DVDs, 12/17.

We begin with a double dose of vintage Bernardo Bertolucci. Paramount Home Video released both the complete, five-hour 1900, as well as his earlier career-making The Conformist, presented in the same slightly expanded form in which it went on tour through revival houses earlier this year.

Bertolucci's interesting career more or less parallels certain tendencies in European cinema. He came in at the tail end of neorealism, as a disciple of Pasolini. Then he took a sharp turn toward what can be called classicism, reaching back to a style found in older films (carefully composed frames, tracking shots) in a manner not unlike Coppola, who was making The Godfather at around the same time that The Conformist came out.

While maintaining a semblance of that style, Bertolucci then took a plunge into Freud, but with the gay subtexts and political agenda of his films clashing vividly. Then he became a searcher of faiths, not unlike Scorsese. Of late, however, from about Stealing Beauty onward, his films look and feel more or less like everybody else's - plain and simple; muted in look, pace, feel and narrative. Both The Conformist, with its tale, adapted from Alberto Moravia, of a repressed homosexual (Jean-Louis Trintignant) rising and falling in Mussolini's Italy, and the sweeping, earthy tale of 1900, which follows two friends, one rich and one poor (Robert De Niro and G�rard Depardieu) as they cope with the political changes and warfare of the 20th century's first half, are high pitched blends of Bertolucci's visual, psychosexual, and narrative concerns.

If the public seem to have less enthusiasm for Bertolucci's newer work, reviews indicate a hardy appetite for his earlier films. Glenn Erickson, the DVD Savant, leads the charge of evaluation and reminiscence with his review of The Conformist. Beginning with the bold statement that for the "college crowd of the early 70s Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist was the pinnacle of classy, smart Italian filmmaking," he goes on to compare Bertolucci to his contemporaries: "The Conformist compares well to the work of other esteemed European directors. The picture has a lush look but sees no need to be epic in scope; the group dance scene with the tango is just as 'alive' as anything in a Visconti movie. Bertolucci also shows more restraint in this film than American Visconti admirers Coppola and Scorsese, who continually use his design and camera talent. The exotic visuals never seem like a series of empty special effects, and the final violence in the frozen woods proves that Less is More by avoiding overblown editorial fireworks." Summing up the virtues of the disc, he concludes that "Paramount's long-awaited DVD presents a perfect transfer of this gem. It reinstates a deleted scene and lets most of us hear the film's dialogue in Italian for the first time."

Jon Danziger at Digitally Obsessed is primarily enamored with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on whom he has a "man crush," before going on to track the film's ambiguities. "Much of the movie can be headspinning, and on first viewing you're never quite sure where the story is headed - it's almost like Bertolucci is cultivating that sense of imbalance in us, and we're learning more about Clerici and his world than we ever would in a more conventional narrative. You always sense his struggle - he wants to blend in, to be like everybody else, but he cannot rise above his interior life of dreams and memories. It's like he wants to be a company man, but can't suppress his individuality sufficiently, which, among other things, doesn't make him a very good Fascist."

Rob Lineberger at DVD Verdict echoes these sentiments, stating without ambiguity that "Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist is a great film," before going on quickly to modify that statement: "Like great novels or great works of music, The Conformist's greatness brings with it certain plusses and minuses. It is dense; impenetrably so. In fact, the experience of watching it becomes physically dizzying because there is so much to absorb and synthesize. It presents no easy answers. It is simultaneously stimulating and frustrating. And though the act of watching it demands much from you, The Conformist's artistry is undeniable," explaining his equivication by way of experience: "As I watched The Conformist, I grew increasingly frustrated. Its warped flashback structure made linear assumptions impossible, so it became a lyrical journey through intense, psychosexual, politically-laden symbolism. Marcello does absurd, giddy dance numbers in the austere hallways of The Fascist Regime. His mother is a dope-swilling ghoul while his father is a stark, lonely figure in a mental asylum. Leaves blow ominously."

Gary W Tooze of DVD Beaver focuses, as usual, on the disc's technology. Paramount are offering this Bertolucci masterpiece with three featurettes (with the director and DP Vittorio Storaro) in a strong 1.66 progressive transfer... This release is fabulous. Region coded for 1 + 4 (set to sell in South America as well) - there are subs and dubs in Portuguese and Spanish. The bold yellow subtitle font is a bit garish, but the transfer image is excellent - soft palette colors, crisp detail and very clean. Top marks to Paramount on the appearance."

One of the few reviewers to tackle the five-hour 1900 is Ryan Keefer at DVD Verdict. "Having not been exposed too much to the works of Bertolucci (aside from the later stuff), the only things I'd really known about 1900 were what Alexander Payne (Election) and others told me from an interesting documentary called Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. The market for this film is for many an art house, but to briefly sum up the history of the film as far as I understand it, when the film was first released, the concept of showing it in two halves just wasn't feasible, so Bertolucci compromised with producer Alberto Grimaldi (Gangs of New York) to release a shorter cut. So now, all 315 minutes of Bertolucci's vision finally come to American video buyers." He concludes that, "After seeing some decent recommendations of 1900, maybe my expectations were a little bit high when I popped this into the player. But where Best of Youth focuses more on the characters and the story the film tells, 1900 seems more in love with the ideas that are suggested, but doesn't provide many compelling things for the characters to do. I feel bad saying that I didn't like this, but c'est la vie."

At the opposite end of the scale of cinematic classicism is the offbeat Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, William Greaves's meta-film from 1968, now released on DVD by Criterion along with its modern companion, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½. At Digitally Obsessed, Jeff Wilson addresses this daunting work, weathering its complexities with sympathy. "For its first few minutes, I found it difficult to get involved with the goings-on, but as events and the questions raised by Greaves's editing unfold, it quickly becomes a fascinating experience. It's never made clear by Greaves what is scripted and what isn't; having shot more than 50 hours of footage, Greaves has a wide range of material to choose from, but focuses mainly on one pair of actors and the crew's mutinous discussion. The project becomes a perplexing mix of fact and fiction, but the catch is that you're never sure which is which. Greaves intended jazz as an inspiration for the film, and the Miles Davis score underlines that feel, as the director's visual riffs play with variations in theme and style."

The "sequel," co-produced by Steve Buscemi and Steven Soderbergh in 2003, "feels forced in many ways; what was spontaneous the first time around is often pre-arranged here with everyone's knowledge, which lessens the impact. Greaves, pushing 80, understandably takes a somewhat less involved role, which also affects the tone." Brendan Babish at DVD Verdict states plainly that Symbiopsychotxiplasm is "an experimental art film from 1968 that remained unreleased for over 20 years," adding that "while Symbiopsychotxiplasm is an innovative experiment in metacinema, it's really an embryonic reality program," and concluding that it's "an experimental film from an industrious filmmaker who takes complete advantage of the freewheeling 1960s to create a feature movie documenting the filmmaking process of said movie."

Preston Jones at DVD Talk offers the fullest account of the film, its making, its sequel, its context, and the current DVD. Calling it "unforgettable," Jones offers the best definition of the title word: "Social philosopher Arthur Bentley first coined the phrase," which refers to "all the elements and events that transpire in any given environment, which affect and are affected by human beings." Greaves augments the term with the word "psycho," which the director says invokes the mental aspects of the creative process and their impact upon those grouped together. Jones warns that "Greaves's film threatens to dissolve into labored, intense discussions of themes and intent, arguing over whether human life 'can be scripted,' then playing out a bitter, vicious argument over and over, implying that wounding words are perhaps calculated, rather than spontaneous. Greaves explodes several traditional filmmaking conventions throughout this lean, 80-minute work, not the least of which is the auteur theory, more or less discarded as his collaborators begin to take more and more of a hand in crafting the finished product; it may be Greaves's project as the film begins, but it's not nearly as singularly authored by its conclusion. Groundbreaking in its day and little seen until recently, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One is just as revelatory and mind-expanding 37 years later as it was upon completion."

