Tales Of The City (Armistead Maupin)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Episodes: B-

 

 

The critical acclaim of the book and TV mini-series Tales Of The City have been so big, that these days, that kind of hype usually leads to disappointment and usually seems artificially enhanced.  This says something sad about the critical establishment since the late 1970s, when innovative film and TV go ahead of most of them.  Fortunately, the acclaim here is on the money for the most part.

 

Laura Linney stars as naïve Mary Ann Singleton (with intertextual references to The Mary Tyler Moore and Phyllis for good measure), who has arrived in the mid 1970s to find herself and live in San Francisco, the San Francisco that was a center of Gay and Women’s rights.  She immediately makes some good friends and a few of them are not who or what they seem to be.  The mini-series tries to recreate that era and has a strong teleplay by Richard Kramer based on Armistead Maupin’s phenomenal book.  This has great ideas, strong ideas, strong storylines, and is bold enough to allow a bi-sexual character to be none too good.  That kind of political incorrectness brings a grounded reality to the series that makes up for a few other things.  For one thing, this never authentically feels like the 1970s, despite the accurate clothes, decors, cars and abundance of great music and TV materials licensed.  There are still not enough Pop Culture references or visuals (i.e., no ads form the period whatsoever), nor do the characters feel like they are part of the era, attitudes of the time rarely surface in that period.  There is still a restrictiveness that gives away that it is a recent production form the early 1990s.  Compare, for instance, to Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (2000) for example.

 

What happens instead is that the film creates its own surrealistic world without trying, where the diversity of characters are void of any stereotypical leanings and is a constantly smart show with no moment wasted.  That is not easy in any TV series of any kind, but director Alastair Reid shows great judgment in his choices throughout, making it as much of a document of then as of now.  It becomes a triumphant statement against the rollbacking of the 1980s and points towards the future with great pride and optimism for all, no matter who they are.  Any work that upsets the censorship-crazy, proto-Fascist “Reverend” Donald Wildmon can only be deemed a work of art, but this is terrific viewing that especially deserves to be seen on DVD.  The less commercial breaks, the better it works, and there are none here.

 

The incredible, outstanding cast includes Olympia Dukakis as her landlady, Donald Moffat, Chloe Webb, William Campbell, Thomas Gibson, Nina Foch, Edie Adams, Robert Downey Sr., Mary Kay Place, Parker Posey, McLean Stevenson (yes, he did finally do more quality TV before he passed away), Paul Gross, Stanley DeSantis, Barbara Garrick, Cynda Williams, Paul Dooley, Michael Jeeter, Bob Mackie, Ian McCellan, Rod Steiger, Don Novello as Father Sarducci and Marcus D’Amico.  That is the kind of great cast all mini-series of this intelligence deserves.

 

The full frame 1.33 x 1 image looks good and was shot nicely on film by cinematographer Walt Lloyd.  Though there is nothing extraordinary or fancy, it is very consistent and always has a sense of place.  Color is consistent throughout and the prints are one of those rare instances where they really are pristine.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has healthy Pro Logic surrounds and dialogue and licensed music play back well, as does the original music by John E. Keane.  This is a fine presentation.  Extras include a booklet in the foldout that contains the DVDs on DigiPaks, audio commentaries by Maupin, director Reid, Dukakis, Linney and Garrick on episodes 1, 3 and 6.  They are all well done.  DVD 1 has nine behind the scenes, extensive cast filmographies, a Maupin biography with bibliography, leaving the remaining commentaries on DVDs 2 & 3 respectively.  Acorn Media has done a winning job of putting together a package very worthy of the content.

 

The beginning and ending are bookmarked by explicit references to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), with a trip to a museum with certain paintings from that film also thrown in.  These turn out to be amusing, instead of pretentious and is not insulting.  What is interesting is another film the series made me think of, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), which also has its own surreal city and dealings with diverse sexuality.  Even Thomas Gibson was cast from this mini-series, partly as a doppelganger for Tom Cruise’s character.  Another layer of that film became clearer after a serious sitting through this mini-series.  Tales Of The City is one of those too-rare television events that simply become better with age.  We can’t wait to take a closer look at the sequel series.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo