America Lost
& Found: The BBS Story (Head/Easy Rider/Five Easy Pieces/Last Picture Show/Drive, He Said/A Safe Place/The King Of Marvin Gardens/1968 – 1972/Criterion
Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ (Rider: B-/Head: B) Extras: B+ Films:
Head (1968/B) is one of the most
underrated films of the 1960s and though no one seems to get it, there are
consistent themes and other qualities that make it worth revisiting. It is the feature film debut of Bob Rafelson,
who created The Monkees, a show that
was simple and fun as a take-off of The Beatles that became the most successful
variant of the band ever, though it soon developed into something else.
A comedy
show about a band who could never find work, the magic casting of Peter Tork,
Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz hit big when the actual Beatles moved
on to more serious and surreal territory.
A huge hit for NBC, the network cancelled it early for being possibly
too subversive as an agent in helping the anti-war movement gain momentum. It is ironic that the same producers would
later deliver the documentary Hearts
& Minds (1974) that helped end the war and BBS.
This film
was an anti-War/Anti-Vietnam film unlike the TV show, so it became the very
thing the series was not, but Co-Writers Jack Nicholson and Rafelson wanted to
do an absurd head-trip film that took the band through familiar movie genres of
the time (including those abused by TV) and deconstruct the band itself down to
the criticisms that they were the Pre-Fab(ricated) Four. Yet the soundtrack contains some of the best
songs the band ever cut, including the psychedelic Porpoise Song, one of the last collaborations ever by Gerry Goffin
and Carole King before their split.
This is
played in the credit sequence that visually references the James Bond film Thunderball (1965) and tells us that
this will not be another episode of the show on the big screen with more
visuality and use of color than a TV show, but something much odder, darker and
more risky. Then there is the very nature
of the editing that is much like French New Wave, yet now plays as a precursor
to Music Videos at least as much as the TV show, if not more. There is also the wide variety of stars and
names (including a few on the rise) who turn up including Annette Funicello,
Frank Zappa, Teri Garr, Sonny Liston, Timothy Carey, Abraham Sofaer, Vito
Scotti, Logan Ramsey, Dennis Hopper in his Easy
Rider outfit, Toni Basil and Victor Mature.
It works
as a comedy musical with much more in it and is a better film than it has ever
received credit for being. As daring as
any of The Beatles features, it was not a hit at all, but is a vital piece of
film and music history and one of the best of the little-addressed cycle of
Rock music genre films made from 1964 to the early 1980s. Criterion and Rhino Records have restored it
and debuted a new multi-channel mix of the film here on Blu-ray which was only
available in theatrical mono until now.
The results are terrific and finally give us all a chance to appreciate
what the film accomplishes. One of the
jokes spoofs Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove
(1965, now on Blu-ray from Sony) over a Coca-Cola machine, a joke that Peter
Hyams would use in his 1978 thriller Capricorn
One.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary by all four of the original Monkees
that is a must-hear after seeing the film, David Thompson and Douglas Brinkley
in a new BBS documentary, screen tests with The Monkees, rare 1968 TV interview
with the band, original theatrical trailers, TV spots, radio ads and a new
video interview on the film with Rafelson.
All serious music fans will want to catch these.
Easy Rider (1969/B) may not have always aged
well all around, but it remains a great film, one of the ultimate
counterculture films and more than just a time capsule like so many of the
films from that period. It was similar
to many such films American International had made and the makers (including
Co-Writer/Director Dennis Hopper and Co-Star/Co-Writer Peter Fonda) offered the
film to them. In one of the worst
decisions in film history, they turned it down.
A major picked it up and it changed Hollywood
for years, making the director the prime maker of films and allowing young Hollywood to rise up and
change the town, essentially saving it.
A group
of friends (Fonda, Hopper and Jack Nicholson) go on a bike ride across America and discover a more realistic America than
had even been shown on film since the Film Noir era ended in 1958. It was the counterculture, though it was
dramatic and it was more realistic than anything American International had
issued. It’s timing was like Star Wars and the artistic buildup in
American cinema that was building by the mid-1960s was all out when this film
hit big.
The film
has a narrative, yet there are these moments where it is documentary-like
showing a side of America
film and TV had either ignored or whittled-down into something it was not. Imitated more than a few times afterwards
(including in James William Guercio’s underrated Electra Glide In Blue, which is more of a variant than a rip-off or
response), no film captured what it had done, though the road movie went into
high gear as a genre or at least cycle, though (like in Monte Hellman’s Two Lane Blacktop (1971)) involved
cars. Bullitt (1968) might have had a little to do with that.
Time has
also made it more poignant, form seeing the counterculture that was to seeing
Hopper in his glory between some down times to a sad and ironic appearance by
legendary (and highly influential) record producer and sound innovator Phil
Spector who had many troubles ahead including a murder trial he lost.