I've been wondering why Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection didn't receive more reviews upon its appearance. Universal released the set on November 11 but since then there has been barely a peep. Has Sturgesmania run its course? Is it hard to come up with something new to say about a guy who has already inspired four or five biographies? Or was it the fact that the set, which contains The Great McGinty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Great Moment and Hail the Conquering Hero, inevitably competes with the outstanding Criterion releases of two of the titles, even though some of the titles in this set are new to DVD? Perhaps overtaxed web reviewers are hard-pressed to dedicate the time to assess seven 90-minute movies. Or did it have something to do with a dearth of review copies distributed to publications and websites?

Whatever the reason, fortunately, Glenn Erickson, the DVD Savant, was there to plough through the set. After dutifully reviewing the films, Erickson notes that the set consists of "one title per disc, reversing Universal's policy from last year, when the studio jammed as many as eight features onto only two discs. All the transfers are solid. There are no text extras, just a few notes on each film," before adding, "I've heard some grumbles from owners of the pricey Criterion releases; those discs are still in print and their excellent extras are recommended. Somehow, I don't see the pain in 'getting stuck' with an extra copy of something like Sullivan's Travels, especially when the discounted price of the set is so low."

The ever-reliable DVD Beaver, Gary W Tooze, complains that "Universal's Boxset is as lean and competent as you might have anticipated - we get 7 films (over 7 single-layered DVDs) progressively transferred for region 1 in the NTSC standard. The only extras are theatrical trailers included on the respective discs for all 7 films except Hail the Conquering Hero," and gives a lukewarm appraisal of the transfers. "The image quality - all DVDs have some digital noise and minor speckles but are certainly watchable in their present condition. I have compared a few frames to the existing Criterion DVDs with the Universal counterparts getting a passing grade," he writes, but still concludes that, "All the films, aside from possibly The Great Moment, are very strong, memorable classics of the silver screen - truly some of the best cinema brought out in the entire decade of the 1940s. The reasonableness of the price makes this a must own even of you already own the existing NTSC editions. It's great to have these as part of my library."

Dan Callahan at Slant makes a full press drive against the material, summarizing Sturges's life and career, and noting its distinguishing characteristics, such as the heightened use of character actors and Sturges spearheading the "writer-director" concept. Callahan tags Sturges as an "inventor of unprecedented and unequalled American movie farces... His inventiveness came in a big burst and dissipated pretty quickly, but he made an indelible mark on his era, leaving behind a tricky trail of movie movies, stylized, unrealistic, yet always managing to allude to the problems of real life that will resume when the double feature is finished." But like the others, the writer also finds himself disappointed in the transfers. "The prints of The Great McGinty and Christmas in July are muddy and grainy, while The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels and Palm Beach Story are the same slightly speckled prints constantly shown on television. Surprisingly, The Great Moment is in pristine condition, as is Hail the Conquering Hero, though this most multi-layered of Sturges's soundtracks is marred by an ever-present hiss."

Another aspect of recent DVD production receiving less than its due is Italian cinema, which is experiencing a renaissance, on disc at any rate, thanks to NoShame and Criterion, among others. The acronymal DSH caught up with Francesco Rosi's Le Mani sulla citta (Hands Over the City), from 1963, a film that "casts its net over the political corruption that goes into gentrification... Based on situations in Rosi's hometown of Naples, Hands Over the City manages to still pack a punch, probably because corrupt governments never seem to go out of fashion. Unfortunately, the film delights more for its technical bravado than its plotting, which ends on the sort of stymied note one would expect of such a fictional exposé. But from a technical standpoint, the picture is breathtaking." DSH concludes that Criterion's transfer "is outstanding and little age or wear is noticeable."

Meanwhile, the DVD Savant posted one of the few reviews of Damiano Damiani's The Most Beautiful Wife, a 1970 adaptation of a Carlos Fuentes story which was also the debut of Ornella Muti, of whom Andrew Sarris famously wrote that she had the face of an angel and the body of a devil. Muti plays Franca Viola, a "Sicilian teenager who defied the combined wrath of both the Mafia and her community. Viola was kidnapped and raped as a way of forcing her to consent to marriage. She held out against social pressure and death threats until the offender was convicted. Damiani's script changes the names but stays with the facts, turning the grim story into a compelling drama." Erickson concludes that "NoShame's disc of The Most Beautiful Wife is a fine enhanced transfer of this dramatically satisfying thriller. The color is excellent and Ennio Morricone's score is well recorded; his main them is typically eccentric."

