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DIRECTORS ON DISK
Conan the Barbarian (1982) Directed by John Milius
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Executive producer Dino De Laurentiis was originally concerned that audiences wouldn't understand German bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger who had been cast to play Robert E. Howard's
Conan. Director and co-screenwriter (with Oliver Stone) John Milius replied, "Dino, if we didn't have Arnold, we'd have to build him." This story and more are offered in the hour-long documentary
Conan Unchained included on the Universal Home Video DVD release of the film which made Schwarzenegger a star. Also interviewed are Stone, Schwarzenegger, actors Max von Sydow, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez and James Earl Jones, stunt coordinator Terry Leonard and production designer Ron Cobb. When Milius was hired to direct, he rewrote the script and gave the story a grounding in history, particularly the Dark Ages. "Everything has a reflection of something that did exist," Milius explains. "Every single cart, every single weapon, everything has to have a sense of practicality to it." When the film opened, a number of animal rights' activists voiced protest over a scene where a horse falls through a row of spikes. They were convinced the horse had been impaled. Milius told them to watch the film closer and particularly notice that a stuntman went through the spikes first. "Do you think a stuntman was also hurt?" he asked. "The spikes are rubber." The disk also features a running commentary with Milius and
Schwarzenegger.
-Ted Elrick
The Guns of Navarone (1961) Directed by J. Lee Thompson
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Fortunately director J. Lee Thompson got most of the shots he needed involving the Greek Navy for this classic World War II adventure film about a desperate commando mission to destroy two massive German guns. He only needed a patrol boat for a scene where the Germans stop the commandos, led by Gregory Peck. As Thompson explains in his commentary on this Columbia Home Video DVD release, "I was a little too insistent on having a big explosion." The explosion was so big, it blew out the bottom of the Greek Navy's patrol boat sending it straight to the bottom. A very realistic sequence, needless to say, the Navy immediately pulled its support from the film. Thompson says that he doesn't like storyboards, feeling they're too restrictive. Instead he makes his own sketches, which, he confesses, only he can interpret because they are drawn so badly. He draws these while rehearsing that day's sequence with the actors. "As you see a scene rehearsed, you realize where you have to put your emphasis." Also included on the disk are numerous featurettes, a trailer and a made-for-DVD-release documentary by Michael Matessino,
Memories of Navarone, featuring interviews with Thompson, Peck and co-stars Anthony Quinn and James Darren.
-T.E.
Three Kings (1999) Directed by David O. Russell
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Director David O. Russell speaks with passion about the effort involved in bringing
Three Kings to the screen during his commentary on Warners' spiffy new DVD. Apparently, Russell spent some considerable time in South America during periods of unrest, and gained practical experience of political insurrection which came in handy for this film about the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War. Starting with a premise that is derived from earlier genre efforts such as
Kelly's Heroes (1970) and Inside Out (1975), Three Kings takes a darker turn as it dwells more on the consequences facing the civilians caught in the face of the retreating forces of Saddam. Rather than being a straightforward "caper" movie,
Kings tackles the human issues and forces the nominal heroes to act in a conscientious and responsible manner. Russell gives many reasons for his decisions and talks candidly about his concerns during production. He had not handled a large scale picture before, his previous movies being
Spanking the Monkey and Flirting With Disaster. Knowledgeable about techniques and camera stocks, Russell and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigal devised a look for the desert scenes known as "Bleached Bypass," which takes the familiarity out of the Arizona locations and replicates the authentic imagery of the Gulf War from news media photographs of the time. The visual techniques that are deployed include fresh and interesting ways to delineate the stress of gunplay, infuse the film with a skewed perspective that does much to bolster its reputation as an above-average war-themed thriller. On an additional track producers Charles Roven and Edward McDonnell discuss the exigencies of the shoot. The usual EPK is included along with a video-diary shot by the director during pre-production.
-Nick Redman
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