Having
the film fixed up so nicely here is a huge plus, making the film come alive in
a way a lesser copy could not. The film
runs only 95 minutes, but its impact is immeasurable and place in world cinema
history inarguable. But BBS was not done
yet. Extras include two feature length
audio commentaries by Hopper (one alone and the other with Fonda and Production
Manager Paul Lewis), Theatrical Trailers, new video piece with BBS cofounder
Steve Blauner, TV clip of Hopper & Fonda at Cannes with the film and two
documentaries on the film: Born To Be
Wild from 1995 and Easy Rider:
Shaking The Cage in 1999.
Five Easy Pieces (1970/B+) is another underrated
masterwork and Rafelson’s move away from the disconnected style of Head in what would turn out to be the
first of a trilogy of three films about dysfunctional families. Jack Nicholson is Bobby Duprea, unhappy with
his life, stuck in a “woman who loves too much and man who hates them”
relationship with Rayette (Karen Black) who cannot stop playing the music of
Tammy Wynette. He works with oil digging
equipment and has his share of working class friends. But he is not in love with Rayette and is not
always happy with himself.
The title
refers to him playing classical music pieces on the piano, but there is much
more to this clever combination of superior melodrama, character study and
comedy. For one thing, Nicholson is
amazing. For another, it is non-stop in
showing something different and interesting throughout. Its script is as bold in dialogue as in
situations and it is one of my favorite films from the period.
Fanny
Flagg, Sally Struthers (in quite the appearance), Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, Billy
Green Bush, Ralph Waite, William Challee, Lorna Thayer, Marlena MacGuire,
Helena Kallianiotes and Toni Basil also star.
It is too bad the Wynette songs could not have been inserted here in
stereo, but this is otherwise a worthy successor to the old 12” basic LaserDisc
Criterion did of the film so many years ago.
Extras include a feature length audio commentary by Rafelson and
Interior Designed Toby Rafelson, Theatrical Trailer, Teaser, audio clips from a
Rafelson interview in 1976 with AFI and 2009 Rafelson video piece Soul Searching For Five Easy Pieces, BBStory documentary about BBS.
The Last Picture Show (1971/A-) is an outright
masterpiece that is also the second film of another director: Peter
Bogdanovich. Based on the James McMurtry
book (the author of Hud and Brokeback Mountain),
this stunning look at a small town on the verge of change and changes is a
remarkable film about how the people in the town interact and what the fate of
the town is. Taking place in the 1950s,
there are the young people who are leading lives that have no future there,
including Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), Billy (Sam Bottoms), Lester (Randy Quaid)
and Duane (Jeff Bridges) among them.
Then there is young and sexy Jacy (Cybill Shepherd) whose mother Lois
(Ellen Burstyn) has raised her to be “upper class and proper” also knowing she
is as pretty as she was at that age.
There are also adults heavily in the mix including Sam (Ben Johnson) who
sees things more clearly than most, Ruth (Cloris Leachman) in an unhappy marriage
to a husband who coaches young men at the school and is more interested in them
than he should be, so she has an affair of her own.
There is
so much more, but it is a film that never ceases to amaze me and makes more
sense in this longer cut to the point that it is shocking that anything had
ever been cut. Criterion had issued this
as a very big and expensive 12” LaserDisc box set in its time and all those
extras are pretty much here and more, including theatrical trailers, a 1972
interview with Truffaut about the New Hollywood, two feature length audio
commentaries with Bogdanovich who is joined by Shepherd, Quaid, Leachman and
Frank Marshall on the 1991 track and Bogdanovich solo in 2009, 2009 Q&A A
Discussion with Peter Bogdanovich and two documentaries: Last Picture Show: A Look Back (1999) and Picture This (1990), which I reviewed years ago on DVD elsewhere on
this site.
Drive, He Said (1970/B) is the highly underrated
and underseen directorial debut of Jack Nicholson, whose success has always
been having a grasp of pure cinema. Head showed this to a great extent, but
this film shows how much a part of the naturalism movement he was of. One of the best films to deal with the
counterculture situation, the story (written by Jeremy Larner and Nicholson)
deals with two roommates going further into different directions. Two roommates in college take two different
paths, with one (William Tepper) playing basketball and being pushed by his
coach (Bruce Dern), the other (Michael Margotta) wanting to join in on the new
revolution. Better than it gets credit
for, Karen Black, June Fairchild, David Odgen Stiers and Robert Towne also
star. Extras include an Original
Theatrical Trailer and featurette A
Cautionary Tale of Campus Revolution.
A Safe Place (1971/B-) is Henry Jaglom’s only
film in the set and the oddest, with Tuesday Weld drifting in between fantasy
and reality, childhood and womanhood, but joined at times by Orson Welles as no
less than a magician. The problem for
some might be a male trying to direct a female fantasy with female anxiety, but
he also is trying to conjure the French New Wave and like so many of his later
films, is working from a writerly place that teeters on readerly but does not
work out that way. Still, it is perfect
for this set, a part of this movement and worth seeing. Extras include a feature length audio
commentary by Jaglom, 1971 interview with Jaglom by Bogdanovich, Outtakes,
Screen Tests, Original Theatrical Trailer and 2009 video Henry Jaglom Finds A Safe Place.