Criterion recently announced that in February 2007 it is releasing Powell and Pressburger's The 49th Parallel. An advance preview of the disc might be contained in Noel Megahey's review at DVD Times of the recently R2 set released by France's Institut Lumière. 49th Parallel was "an attempt to alert the United States to the danger of the war in Europe spreading further afield and ensure their commitment and necessary participation in bringing the war to an end," as it tells the tale of a German submarine crew stranded in Canada.

"49th Parallel is a propaganda film, and we shouldn't expect too much complexity from it, even from Powell and Pressburger. What you can expect and what the film clearly delivers, is a well-made film that achieves everything it sets out to do - showing all the things that the filmmakers believe that North Americans will want to fight to preserve - liberty, freedom of speech, peace, tolerance, a sense of community, culture and heritage, and the ability to forge towards new horizons. Above all the filmmakers delight in showing the spectacular landscapes of this country and its National Parks, filmed by Michael Powell with his characteristic love for areas of natural beauty and the people who live and work in close union with the land - a theme that would come out more clearly in the subsequent films A Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I'm Going! much more artfully than it does here."

Megahey's appraisal of the DVD notes that the two-disc French set is "entirely English friendly, with removable French subtitles from the film, and all extra features either in English, or subtitled in English," with a transfer that is "reasonably good, but not quite as strong as some of the other Institut Lumière Pressburger and Powell releases. The quality however is variable from scene to scene."

Movies and fashion should be a match made in heaven. Or at least, Hollywood movies and the world of high fashion. But historically, cinema has taken a rather haughty stance against the industry that, in one of its subsidiary enterprises, has provided the movies themselves with so much of their allure. From Funny Face (1957), the musical that contrasted a super serious beatnik girl with the superficiality of the business, to Pr�t-�-Porter (1994), which attempted to eviscerate the fashion world on fairly obvious grounds, movies have eyed fashion the way they have eyed television, with edgy suspicious familiarity.

Because The Devil Wears Prada comes first from the novel by Lauren Weisberger, which was a thinly disguised account of the author's dyspeptic tour of duty as an assistant to Anna Wintour of Vogue, it would seem to have even less commerce with the glamour of the fashion world. But as the tale unfurls, with earnest journalist in embryo Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) taking the job despite the fact that she has never really heard of either the magazine, here called Runway, or its world famous editrix, here called Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), just so she can advance to the New Republic, the fashion world gradually wins over the movie and the viewer, if not the intended narrative itself. In addition, Streep, who was openly contemptuous of the source book, jars the movie out of what was probably meant to be an anthology of Miranda-hate by offering a nuanced, understated performance as the "boss from hell." One starts out and ends up liking her a great deal much more than her underling, whom the movie secretly conspires to undermine at all points. Directed by David Frankel, a veteran of the HBO shows Entourage and Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada ends up being a pedestrian, TV-movieish effort with a brilliant, misunderstood performance at its center.

Fox Home Entertainment's DVD of the surprise hit movie, spares no expense on a fine widescreen transfer (2.35:1, and with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio), but rather skips on the misleadingly abundant featurettes ("Trip to the Big Screen," "NYC and Fashion," "Fashion Visonary Patricia Field," "Getting Valentino"), all short and superficial, while 15 deleted scenes flesh out the movie satisfyingly. There is also a gag reel and a theatrical trailer, and the film also comes in a separate full frame edition. The main extra, however, is a fine and detailed audio commentary track from director Frankel, editor Mark Livolsi, costume designer Patricia Field, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, producer Wendy Finerman and cinematographer Florian Ballhaus.

DVD reviewers across the net were also quick to pick up on the film's subtexts. Entertainment Weekly's Karen Valby finds Streep at the "top of her game," adding that "what was sold as silly chick lit all of a sudden turns into a delightfully knowing and sympathetic portrait of working women, elevated at every turn by an actress doing some of her best comedic work and clearly having a ball." But Valby also finds the extras dissapointing, observing that "Streep shows up for just a glimpse. And who can blame her, after she's shown trying her best in an inane interview on one of the lukewarm featurettes: 'How can I answer the question, "Why is fashion so important in this film?"' She looks off, amused, trying to keep a straight face. 'Honestly,' she admonishes with a patient laugh."

