When Netflix announced that it would be shuttering its DVD-mailing business as of September, I was bummed but not surprised. I’d wondered for a few years how the thing even still existed, since no one I knew besides myself subscribed to it, and anyone who visited my house and saw one of the red envelopes sitting near the TV had the same reaction: laughter.
“Haven’t seen one of those in years!”
“Did not know they still did that. What a throwback!”
Etcetera.
I thought about my bookend experiences with the service, how when my roommate first showed me one in 2003, I’d laughed as well.
“You’re going to wait days for that thing to come in the mail?” I’d asked him incredulously. “Why don’t you just walk down the street and rent it?”
At the time, we lived on Haight Street, near Into Video, an exceptional video rental store. I couldn’t see how a mail-based service could ever compete. I didn’t understand that, as great as Into Video was, it was never going to take profits from rentals and put them towards producing their own shows, let alone movies as well, that would come to dominate the entertainment industry. I didn’t see how Netflix could stay in business.
Fast forward twenty years and I was having the exact same thought, how can this DVD-rental service possibly stay in business? but for completely different reasons. No one but nerds and old people seemed to have any interest whatsoever in renting scratched-up discs through the mail.
I didn’t bemoan the loss, though. I’d been around long enough to see media formats come and go, and come back. I’d never ditched my records for CDs, even though I bought plenty of CDs, and I never ditched my CDs for streaming. I was one of those. (Shocker! I know.) I can’t say I knew exactly what would happen, but let’s just say that when I see vinyl reissues of Led Zeppelin II selling for $44.99, I don’t think about all the years I had to drag my collection around the country as I moved from city to city. I think that I’m glad I held onto my copy, with its hot-pink “Used $3.00” sticker.
What I did do when I saw the news about DVD.com, was take a look at my queue. Some time in the early teens, I had put a bunch of titles on it from various lists, some compiled by the American Film Institute, another from collected essays of Roger Ebert, and a few others. Then over the next 10 years I’d proceeded to watch hardly any of them, instead moving up current titles that I actually wanted to see, instead of film-class stuff that I felt like I had to.
When the news hit, I decided to start letting the list flow, after some slight re-ordering. The results have been absolutely terrific, and now I am bemoaning! Turns out I’m just a film-class nerd after all. (Another shocker!)
One other thing happened. I was watching Vertigo (1958) on TCM when the host Alicia Malone came on after with some interesting news. Vertigo recently had been topped in the highly regarded Sight and Sound critics poll as the greatest film of all time, a spot it had held for a decade or so after it had replaced Citizen Kane (1941). The film that took top spot was blah-blah-blah. At least that was what it sounded like when Malone said it, since it was a title I’d never heard and thus did not expect to hear.
Wait, what did she say?
I hit rewind, or whatever we call that function now that nothing is being wound and we’re talking about doing it to live TV, and turned up the volume.
Do what now? There was a movie called Jeanne Dielman (1975) and it’s better than Vertigo? Better than Citizen Kane? Well, I thought, ain’t that some shit.
I popped that one onto the queue and to the top. The DVD.com news actually broke while I had Jeanne Dielman “At Home.” But since it is the greatest film of all time, even though it isn’t even on any of the lists I’d used, I’ve included it in this little round-up.
The round-up? Right, the point of this post. Following is my ranking of four titles from the lists, plus the one other, that I’ve watched since this news came down, ranked worst to first. If there are any other nerds out there doing something similar, maybe this little list can help you use your remaining time wisely. The rest of you, we both know that you’re never going to watch any of these, so just read the damn list and enjoy it.
Number Five – Solaris (1972)
I needed some way to decide what to push to the top, so I tried choosing titles from the year I was born, part of my ongoing fascination with the times into which I entered. (Sidenote: The film that got me closest to understanding the cultural moment I was born into was Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War (2017), an absolutely amazing series.)
