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Movies Forum Index » International Movies Forum » DVD extras
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| septimus |
 Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:15 pm |
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I've never been the biggest fan of DVD extras. Interviews
with cast and directors are always welcome, but deleted
scenes, director's audio commentary etc seldom interested
me. Maybe it's just that DVD's of my favorite films almost
never have director's commentaries. I was tempted by
the _Three Women_ audio track, but I only had time to
watch it once, and it doesn't make sense to have that audio
track on when one watches a movie for the first time.
I did watch a lot of the extras in the Criterion edition of
_In the Mood for Love_. The deleted scenes are interesting --
some confirm what I suspected about what happened in the story,
some contradicted it. I'm glad they are not included, on the
whole. The chance meeting between Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung
in Cambodia would be too much of a coincidence, while the return
of Tony to their apartment complex, bitchy girlfriend in tow, is
jarring in tone. . What is perhaps most interesting is that all
of Tony Leung's emotional scenes are cut out. He suffers
silently, inside, so that the scene where he confides to a hole
in the temple wall becomes so much more interesting. And perhaps,
watching those extra scenes, I come to think of him as someone
who once upon a time (or perhaps in a parallel life?) let himself
go, let it all hangs out, and now has resigned himself, well aware
of the futility of hysterics, during the time frame of _In the
Mood for Love_. So these absent scenes deepen his character.
Of course I always think of Maggie Cheung's character that way too.
In the interviews, Wong comes off as strangely inarticulate. He
is always that way, dreamy and laconic -- reminds me of Neil
Jordan. Maggie Cheung is not terribly fluent in Cantonese
either, which is no surprise because she grew up in Britain.
Tony Leung, on the other hand, is amazingly well spoken. His
real life persona displayed here is almost the same as his character
in _In the Mood_.
What else have I seen. Kieslowski's Trilogy DVD is full of extras.
There is far more stuff here than your average Criterion release.
Many of the interviews (and commentary by Insdorf) are very good.
I'm particularly impressed by Binoche's and Jacob's interviews.
They have insightful things to say about their character. I see
that Irene Jacob is as modest as ever (one of the qualities
Kieslowski also said of her). She says that she's made lots of
films, some of which are highly successful at the time, but are
forgotten in a few years. It is _Red_ and _Double Life_ that
her fans still write to her about. One of her films directed
by Alan Wade, _Pornographer: a love story_ (costarring Martin
Donovan and apparently has nothing to do with pornography) is
finally making its rounds on the festival circuits. I wish I
caught it a the Tribeca festival.
I did saw the commentary on _The Sleepy Time Gal_ by Munch and Bisset.
This is actually the first time I've ever listened to a director's
commentary.I'm really glad I did. It told me tons of things
I never knew about NYC. perhaps next time I'd go visit Washtington
Heights, the setting of many of the NYC scenes. His commentary on
the still photos used are incredibly evocative. Munch comes off as
incredibly modest and generous; there isn't a single actor whom
he fails to praise on the audio track.
I didn't know the film took so long to make. It started out in 96 or 97
and was wrapped in 2000. That accounts for its emotional depth, and
the feel ingthat these lives are rich and real, and stuff is happening
offscreen and we only get to see glimpses of them.
At one point Bisset tried to bait Munch to talk about the
autobiographical elements -- her character is obviously based on
his mother -- and he didn't take the bait. And I was
shocked and amused that Bisset had to stay at Motel 6 while the
film was being shot. I thought I'd sit for a chapter or so of
the commentary, but I stayed up till 3 for it all. Cinematically
it is not the greatest film ever made, and Munch himself was apologetic
about the lack of camera tricks in some scenes, but there is something
so
large, so emotionally expansive in its strangely restrained way, so ...
American? (in the best sense of the word) about this "small" film that
I
am just head over heels in love with it. |
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