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May 2010:
Doctor Zhivago
by
John Gallagher
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO: David Lean’s romantic epic DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) has been gorgeously restored on Blu-ray and DVD by Warner Home Video to commemorate the 45th anniversary of its release. The adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, scripted by Robert Bolt, earned ten Academy Award nominations and five Oscars, including Bolt’s screenplay, Freddie Young’s stunning cinematography and Maurice Jarre’s lush musical score. A passionate, personal, and political drama set amid the turmoil of the Russian revolution, ZHIVAGO’s impressive cast includes Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steigner, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Tom Courtenay, and Rita Tushingham. As with all WHV Special Editions the discs are packed with special features: “Doctor Zhivago: A Celebration Part 1 & 2 (all-new production)”, “Commentary by Omar Sharif, Rod Steiger and Lady Sandra Lean (wife of David Lean) Part 1 & 2”, “Introduction by Omar Sharif”, “Doctor Zhivago: The Making of a Russian Epic”, “11 Vintage Featurettes: Zhivago: Behind the Camera with David Lean, David Lean’s Film of Doctor Zhivago, Moscow in Madrid, Pasternak, New York Press Interviews Omar Sharif, New York Press Interviews Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin Screen Test, This is Omar Sharif, This is Julie Christie, This is Geraldine Chaplin, Chaplin in New York, a trailer, and a Blu-ray Exclusive: 8-Song CD Soundtrack Sampler of the Jarre score.
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO screened recently at the Tribeca Film Festival; actress Rita Tushingham and Ned Price, vice president of Warner Bros.' mastering, were in town to commemorate David Lean’s achievement:
RITA TUSHINGHAM: “I was shooting with Richard Lester on THE KNACK AND HOW TO GET IT (1965), and one of the crew people came in with a newspaper from London: 'Rita, you’re going to do David Lean’s next film.' And I said, 'Am I?' And it literally was like that. I didn’t meet David Lean til I went to Spain and they were shooting this scene where Tom Courtenay was sort of walking along this street, and then I met him. He decided with the hair dresser how he wanted the scarf to be and things like that and that was my first meeting with him. Off we went and started shooting. Quite simple.
It was a treat for me to work with David Lean and Alec Guinness. Alec was so easy to work with, but also had a great sense of humor, great fun. We weren’t always shooting so we would take walks together. I think a lot of people think, thought that he as a very serious person. He wasn’t. He had a wicked sense of humor, just so easy to work with. I think people think actors aren’t normal. He’s a very normal person.
I wasn’t intimidated by David Lean cause it was my job, so I just got on with it. You know, what we do, we put on the costume. And I was lucky enough to have someone like him to work with. You can’t be intimidated cause then it comes into what you are doing which is not good. It always makes me laugh cause there are these beautiful costumes in the film, then I’m in this Wellington’s boiler suit and a scarf. But it was obviously very different (from the films I had been doing), cause it was a much bigger budget and the schedule was much longer. I think mine was about three weeks. But it went on forever and you didn’t have that thing of having to catch every minute, which you did in other films. David Lean would often use three cameras, but with him there was time to sit and think. There weren’t that many takes. He would think about it, then there would be a certain thing and he’d look for quite a long time and look and look and then think, 'Oh, we’re going to get started,' and then you wouldn’t do anything that day cause he didn’t like the color on the wall. We blocked it, well, actually I remember we sat at the table and sort of talked through it, but no he didn’t over-rehearse. We went on and did it.
Lean and Freddie Young got on very well together, they worked beautifully together. Lean knew exactly what he wanted and Freddy got on and did it. A lot of sort of back chat and stuff like that, that you get with any crew. A crew is a crew, really, regardless of what the name is. You all work the same all over the world. It’s almost like a cast cause you know what the sound crew is like and what the camera crew is like, it just works. There are certain personalities that do that job. Now of course the camera is more concerned with the lighting. There’s less money and they are always in a panic to get it done unless of course they have a big budget. But it is different now, and to get a film made, you know, people will do it on small budget. It’s amazing actually how a film can be made with such a small amount of money and be a success. It doesn’t need a lot of money thrown at it. People are willing to do that, actors and directors to get films made. That’s sometimes the only way you can get a really good project made that people don’t see, and then suddenly when it comes out they say, “Oh, we knew that was going to be good.” It was different in that sense. On many films there is always drama going on and panic and pink rewrite pages coming in. I’ve been on some films where they would rip a page out and say, 'We can’t do that,' and maybe that was important to the building of a character but you didn’t get that on
ZHIVAGO.
The lucky thing back then was there weren’t as many gossip magazines as there are now. I think there is so much pressure on young actors now. I mean there’s the internet, you can’t sneeze without someone on the other side of the world knowing. So you were able to get on with your career and your life. When I started in the 60’s it was an exciting time but because I was just starting I just thought that was what it was like. Only about in the 70s on reflection did you realize what a special time that was with music and dance and art, it really exploded."
