Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by rico (A) on March 30, 2007 at 14:09:54

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Early Bergman works see the light, thanks to Eclipse

By Louis R. Carlozo
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 27, 2007

Those familiar with Criterion Collection know the New York-based company has spent close to 20 years preserving, polishing and presenting enough cinematic gems to turn even the casual collector's library into a de facto film museum: From Fellini to Fuller, Kurosawa to Kubrick, the directors in Criterion's catalog are those very auteurs who changed and created modern moviemaking.

I picked D.A. Pennebaker's 1968 documentary "Monterey Pop" as one of my favorite DVDs of 2006, and waited with bated breath for the most thorough restoration of 1954's "The Seven Samurai" to date (which entailed tackling some 300,000 frames, one by one). This year promises to be no less exciting for Criterion with the introduction of something new this week -- its Eclipse line.

"We've never launched a second line before," says Criterion president Peter Becker. "We've always had a very clear mission as a company: to present films as their makers would want them seen, and expand the awareness and enjoyment of film culture. With Eclipse, we decided these were films people needed to know, and we wanted to create the cinematheque experience for the home viewer."

With the release of "E arly Bergman" ($69.95), Eclipse hopes to shed light on movies overshadowed by the major works of the directors who made them. So while most foreign film buffs know Ingmar Bergman for "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries," the five features here, spanning 1944-49, will be unknown to all but the most devoted and scholarly ("Torment," "Crisis," "Port of Call," "Thirst" and "To Joy"). Still, the volume bears Bergman's artistic stamp: psychological intrigue, hardscrabble environments, captivating visuals.

"We wanted you to experience the early Bergman films the way you would at a film forum anywhere across the country," Becker says. "Unless you have a cinematheque in your town, you probably wouldn't see these titles for 10 years at a time. These films are hard to find."

There's also the matter of setting history straight. Prior to 1957's "The Seventh Seal," American audiences didn't know what to make of the Swedish director -- in part because American film promoters gave them the wrong idea. "Bergman's films were treated as skin flicks," Becker says. "
'Summer With Monika' [1953] was marketed in the U.S. as 'Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl' with a butt shot on the poster." (That same year, "Sunset of a Clown" became "The Naked Night" here.)

Next in the Eclipse series April 24 will be "The Documentaries of Louis Malle" ($79.95), dedicated to seven non-fiction films by the French director. "Here's a filmmaker who was so successful in his feature career, making international classics like 'Murmur of the Heart' or 'Au Revoir Les Enfants' that were big box-office hits," Becker says. "And yet through his career -- not just at the beginning -- he was dedicated to making documentaries. To him, it was the purest expression of filmmaking. I am quite confident if he had not made feature films, we would know him as one of the greatest documentarians that ever lived."

The films in the Malle package range from 1962's "Vive le Tour," a nearly wordless meditation on a French auto plant, to 1985's "God's Country," a PBS film that examines prosperity turned to near poverty in America's heartland.

"Eclipse is a way to dig deeper, to discover the depth of a particular artist, series or movement," Becker says. "Seeing these things all in a row colors the way you see them. ... They talk to each other, and it's exciting."

A 4-year-old soldier's 'Munro' doctrine

The latest from the outstanding Scholastic Video Collection, "Noisy Nora . . . and More Stories About Mischief" ($14.95), contains a bonus selection that really doesn't deserve to be buried. Then again, the boy soldier at the heart of the story is used to all sorts of mistreatment.

"Munro" won an Oscar for best animated short subject in 1960, and this reel (based on the Jules Feiffer story) has hysterical -- even subversive -- resonance nearly 50 years later. The bratty 4-year-old boy of the title gets drafted into the army -- where he learns to clean, salute and shoot with the best of them. When he tries to explain "I'm only 4," he gets the runaround from everyone: the nasty drill sergeant, the faux-compassionate chaplain, the swaggering general. It all leads to a ticker-tape parade and a blathering speech of patriotic platitudes.

Two questions for the Scholastic folks: Why not gather a boxed set that includes "Munro" and the other stellar shorts of Gene Deitch -- an unsung animation great and American expat who built his career in Prague?

And second: Why shroud the reappearance of this delightful cartoon instead of playing it up?

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Out next week on DVD: "All That Jazz," "The Brady Bunch: The Complete Series," "Charlotte's Web," "Death of a President," "Entourage (Season 3, part 1), "The Good Shepherd," "Law & Order" (Season 5), "The Natural," "Twin Peaks" (Season 2).

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Got a DVD question or quandary? Write to Louis R. Carlozo at lcarlozo@tribune.com. Include your name and hometown, and your question could wind up in a future On the Small Screen column.

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