The King Of Marvin Gardens (1972/B-) is the second of the
dysfunctional family trilogy Rafelson began with Five Easy Pieces (1970, listed above as part of this set) and
instead of being more of the same, with new characters to meet. Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern are brothers
David and Jason Staebler, but this time, it is Nicholson who plays passive as
Dern is the conniving schemer who always has ideas on how to make it big and
beat the system he feel sis trapping him, a monopoly with no room for
success. Nicholson is a radio talk show
host with little energy and little of a relationship with his brother, but he
reluctantly gets involved again and is sorry later he bothered.
Jason has
a real estate plan that is doomed, one that not even the likable Sally (Ellen
Burstyn in a performance I still cannot describe, but an important and
influential one) can save. The film
works in quiet ways that only a few other films of the era (namely Carnal Knowledge and Shampoo) doe sin dealing with the
American Dream, counterculture and nature of relationships do. They are cooler (sometimes colder) readings
of the time that are nonetheless accurate and not forced (say versus the likes
of Ang Lee’s overrated The Ice Storm)
in a film that is a slight letdown for me, yet still a solid, unusual film
where it could have just been a formula picture.
Scatman
Crothers, John P. Ryan and Imogen Bliss also star. Extras include select scene commentary by
Rafelson, original theatrical trailer, Afterthoughts
2002 interview with Rafelson, Dern and Laszlo Kovacs on the film and Reflections Of A Philosopher King 2009
interview piece with Burstyn and Rafelson.
It should be noted that the third film in the trilogy (not here) is the
highly underrated Blood & Wine (1997,
Fox owns it) that Criterion will hopefully get to issue on Blu-ray soon.
America Lost & Found: The BBS
Story is one of
the best, richest box sets of any kind ion home video history and certainly on
Blu-ray, a status it will retain for a very long time to come. This is one of the most important box sets
about film and filmmaking you can get, showing just how successful outside of
key individual auteurs (Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Francis Coppola, Robert
Altman, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Brian De Palma, Hal Ashby, Peter
Bogdanovich, Paul Schrader, Bob Rafelson, Monte Hellman, Michael Cimino, Mel
Brooks, even Warren Beatty among them) in one of the greatest periods of
filmmaking ever in history and certainly a peak of the film art in the United
States. The company set up by Bob
Rafelson, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner that more people should know about. I think the discovery and rediscovery of all
these films are vital and priceless.
Anyone serious about film of any kind must get this set!
The box
includes all the films on Blu-ray and a nice, thick booklet includes tech
information on each film (though transfer information is inside the front
covers of all the individual Blu-ray DigiPaks), plus six excellent essays on
the company and the films.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on all the films here on
Blu-ray look really good and offer three different kinds of
cinematography. Show is among the last great black and white feature films before
shooting that was essentially became phased out, though some footage is rougher
than others due to the nature of some of the footage being in lesser shape for
this longer director’s cut. Head is the only one of the seen shot
in the older classic Hollywood style of filmmaking both to continue the look of
the hit TV show The Monkees and
because of all the old Hollywood genres it sends up. The rest of the films are shot in the
contemporary, naturalistic style of the last new wave of American cinema for
which these films were key in.
They all
look great here and pretty much the way you would expect the best possible
prints to look. Rider and Pieces are
from restorations that made theatrical release.
Head, Rider and Place were
originally issued in three-strip, dye transfer Technicolor prints (all very
valuable and collectible now) and you can see those qualities here, especially
on the earlier films. The shock to many
film fans is that this set happened at all, let alone from Criterion, but Columbia resumed a
relationship with the company for the first time since before DVD arrived and
that Rhino Records (now the owner of The Monkees franchise and Colpix music
catalog) participated is the biggest surprise of all. The image quality is as good as it will ever
be in this format and only great film prints can compete. Head,
Drive, Place and Gardens come
from new 35mm interpositives, Show
from a master positive and Pieces
& Rider come from 4K HD masters
created by combining the original camera negative with the three black &
white separation masters.
Laszlo
Kovacs shot Rider (he supervised
this transfer), Pieces and Gardens offering some of the most
important images in cinema history, Bill Butler (The Conversation, Jaws, Grease) lensed Drive, Richard C. Kratina (Love
Story, Super Cops, Can’t Stop The Music) covered Place and Head was captured by Michel Hugo (The Night Stalker (1972), Trouble
Man, Bug). The great work speaks for itself.
All the
films feature PCM 2.0 Mono sound from original 3-track magnetic masters that
make them sound great, except Head
and Rider, which go further and
offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mixes because they have serious portions of
music on their soundtracks. Head adds extra elements, including
8-track recordings for Porpoise Song,
Circle Sky, As We Go Along and Daddy’s
Song among other reconstructive elements.
As for Rider, Dennis Hopper
himself supervised the addition of the multi-channel music master to be remixed
into the dialogue and sound effects elements, making one of the final major
artistic statements before we lost him.
- Nicholas Sheffo