DENNIS PRICE: “ZHIVAGO was a little bit of a victim of its own success and popularity. Someone asked me a question was it one of the largest money makers and so I looked it up last night and saw this internet site saying it’s still the fifth largest money maker. I think it still is for the studio as well now cause it’s constantly on sale and generating revenue. The negatives suffer when they go into re-issue, cause typically when they go into re-issue the negative is not in the condition of initial release, so you don’t have a very good dupe negative, you might have to create new printing elements or you may just default the printing from the original camera negative. The case with DOCTOR ZHIVAGO was slightly different, every film is different, but David Lean did want to shoot it in 65 mm and he was told he couldn’t, so the default was that the major marketing received 70mm prints which were a blow up from the camera negative original, just to ensure sharpness cause the intermediate stock wasn’t very good then. It was very grainy and was very soft and didn’t reproduce color very well. So as a result of the 70mm print, I think it had about three re-issues. You have to remember that that is basically the only way it could get stereo at the time, so what happened was that the film started to pull, stretch and then get damaged and broken. It’s quite common to see that but typically only on one side. But ZHIVAGO as they started to break they turned it over and started on the other side. So in a photo chemical world, the traditional restoration world in 2000, we couldn’t get a stable image, cause we couldn’t transport the image. We were working with very generous labs and we still were unable to, so we had to abort that restoration, so that the 2000 release came from the interpositive from the 60s. I’m very excited that this time we went back to the original camera negatives, we have in house facilites, Warner Bros Motion Picture Imaging. We found a way we could stabilize the image. Actually the camera negative traveled with its paper work from the MGM labs at that time, excellent records. Not only did we know where the replacement sections were, we know who made them, when they were cut in and of course the physical examination of them.”
In response to my question about the path for a film student interested in pursuing restoration, Mr. Price replied, “There is a program at George Eastman House and the program is quite good and actually allows the students to work in a restoration lab for a year.”
BARBARA STANWYCK: Brooklyn-born Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990), real name Ruby Stevens, was unquestionably one of the greatest actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Era. She worked with some of the American cinema’s greatest directors (Capra, Wellman, Ford, Vidor, DeMille, Mamoulian, Sturges, Hawks, Wilder, Milestone, Lang, Mann, Dwan, Wise, Fuller, Sirk), and was equally adept at comedy (THE LADY EVE, BALL OF FIRE), and drama (STELLA DALLAS, MEET JOHN DOE, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, CLASH BY NIGHT). She was a key player in some of the most important Pre-Code pictures (NIGHT NURSE, THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN, and the notorious BABY FACE), and excelled in Westerns (UNION PACIFIC, THE FURIES, FORTY GUNS). After her movie star days were over she smoothly made the transition to television, with such credits as THE BARBARA STANWYCK COLLECTION, THE UNTOUCHABLES, WAGON TRAIN, THE BIG VALLEY, THE THORN BIRDS, DYNASTY, THE COLBYS. The Universal Backlot Series commemorates this vibrant and versatile actress with THE BARBARA STANWYCK COLLECTION, featuring six of her Paramount and Universal titles. Alfred Santell’s INTERNES CAN’T TAKE MONEY (1937) is a special treat, a glossy, visually compelling crime drama co-starring Joel McCrea as the screen’s first Dr. Kildare; the pair re-teams for William Wellman’s equally rare western drama, THE GREAT MAN’S LADY (1942), also co-starring Brian Donlevy and featuring one of Stanwyck’s favorite roles, a part that sees her age from twenty-five to one-hundred. It’s a great performance, one that the Academy should have recognized with a Best Actress nomination. THE BRIDE WORE BOOTS (1946) is a weak, unfunny comedy and THE LADY GAMBLES (1949) an almost-as-disappointing drama, both movies redeemed only by the presence of Stanwyck. The highlights of the set are the two melodramas Stanwyck made for director Douglas Sirk, ALL I DESIRE (1953) and THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW (1955). Like almost all of Sirk’s movies the viewer is rewarded with repeated viewings, including an ever-growing appreciation of the director’s visual style. In ALL I DESIRE, Stanwyck plays an aging stage actress at the turn of the 20th Century who had run out on small town husband and children years before; her return creates the perfect situation for Sirkian melodrama, a genre of which he was the master. THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW is a quintessential Fifties drama, a time capsule of the era’s concerns, with Stanwyck threatening the marriage of Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett. The fact that Universal has released it full frame when it is already available in widescreen in Region Two has caused a great outcry from online cineastes; hopefully Universal will rectify the situation with a future release. In Jon Halliday’s book-length interview, Sirk on Sirk, the director revealed that the studio insisted at the time that he compose his pictures for full frame as well as widescreen, since many cinemas had not yet made the transition to anamorphic.
