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Directors on Disk
Best in Show
(2001) Directed by Christopher Guest
Director Christopher Guest in his best mockumentary fashion turns to the world of dog shows for Best in Show. It's a delightful group of zany individuals who fuss, pamper and preen their pooches on their way to the Super Bowl for dogs. You might guess that the audio commentary on this DVD release of the film would be filled with the same spontaneous wit featured in the film, and you'd be right. No sooner does the Castle Rock logo appear in the opening credits than Guest comments, "This is a lighthouse. We shot this up in Nova Scotia and then treated it to make it look like it was animated." Joining Guest for the commentary is his co-screenwriter and fellow actor Eugene Levy, and mixed with the deadpan humor is considerable info on making the film. "The way these movies are made -- this movie, Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman -- these are improvised movies based on a story that Eugene and I write," Guest comments. "There's no rehearsal, the camera turns on, they speak." And by following along with Guest and Levy, one gets to catch some of the jokes that may have been missed. For instance, when Levy and Catherine O'Hara check into a hotel in Philadelphia, all the clocks to show times in other cities on the wall behind the front desk are set for the Eastern time zone. There's Boston, Philadelphia, New York.... Also included on the disk is a plethora of deleted scenes, seventeen in all, with commentary by Guest. Perhaps the most difficult part of making this film was deciding what to leave out
Dancer in the Dark
(2000) Directed by Lars Von Trier
New Line's super Platinum Series, a line of DVDs that illustrates the potential of the medium, continues with Von Trier's experimental musical -- a bleak, harrowing, controversial work of art that clearly is not for all tastes. Utilizing his trademark digital video methodology, Dancer in the Dark is a curious hybrid -- part naturalistic verité drama, and part fantastical stylized Hollywood throwback. The film centers on Selma, a young woman going rapidly blind, (played by Bjork) and her efforts to scrimp and save money for her young son's operation that may forestall the onset of blindness in him. Selma, an immigrant living in a depressed part of the American northwest, escapes her everyday situation by disappearing into a 'musical' world that evokes the safe unreality of song and dance, as personified in the movies she adores. Her participation in an amateur production of The Sound of Music fuels her flights of fantasy as her tenuous grip on life slips further away. As one of the creators of DOGMA 95, the technique that adheres to ten unshakeable principles, Von Trier is an artist in the vein of Tarkovsky -- not stylistically or thematically similar -- but equally relentless in his focused density, demanding the complete immersion of the viewer. In order to bring the musical segments to life, Von Trier and his collaborators elected to use 100 strategically placed cameras, some mounted, some hand-held, to capture as many angles (nuances) of performance as they could -- and by this extraordinary amount of coverage, the songs, composed and sung by Bjork, accompanied in certain instances by many dancers and extras, achieve a fluid, improvised feel, as if they just materialize out of someone's thoughts and dreams. In truth, it was all choreographed and rehearsed, but the multiplicity of available shots allowed for mistakes to become part of the fabric of the scene. As usual, New Line Home Video stacks the DVD deck, and provides two fascinating documentaries, one on the 100 Cameras and one on Vincent Paterson's choreography methods. Additionally, two audio commentaries are featured -- one with the director, and the other with key crewmembers.
Miss Congeniality
(2001) Directed by Donald Petrie
"With some intensive work, she'll be ready for the world's finest trailer park," laments Victor Melling (Michael Caine) as he attempts to transform a tomboy FBI agent (Sandra Bullock) into a beauty queen in order to infiltrate the pageant to thwart a terrorist plot. "One of the real challenges of this movie was to make Sandy Bullock unattractive and looking masculine," director Donald Petrie explains in one of two audio commentaries on the DVD version of the film. "To help with this unglamorous look, Laszlo Kovacs, the cinematographer, and I decided that when Sandy was in her ugly look we'd shoot her with shorter lenses, up close and keep the lighting somewhat flat and dark. Later in the movie when she becomes beautiful we used the longer lenses and added depth and color." Petrie goes into great detail about working with actors, script changes, editing and adding little such as making precise measurements to a set and hanging photos to achieve a visual gag. At one point in the film, surrounded by pictures of former contest winners, in an emotional moment, actress Candice Bergen, playing a former winner herself, stands and seems to slip into the crown worn by the winner in the photo behind her. The additional audio commentary track features Bullock, who also produced the film, and screenwriter Marc Lawrence. Also included are two "making of" documentaries.
The Life and Times of
Andy Warhol Superstar
(1990) Directed by Chuck Workman
"The fact that Andy Warhol was dead made the film more interesting for me because [the way the film was made] was of his character," director Chuck Workman explains in his audio commentary on this DVD version of his 1990 film about the legendary pop artist. "He loved to have all these people around talking about him. It gave us this Citizen Kane feeling of all these people talking about Andy, trying to define him." Beginning in Warhol's hometown of Pittsburgh with local news footage of his death and using Warhol's art to transition between locations, photos, film and interviews with siblings, cousins, and contemporaries of the New York art scene, Workman crafts a portrait shedding light on a high profile artist who still remains something of a mystery. Workman, who won a Best Short Film, Live Action Oscar for Precious Images which was produced by the DGA for its 50th anniversary in 1986, explains that he always tries to get "as much movie look in a documentary" as he can. He prefers to have transitions over narration, saying, "I think most people do not like scenes that are narrated. They're like textbooks and I hate them when I see them on television. I also try to avoid titles. I would often have [interview subjects identify themselves], saying, 'I'm so and so.' It would disconcert them a little but for the most part it did not interrupt the flow of the movie."
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