JJB at the DVD Journal noted that in reality The Devil Wears Prada is "an archetypal, somewhat formulaic journey from innocence to experience, as naive Andy gradually learns about the working world and how her own ambition fits in with some complex personal relationships. And while the story soaks in a highly insulated world of wealth, taste and inside knowledge, it also works as a defense of the fashion industry. It's easy enough to dismiss haute couture as capitalism at its greatest excess: the act of selling people things they don't need for exorbitant sums. But fashion is also about commerce - measured in the billions per year - and at its most ethereal, it's about art, which means that those who 'get it' do so passionately."

The anonymous reviewer at Current Film, linking the film to other examples of cultural fashion obsession such as the shows Project Runway and America's Top Model to explain the film's status as a surprise hit, goes on to add that "all of the material focusing on Andy's personal life just feels forced and formulaic, which results in the picture losing some steam whenever it leaves the workplace," while still being in general "fast and funny."

Preston Jones at DVD Talk is also enthusiastic, noting that "The Devil Wears Prada was a light-as-air antidote to the humdrum sequel-infested summer, a breezy, date night cinch that actually holds up upon repeated viewings, proving that screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna did a very solid job extracting the humanity from Lauren Weisberger's acclaimed roman-a-clef," before concluding that Prada is "an effervescent delight, a film that will surprise you and deliver one of the year's most rewarding entertainments."

"We're nine years into the DVD market, and there are still hundreds of important films that can only be seen in old VHS versions or, if you're lucky enough to live in a town with a good repertory theater, a new print might come around once every ten years or so," writes Criterion's Peter Becker at On Five. "We want those films to be more readily available, and that's why we're creating Eclipse. Each month we'll present a short series, usually three to five films, focusing on a particular director or theme. There will be no supplements and the master materials will be the best we can find, but they won't be full Criterion restorations. Retail pricing for each set will average under $15 per disc, and we are examining the logistics of making the sets available at an even more favorable rate on a subscriber or club basis."

In the LA Weekly, Paul Malcolm reviews a full-blown Criterion release: "Every so often it can feel like there's nothing new to discover out there in cinemaland. Then out of left field comes a film like Symbiopsychotaxiplasm by William Greaves."

More on that one from Shawn Badgley, who also reviews Grey Gardens and The Beales of Grey Gardens.

Also in the Austin Chronicle:

• Steve Uhler on M*A*S*H: Martinis and Medicine Complete Collection and SNL: The Complete First Season (more from Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat).

• Raoul Hernandez on The Double Life of Veronique.

• Ken Lieck on Grand Theft Auto: Tricked Out Edition and The Cry Baby Killer: Back-to-Back Jack Edition.

• Nora Ankrum on Robin Hood: Most Wanted Edition and The Fox and the Hound: 25th Anniversary Edition.

"Arguably the hawkish, fear-mongering worldview that [Craig] Baldwin burlesques remains insidiously alive and well; with the apocalypse it foretold more or less underway, Tribulation 99's relentlessness seems easy to forgive," writes Jonathan Kiefer in the Sacramento News and Review. "On the other hand, here is a critique of imperialism wrought from the insatiable appropriation and repurposing of subordinate cultural material. Cult classic, eh? Maybe that's just what they want us to think."

At the main site, Julie Newcomb's got a list of the best anime on DVD.

Nice title for a list from Joe Bowman: "10 'Oh, hey, the studio remembered they owned the rights to us' DVDs of 2006."

Robert Abele rounds up some of the best TV-on-DVD box sets. for the LA Weekly.

Even Midnight Eye's got a "Christmas DVD Special."

"You can't have much more fun watching a movie than with a really good, pre-Code Hollywood production." For Stop Smiling, Sam Sweet relishes the first volume of TCM's Forbidden Hollywood.

Posted by dwhudson at December 17, 2006 9:19 AM