HEN'S TOOTH VIDEO: Philippe Mora's 1989 sci-fi classic COMMUNION comes to DVD with a slew of special features, and one of Christopher Walken's best performances, playing real life novelist (and screenwriter) Whitley Strieber. This alien abduction thriller, supposedly based on Strieber's own experiences, has a wonderful performance as well from Lindsay Crouse and a main theme composed and performed by Eric Clapton. Bonuses include: audio commentary by Philippe Mora and William J. Birnes (Publisher of UFO Magazine), an excerpt from "According to Occam's Razor" (“actual” videotape footage of an alien implant removal), outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage, stills gallery & storyboards, theatrical trailers, new audio commentary by Philippe Mora (recorded this year).
TIMELESS MEDIA GROUP releases one of the longest running TV Westerns in history, the fully restored and digitally remastered THE VIRGINIAN: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (1962). Owen Wister's 1902 novel has been a Hollywood mainstay with movie versions appearing in 1912 (from Cecil B. DeMille), in 1923, in 1929 (starring Gary Cooper and Walter Huston, directed by Victor Fleming), and a 1946 remake starring Joel McCrea. NBC poured all its resources into their TV version with each episode shot in color, running 90 minutes, each costing over $300,000 (about $2.3 million today). James Drury played the title role, Doug McClure the part of Trampas, and Lee Jay Cobb the role of Judge Garth. The series is especially watchable today for its star-studded guest casts including Betty Davis, Gena Rowlands, Lee Marvin, Robert Duvall, Ida Lupino, George C. Scott and many more; Percy Faith's theme music is also particularly memorable. Packaged in embossed tin, the collection features over 39 hours of episodes, along with a bonus disc of interviews with cast members Drury, Roberta Shore, Gary Clark, Robert Fuller and Peter Brown.
BLU-RAY: The Blu-ray revolution continues with re-releases of catalog titles. Leonardo DiCaprio played NYC high school basketball player/poet/junkie/punk rocker Jim Carroll in THE BASKETBALL DIARIES (1995) based on Carroll's autobiography. It's a great book, perfect material for Martin Scorsese or Spike Lee; unfortunately the directing assignment went to music video director Scott Kalvert, who completely ignored the 1960's time period and disappointed many Carroll fans with the anachronistic setting. The cast, however, makes up for the director's stylistic overkill: Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperioli, Juliet Lewis, Bruno Kirby and Carroll himself. After brilliant performances in THIS BOY’S LIFE (1993) and WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE? (1993), DiCaprio fulfilled his awesome promise with absolutely riveting work in this picture. Bonuses include interviews with cast and director and an interview and poetry reading with Jim Carroll.
IFC: Writer-director Mark Young's SOUTHERN GOTHIC (2007) is a terrific, well-made horror thriller, highlighted by a visual style clearly influenced by Dario Argento's giallos, and the starring performance of Yul Vasquez as Hazel Fortune, a burnt out, suicidal strip club bouncer. An immensely versatile artist, Vasquez has done everything from "Bob," the militantly gay Puerto Rican on SEINFELD, to stellar dramatic work in TRAFFIC, WAR OF THE WORLDS, BAD BOYS II, MUSIC WITHIN, AMERICAN GANGSTER and CHE (he'll be seen soon in THE A TEAM). In SOUTHERN GOTHIC he is joined by another great character actor, William Forsythe, whose fun, over-the-top histrionics as an evangelist-turned-vampire perfectly counterpoints his restrained work.
SONY PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT releases four Columbia programmers to capitalize on the release of Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD -- THE BANDIT OF SHERWOOD FOREST (1946) starring Cornel Wilde as the son of Robin Hood, a lavish (for Harry Cohn) adventure that benefits from the Technicolor cinematography of Tony Gaudio, who shot the quintessential 1938 Errol Flynn THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD; the low-budget PRINCE OF THIEVES (1949) from Sam Katzman's B-unit, starrng Jon Hall as Robin; ROGUES OF SHERWOOD FOREST (1950) with matinee heartthrob John Derek as Robin's son, aided by Alan Hale in his final screen appearance, reprising Little John, a role he immortalized in the Flynn film and the previous 1922 Douglas Fairbanks epic; and SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST (1960) from Hammer Films, a lovely surprise, with Richard Greene as Robin Hood after five years of playing the part on a popular TV series). clashing with Peter Cushing as the Sheriff of Nottingham, under the direction of Terence Fisher (HORROR OF DRACULA), both Hammer veterans, featuring a young Oliver Reed, CURSE OF THE DEMON's Niall McGinnis and Desmond Llewelyn, "Q" from the James Bond movies.
John Gallagher
jgmovie@gmail.com |
