assorted hawks), pope paul, republicans, william paley and anyone who didn't revere fdr as a god.

the two movies were: the manchurian candidate and a face in the crowd. every time the andy griffith show came on my father would mutter about arthur godfrey and the ukelele and how people who bought his homespun schtick were idiots.

[Filmbrain]

Wasn't it Sinatra that prevented The Manchurian Candidate from being shown for many years?

Between What Makes Sammy Run and his leftist bent, Budd Schulberg was public enemy number one in Hollywood. It's no wonder A Face in the Crowd was rarely shown.

[Ryan]

A Face in the Crowd, Fury, Chain Gang, etc., are all fine films, but the pick of the litter is Otto Preminger's breathless exploration of legislative politics, Advise and Consent, which is perhaps the most sharply-observed picture ever made about an American institution. And it's a doozy of a story, with Preminger's characteristically balanced and sober approach providing a counterpoint to the simpleminded agitprop that passes for political cinema these days. It's also particularly relevant in light of the recent political machinations on John Bolton's nomination, among others.

And Criterion really needs to get going on a Pierrot le fou disc.

[Flickhead]

In "Les Bonnes Femmes" Dolly Bell plays...Dolly Bell! She's the exotic dancer in the nightclub when the two guys take the two girls out on the town.

[cinetrix]

I'll be interested to hear about the quality of Made in USA. I got to see Anthology's print one weekday morning years ago. Man, the crazy dragonfly eye makeup on Anna... Plus, of course, the whole obscuring the person's name with nondiegetic gunshots and other noise that Tarantino lifted wholesale for the Bills....

[otis]

The 3 Godards are reviewed at http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=56683 but notice that all 3 of them have forced subtitles, a barbaric practice no DVD buyer should support. The good news is that other recent British DVDs of Godard movies come with optional subs, eg Week-end, La Chinoise and Detective.

[Filmbrain]

Otis --

You raise a good point -- there is no excuse for it. However, the Fox-Lorber releases of Carmen and Pierrot both had burned-in subs (which were hard to see at times). These prints (which come from Canal+) are such an improvement, that they are worth the forced subs (at least until Criterion gets around to releasing them!)

[Will Pfeifer]

A FACE IN THE CROWD is truly the gem of the set, and one of my favorite movies of all time. I agree that the screenplay is amazing, not just for the bite and energy in every line, but for the smooth structure and sophisticated sequences -- especially the rise of Lonesome and Vitajex. A few years ago, my wife found a copy of the original 1957 paperback edition of the screenplay (which I didn't even know existed!)complete with an intro from Elia Kazan.

[Sean]

Oddly, TCM was showing Face in the Crowd the same moment Bush was re-inaugurated this January.