Come Undone (2000/First Run DVD)/Philadelphia
(1993/Jonathan Demme/Sony/TriStar/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Vito (2011/HBO/First Run DVD)
Picture: C/B/C+ Sound: C+/B-/C+ Extras: D/B-/B Films: B-/C+/B
PLEASE
NOTE: The Philadelphia Blu-ray is limited to 3,000
copies and is available exclusively at the Screen Archives website which can be
reached at the link at the end of this review.
Now for
three different looks at gay issues and discourses in drama and documentaries
of note…
Sebastien
Lifshitz’s Come Undone (2000) is a
noted French drama about Mathieu (Jeremie Elkaim) coming to terms with his
homosexuality by way of an unexpectedly intense relationship with Cédric
(Stephane Rideau) who is far more open, cares less about what others think and
as their relationship gets more involved, the differences become an issue. Mathieu also has not explicitly told his
family about his private life, though his mother is starting to catch on.
Though
not a perfect film, though maybe it was more impressive upon release as we have
seen some of this before in ‘straight’ tales, this is very well acted, can be
more graphic than you might expect, yet never fake, caught up in any given
mode, is well cast, well acted and realistic enough throughout. This is one of the last good films to come
out of what was the Gay New Wave, overseas as it was made, but I can see why it
has good notoriety and a solid reputation.
It could have tried for more, but sticks with what works and is worth a
look.
There are
no extras.
After the
triumph of Silence Of The Lambs,
Jonathan Demme switched gears to make a drama about homophobia and the AIDS
Crisis (still going on 20 years after this film’s release) inspired in part by
an actor on his classic thriller suffering from the disease and passing away
soon after. The mixed result was Philadelphia
(1993) in which Tom Hanks revived his troubled career by playing a lawyer who
is fired from a law firm when he gets the illness and fights back.
Many
thought it was over a decade late in the making, I never bought the Hanks
relationship with Antonio Banderas, some oversimplifications gained criticism
including the famous Saturday Night Live
faux TV commercial skit (not included here) for action figures of the movie
characters and it does have more than its share of melodramatic moments that
never helped it then and have not allowed the film to age well.
Still, it
was better late than never, Denzel Washington plays an unusually role as a
fellow lawyer and friend before the disease hits who is asked to represent him
in court. Washington is impressive playing a subtle
range of inner turmoil as a man coping with his own homophobia, the homophobia
society programs us all to have and making vital choices that go beyond the
case, his longtime friend and his responsibilities to law and the truth.
It shows Philadelphia, but not
always enough or as a character, while the city is meant to be a symbol of
justice and the very origins of what this country stands for. It needed more of it. The Bruce Springsteen theme song was bold in
its time that a heterosexual icon would sing a song about dying of AIDS, but I
also thought the Neil Young song saved for the end of the film was underrated
and better than it got credit for being.
Despite
my complains and its flaws, Philadelphia
is still a serious attempt to deal with a serious issue that mainstream
Hollywood had not dared to do before and even as it becomes a courtroom drama
in the end, boasts a great supporting cast (Joann Woodward, Jason Robards and
Mary Steenburgen among them and some Demme regulars) but some of Demme’s more
off-beat sensibilities and sense of counterculture was badly needed here and as
an independent filmmaker, he never full recovered after this film. It is worth a look, but it will always be a
film that missed the mark for many including this viewer.
Extras
include another illustrated booklet on the film including an essay by Julie
Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds the Isolated Music Score in lossless DTS
Stereo by Howard Shore and repeats DVD extras including the feature length
audio commentary track by Demme and writer Ron Nyswaner, plus standard
definition Deleted Scenes, the Original Theatrical Trailer, vintage Behind The Scenes
featurette and Courthouse Protest Interview & Footage.
Finally
we have Jeffrey Schwarz’s Vito
(2011), a documentary about Vito Russo.
Film scholars will recognize him as the author of the landmark book The Celluloid Closet, which also became
a classic documentary, but political, historical and gay scholars know him as a
landmark activist who fought for gay rights intensely and non-stop until AIDS
took his life too soon in 1990.
Politicized in the late 1960s from riots that led to the Gay Rights
Movement, Russo was way ahead of his time fighting for equality, exposing
institutionalized homophobia in society and in the thousands of movies he loved
and ingeniously brought it all together to help everyone, gay, straight and
otherwise, wake up to the rotten path the nation was on.
His work
helped make the 1970s possible, specially in New York City, but he was also the
first to understand the rollback politics in store when The Reagan
Administration totally ignored the AIDS crisis as part of their awful
revisionist agenda for the United States that caused the AIDS crisis to take
hold to this day, allow millions of lives to be ruined, a death toll that
continues to rise grow and all the gains of the Civil Rights Movement die along
with so many who populated it.
Unlike
the safe world of Demme’s Philadelphia,
this is the real thing, no one here is part of a money, legal or educated
elite, though there are very smart people, some lawyers, some financially
successful people and some of the latter are criticized by Russo for putting
material things over people in the most profound statement he may have ever
made. This is a portrait long overdue
and is surprisingly extensive about his love of film and its correlation with
his view, vision and understanding of the world around him, a better world and
the real politic of being a gay male.
This is
some great documentary work here and no matter who you are, this is a must-see
piece, especially since it is a key view on how once a political group decided
they could throw away one group and get away with it, they could move onto
anyone else they did not like and that is happening as you read this.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary track by Schwarz, Arnie Kantrowitz,
Michael Schiavi & Barbara Gittings very much worth hearing after seeing the
film, interview outtakes and some great classic clips from Vito Russo’s own
interview show Our Time that are priceless, including one of the first on TV
anywhere about the AIDS Crisis, one with Harvey Fierstein with his incredible Torch Song Trilogy success and four
others that show Russo at his journalistic best. This release shows just what a giant Vito
Russo was not just in the gay community, but as an American Original!
The
letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image on Undone
is a bit soft, but was shot on Kodak 35mm film and still has some nice
shots. This deserves an HD release. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Philadelphia is
the best performer here as expected, shot by Director of Photography Tak
Fujimoto, A.S.C., who has always worked with Demme and we get some softness
throughout, though note that some of this comes from close-ups in which the
focus might go in and out slightly as it did on Silence Of The Lambs. You
can see some light grain, but this is pretty much how the film should look. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Vito is a mix of old film, old
analog video and new HD video, very well edited and well presented.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Undone
and Vito are just fine for the
format and have faint Pro Logic surrounds, but some sound is basic stereo
(Undone has more than a few dialogue-based moments) and Vito has some old monophonic audio.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Philadelphia
can be towards the front speakers because it is dialogue-based, but it is still
the sonic champ here and an early digital sound film release. Shore’s music sounds better in the isolated
track often than the film, but that track has none of the vocal music.
As noted
above, Philadelphia can be ordered while supplies
last at:
www.screenarchives.com
- Nicholas Sheffo
