The Freethinker – Special 2-Disc DVD Set (1992 Telefilm/New Yorker)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Telefilm: B-
Once in a
while, every auteur tries to stop being one because of some political belief, a
sense of peaking as an artist or an evasion of self. Brian De Palma and Robert Altman went back to
film school as teachers to do film projects in group form, but when Jean-Luc
Godard abandoned the French New Wave for his “Maoist” films and then some
advanced analog video experiments, it was the biggest rejection of artistic
success any director ever pulled. He
returned to film, but the two new cycles were not as prolific as the first,
especially the Mao works. Feeling he
peaked and concerned with the world at large, Peter Watkins did the same thing.
After a
series of films so groundbreaking that they faced censorship at every turn up
to 1971’s Punishment Park (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) abandoned filmmaking for good and retreated to TV in
1975 with his portrait of Edvard Munch
we have now reviewed in two versions on DVD.
The Freethinker is the 6th
of 7 TV projects he has made to 2000 that try an anti-media pattern and have
far more Leftist leanings than his films ever suggested. Unfortunately, this comes with the usual
failings and trappings of such thinking and trying to do productions as group
efforts means he loses control of any points beyond the obvious you would get
from such works.
Never
drifting into Stalinism, the subject of this portrait is of Johan August
Strindberg (1849 – 1912) who became a major writer of novels and plays, known
for being groundbreaking and innovative.
This included psychologically complex content and criticism of the 19th
Century society that is so ahead of its time that many still do not know who he
is. Watkins and company did new research
to find out more about the man and the result is a document that uncovers new
facts and expresses new ideas about his life, focusing in particular on his
first marriage. The result is a
priceless document on the man, but unfortunately, a very long work that runs
over 4.5 hours!
He also
used innovative visual tricks and images in his plays, some of which Watkins
recreates here, but this is just far too long and choppy to be as effective as
it could be. By fighting against the
multi-media “monoform” his TV works have been working against, he has
(accidentally?) created a new Monoform with which important ideas are rendered
ancillary and gives new meaning to “too many chefs spoiling the soup” as the
long-way approach just is not the scenic route it should be. If you have immense patience, you will want
to give this a look. Otherwise, you are
on your own.
The 1.33
X 1 image was shot in Beta SP and it shows, with softness throughout, color
limits, stills with detail loss, slight yellowing here and there and very hard
to tolerate at 274 minutes! It plays
like “Mr. Linear History” Ken Burns works for PBS, minus the institutionalized
racism and with a brain, but Watkins fared better with La Commune (also on DVD from New Yorker) despite many of the same
content and form issues. He ought to go
back and redo the still footage. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is better, but still shows its age. The combination is trying, making the
drawn-out aspects of this presentation even more so.
The DVDs
have no extras, but the case contains a 16-page booklet with production
information, self-interview, copyright statement and new letter about how he is
less optimistic about the world situation versus when he made this fifteen
years ago. I think the real change will
arrive when his older filmed work is restored & rediscovered, but that
cannot happen soon enough. We’ll wait
for more.
- Nicholas Sheffo