Diva
(1981/Meridian Collection/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
With
its striking images, I had not outright remembered Jean-Jacques
Beineix's Diva (1981) until I watched this new DVD, one of the
initial Meridian Collection releases from Lionsgate. When I saw it,
I saw a new potential for French cinema and looking at it now, I
asked myself immediately ''what happened!?!'' then investigated and
can see how quickly the good intents of this film had a very quick
rise and fall.
There
is a story here. One about a young man who is interested in a
beautiful singer, illegally tapes her concert, gets chased for the
tape, has the tape switched that show a political elite involved with
a crime and all hell breaks loose. It is a good story the director
penned with Jean Van Hamme and has not dated too badly. However, it
did not stay with me and should have been a launching point for a
bigger career and maybe new wave of French cinema. Instead, it
turned out to backfire and ruin French cinema in so many ways for
more of the last quarter century that I could have ever imagined at
the time.
Before
the laughable, horrendous Dogme '95 movement, this film invented a
short-lived style called 'Cinema du look' that made the film's look
more manicured, beautiful and slicker than they had in a long time.
This was not the first time French cinema enjoyed this, which you can
see by films from their silent era (Children Of Paradise being
a prime example and the Jacques Tati comedies (Playtime)
qualify) to sound films including Truffaut's work, but apparently,
three directors thought the original French New Wave did not look
good enough or any other French films at that!
So
who are these filmmakers and what did they do? Beineix moved on to
make the confused, problematic and overrated Betty Blue and
the original version of the obnoxious The Diving Bell & The
Butterfly. Leos Carax made Boy Meets Girl before
abandoning the movement for the likes of Pola X. That leaves
Luc Besson, who turned in into a slick ''style over substance''
sellout that has produced some of the worst French films of all time,
often directed by himself. They include The Fifth Element, La
Femme Nikita and Leon, all good looking, but all
problematic no mater how much money they made. The bad filmmaking he
is responsible for inspiring since he abandoned Cinema du look is
immeasurable and if you look at his filmography as producer and
director, you'll see more bombs and duds. You can see why the
movement began to die in 1984 and was tapped out by the early 1990s.
As
for this film, you can see where it might have been going before the
bottom fell out and fell hard. It did not need to be about anything
politically, but since it inevitably was about nothing but being
slick, what did they expect? The one good thing that came out of
this was the work of cinematographer Phillippe Rousselot, who moved
onto The Emerald Forest, Hope & Glory, Too
Beautiful For You, Henry & June, The People vs.
Larry Flint, The Tailor of Panama, The Brave One
and The Great Debaters, showing that a great look can enhance
a narrative instead of distract form the lack of one. I was
expecting that from all involved at the time, but at least his work
continues to be top rate, even when working with a famous U.S.
director with more style than substance of late, Tim Burton.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.66 X 1 image is softer than I expected
considering the claim that this came from a new print and transfer
approved by the director, despite some softness that is intended.
The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono has dated-sounding dialogue and a
score that sometimes even sounded warped, which is bad for a film
with a music emphasis. Vladimir Cosma's score deserves better too,
as does the singing here. Extras include on camera interviews with
the cast/crew, Beineix, Rousselot and set designer Hilton McConnico,
all introduced by Phil Powrie, who wrote a book on the director. You
also get scene-specific audio commentary by Beineix.
UPDATE:
After several problematic DVD releases including this one over the
years, all with horizontal stretching of some kind, plus other
unnecessary tampering, Kino has finally issued the film on Blu-ray
and 4K disc with lossless sound. There is still softness and slight
stretching on the Blu-ray version (we have yet to see the 4K
edition,) but outside of the relative photo-realism of the very old
2001 Anchor Bay U.S. DVD, this is the best the film has looked. Can
the 4K version be better?
-
Nicholas Sheffo