Solaris is a Russian-made, moody, enigmatic, very slowly paced, and somewhat dated sci-fi drama. Many of you are probably familiar with the George Clooney remake from 2002, but I’m guessing few have watched the original. For good reason. It’s a tough watch. The scenes are long and still. Some of the plot points are very subtle and hard to follow. The effects and set designs are old and Russian, and there are some unintended comical moments that come out of this. What does make the movie cool is its intriguing plot about a mysterious place in deep space where human thoughts and desires are made real, or real-seeming, which presents a host of philosophical, ethical, and practical questions both to the characters and to viewers.
The end scene is quite memorable, a sweeping pull-back that illustrates the psychic damage done to one character once he’s returned to earth. And I will say that I was getting quite a lot from the commentary on the re-watch, but then I fell asleep and in the morning decided just to pull the envelope adhesive strip on that one and send it back.
Number Four – Mon Oncle (1958)
This is a well-made and enjoyable French satire, not exactly in the French New Wave mode that we associate with French films of this era, but still an edgy and forward-looking comment on modern life. The director, Jacques Tati, stars as the old-fashioned uncle, who grows close with his young nephew despite not understanding the modern, suburban world of the boy’s parents.
The set designs are terrific. Fans of midcentury modern style will love the suburban house. Even the fountain feature that becomes a running gag about impracticality is a pretty cool fountain. There’s some solid visual comedy here and some nice moments of bonding between the boy and his uncle. There was no commentary on this disc, which I really could have used, and which helped land it in the fourth slot.
Number Three – The Bicycle Thief (1948)
This Italian film-class staple is excellent, a touching and evocative story of a father and son’s search through Rome for the father’s stolen bicycle. There’s so much to learn here about the organization of Italian society right after the war. It’s fascinating. There’s a bit of “bygone era” here, compounded by the foreignness of the setting, which leaves one wondering along the lines of, wow, I can’t believe life was really like that for them. There’s a doggedness to the father’s pursuit. He’s desperate but righteous. The scenes of visits to the apartment of a kind of soothsayer woman are strange and haunting. The kids’ book Strega Nona came to mind. The woman is definitely a strega!
The kid is great as well, finding himself in his particular ways of helping his father. He’s a pretty good father, but he does hit the kid in a sad and difficult scene that sets up the finale. Of course the father cannot be forgiven for hitting the kid, not by modern viewers at least, but the scene functions nicely to complicate the relationship, and the story, in gratifying ways.
The finale is fantastic, unforgettable, really. (Spoiler alert! Skip this paragraph if you don’t want the end spoiled.) The kid is sent home on the bus, but before he can make his way onto it, the father attempts to steal a bike. The kid sees the commotion as his father is chased down by a mob and dragged off the bike and back to where he’d stolen it. The kid comes walking up to his father just as the bike owner is being asked if he wants to press charges. The man takes one look at the father and his son.
“No, let him go. He has enough troubles.”
End.
Damn.
Great stuff. No commentary on this disc.
Number Two – Jeanne Dielman
The hell is up with this movie? It’s fascinating, absorbing, hypnotic, maddening, all of this for certain. But better that Vertigo? Better than Citizen Kane? Absolutely not, no way, no how. I don’t know what the critics polled by Sight and Sound are smoking, but I want some!
Seriously, though, I’m glad they brought this movie to my attention. It’s well worth the watch, especially for fans, like myself, of super-slow 1970s movies. The longer and slower, the better, but only if, IF, the payoff is worth it. That’s a big “if” and you can never know until after you’ve spent those hours watching those long, slow, still scenes. To me a classic example of this is Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975). I suppose a lot of Kubrick’s films fall into this category, but in that one, the length and the slowness perfectly complement the tortured restraint of the main character, played by Ryan O’Neal. Until he does act, and when he does, the emotional payoff is cathartic.
