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Directors on Disk
The X-Files
The Complete Third Season
Directed by (Various)
Continuing their release of every episode on DVD, these FOX home video releases are packed with behind-the-scenes information about this landmark TV series. Unfortunately, audio commentaries from the directors do not appear on every episode, however the two that do are very informative. Director Rob Bowman and writer Darin Morgan share the track on "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," each perfectly complementing the other with scene specific anecdotes. "There are stories about going backward and forward in time," Bowman says. "[For this episode] I felt that the visual metaphor I could use [to demonstrate that] was whip panning camera left to right for going forward in time, and whip panning camera right to left for going backward in time. Whether or not anybody notices intellectually, I think it does have an effect." On "Apocrypha," director Kim Manners and writer and executive producer Chris Carter share similar info. According to Carter, "Apocrypha" was one of the most ambitious and expensive they had yet attempted for the series. There were a large number of actors and locations. Manners talked about the difficulties inherent in shooting such an ambitious episode. For instance, shooting a sequence in an actual hospital emergency room and only having three hours to get the scene. He confessed that there was always a knot in his stomach because he knew they might have to shut down immediately if a real emergency victim came into the hospital. "Fortunately, it was a quiet night," Manners relates. On a separate disc of deleted scenes, Carter, who was directing his second episode, "The List," talks about how directing made him realize how to better streamline the story by eliminating scenes that weren't crucial to the story's focus. Also on the disc is a special documentary, "The Truth About Season Three," featuring interviews with a number of directors, writers and other creative individuals. Carter feels this season was the most exciting because "we really saw what the show could be beyond just a good scary show." Manners adds, "Once we started season three, scripts started to get bigger and Rob Bowman and I started to stretch our wings creatively." Also included are special effects sequences with commentary by visual effects producer Mat Beck, and much more.
V: The Original Miniseries
Directed by Kenneth Johnson
On the audio commentary for this Warner Bros. home video release, director/writer Kenneth Johnson talks about the problems of shooting an epic scale action/sci-fi story — aliens conquering Earth and a resistance arising to oppose them — on a miniseries schedule. The series was greenlit two and a half weeks before shooting. Lead actor Mark Singer was cast on Friday and began work on Monday. Johnson talks about the advantages of using multiple cameras to cover action shots under the tight constraints of a miniseries. It allowed him to extend action through judicious editing by showing the same shot over again but from a different angle. Johnson shares many details on this four-hour commentary.
A Roundup of
World Cinema on DVD
As everyone with substantial collections of movies on home video already knows, The Criterion Collection, an offshoot of the Voyager Company and Janus Films, has been responsible for a prodigious output of quality product.
Among some of Criterion's most recent entries (of special interest to directors) are the following: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going (1945); a delightful comedy set in the wild and woolly Scottish Hebrides features a lovely documentary on the film as well as a montage of behind-the-scenes stills narrated by Powell's widow, Thelma Schoonmaker, and an enlightening audio essay by Ian Christie.
Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960), a lavish two-disc set includes a wonderful commentary by Gene Youngblood and an insightful Italian doumentary on the director that reveals much of his methodology. Jack Nicholson pays homage as well by reading aloud from Antonioni's writings and offering his personal thoughts on working with the great man.
Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955), a May-September romance starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, features excerpts from a BBC film about Sirk entitled Behind the Mirror — the director talks on camera for an hour about his life and times. In a separate segment on the disc, Rainer Werner Fassbinder waxes lyrical in words and pictures on Sirk's filmic influence.
Bruce Robinson, the 'I' in Withnail and I (1986) is extensively interviewed in the Channel 4 documentary from England included on the DVD — and he now amusingly resembles "I" again. Tousled, bleary and weary, Robinson offers his recollections on the picture and its turbulent history. It is now the object of a fervent cult of teenagers who spout Robinson's lines and imitate the tortured Withnail.
Ingmar Bergman's brutal howl of pain, Cries and Whispers (1972), has never looked more gorgeous than on Criterion's disc, but it is still one of the most anguished movies in the history of film. The gem of the release is a new film on Bergman made for Swedish television last year called Ingmar Bergman: Reflections on Life, Death, and Love with Erland Josephson — It'll make you want to sit through Bergman's entire canon again.
John Schlesinger's surreal adaptation of Waterhouse and Hall's Billy Liar (1963) is ripe for rediscovery in this new translucent transfer. Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie (in a dry run for Doctor Zhivago) dazzle in this dark comedy and their memories, along with Schlesinger's, are hugely enjoyable on the accompanying audio commentary. The director's strange ability to show British working-class life as if it was happening on another planet has never been more in evidence than here — and it's a treat.
Finally, Preston Sturges' classic Sullivan's Travels (1942) is on DVD and is the recipient of the Criterion treatment — Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake shimmer in vibrant black-and-white, and the disc features a commentary by directors Kenneth Bowser, Noah Baumbach, Christopher Guest and actor Michael McKean whose witty admiration for the film is affectionately dispersed. If that isn't good enough, Kenneth Bowser's PBS American Masters film Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer is presented in its full 76-minute glory.
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