In Jeanne Dielman the length and stillness of the shots also mirror the mental state of the titular protagonist. By the way, when I say “still” about a shot or scene, I mean exactly that: the camera does not move. At all. Hardly ever, throughout this nearly 3-hour film. For almost the entire duration, in fact it may be every single shot, the camera is fixed and does not move or track at all. We are fixed on this woman, and her son, in their small apartment. Her daily, seemingly mundane activities, mostly in the apartment, form the basis of the “plot.” Her work preparing meals in the ridiculously tiny and tidy kitchen are transfixing and more than a little crazy-making to watch. She makes the hell out of some dinners! It’s also very French. I’ve not seen anyone work a damn meatloaf or some breaded cutlets like that before. Is she insane? Or is this normal for a French cooking process? Or are we meant to wonder which?
Oh, and she also works as a prostitute, meeting clients in, where else, the apartment, while her son is at school. These scenes are mostly handled with a single shot down the hall. The client goes in , the door closes, the door opens, the client exists, pays, and leaves. There are some shots of the bedroom being prepped beforehand and fixed after, but nothing of the bedroom activities is shown, until the end. I’ll spare you the spoilers on this one. Let’s just say that after a few hours of watching her live her insane-yet-normal life, the viewer is greatly relieved to see her do something / anything! (to borrow a phrase from Todd Rundgren.)
So there is payoff to this one. Whether or not it’s worth the wait is up to you to decide. (I don’t recall if there’s commentary on this one, but I did not listen to it if there is.)
Number 1 – Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Holy hell, this one! Stop what you’re doing right now and go watch this movie. Then watch it again with the Werner Herzog commentary. You will experience the nature of true art, the mystery, the danger, the insane calling of the artist. The line between art and reality is obliterated here, as you realize that what is being filmed, what’s being shown on film, is not just what the characters are experiencing, but what the filmmakers, actors, and the rest of the 400-person crew were actually experiencing.
Loosely based on some historical letters and records, Aguirre tells the story of a Spanish conquistador, played by the amazing Klaus Kinski, in search of gold and the fabled city of El Dorado in the jungle of South America. The religious fervor of such a pursuit is fully captured here, along with the fever for glory and riches that drove these men to the brink and beyond. The viewer is transported in time. We feel the characters’ sense of the unknown, of the possibility in what lies beyond the next bend in the river, and ultimately the slow dawning of the futility, the hopelessness, the loss and doomed end of it all.
Kinski is riveting. The line between the insanity of his character and of him as a person and actor is completely blurred. “Only Kinski,” Herzog says on the commentary. “Only Kinski could do this.” And we believe it. In the backstory we learn of his volatile nature, his violent tantrums and real life battles with the director and the crew. “Love/hate” can only begin to describe the relationship between Kinski and Herzog. They are two people marching to the beat of drummers that most of us have no chance of ever hearing. They needed each other to accomplish what they did. We understand that If people have to die along the way, that is a price each is willing to pay, without a second thought, even if those people are themselves. It is truly a remarkable viewing experience. (Animal lovers, hide your eyes. I don’t think a P.E.T.A. representative was along on the shoot.)
The pairing of these two, and the jungle setting, is revisited in the more highly acclaimed Fitzcarraldo (1982), which happened to show up at my house in a red envelope just yesterday morning.
Will it be the last DVD.com I get in the mail? Will it blow my mind as well? Will it be the subject of a future Xuladad? Will my kids ever see it? Will I show it to them? Will they ever forgive me if I do? What does the future hold?
I can’t wait to find out.
P.S. On the subject of DVD commentaries, I know that Criterion Channel has them and that they will still exist in some form or another. But I also know that they are a feature that evolved through the technology of DVDs, and that as DVDs go away, the nature of commentaries will inevitably change as well. Something will be lost, even as something else is gained. Not all of these great old movies are part of the Criterion Collection, anyway. What happens to those?
My favorite ever film commentary is one done on Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game (1939), by Peter Bogdanovich. In it he reads from the text of a French film scholar and Renoir specialist, so it’s not actually Bogdanovich’s comments. But the combination of the terrific film writing (in translation) and Bogdanovich’s deep, wise voice is total winner. There’s nothing quite like the cumulative effect of a great film, astute writing about it, and a velvet-voiced reader.
Be sure to watch the alternate endings and deleted scenes as well. I always do! Peace.
XulaDad 