The Dreamers (2003) – Original Uncut NC-17 Version
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: B+ Film: B-
How does a film lover, cinephile, movie buff or whatever
you want to call them negotiate the problems of Bernardo Bertolucci’s
adaptation of The Dreamers?
On one hand, there hasn’t been a film made in recent
memory that is such an unabashed love letter to classic cinema. From recreations of scenes from Freaks and Bande à part among many others
and clips of films like City Lights,
Scarface (the original
1932 version), Blonde Venus,
Top Hat, À bout de souffle and Shock Corridor (again, among many
others) to the events that frame the narrative (and, indeed, the characters
themselves), The Dreamers
lives, dies, breathes and makes love at 24 frames per second, in glorious black
and white, sometimes with subtitles and, now and then, in glorious CinemaScope.
But the other hand is another story all together. The narrative is flimsy, the characters
unsympathetic and, at times, repugnant, and the very things that make the film
so interesting in the first place are used so often to an ever-lessening effect
that you become angry that something so beautiful has been tainted by
overexposure.
After a vivacious opening credit sequence, we’re
introduced to American Matthew (Michael Pitt), an exchange student in Paris in
1968. He lives in a seedy, dingy hotel
(so bad that he has to pee in his sink — because the only toilet is a communal
one?). To occupy his time between his
studies, he goes with great regularity to the Cinemateque Français to watch
everything and anything. When Matthew
goes to the cinema, he says, he sits as close as possible to receive the images
first, before they’re dirtied by the rows of theater seats and eyes of other
filmgoers. He goes to the Cinemateque
so often, in fact, that he claims to be part of a film buff group; though he
has no friends and watches movies alone, making his claim a dubious one at
best.
One day in May, 1968, the French government shuts down the
Cinemateque because they think that it and its owner, Henri Langolis, are
contributing to the rebellious, revolutionary tone in the country. Naturally, the cinephiles who call the
Cinemateque home are outraged; none so much as Isabelle (Eva Green), who chains
herself up to the gates of the theater in an act of defiance, and her twin
brother Theo (Louis Garrel). It’s on
the day of the closing that Matthew, Isabelle and Theo meet. Matthew’s intrigued by Isabelle’s beauty,
Theo’s interested in Matthew’s interest in Nicolas Ray films and they all share
a common love of the motion picture.
And, after a brief getting-to-know-you phase, Matthew is invited to stay
with the twins when their parents go on holiday.
Up until this point, the tone of the film has been such
that the story that is being set-up is a coming-of-age one set against
extraordinary events happening on the streets below. The look of the film is beautiful, the dialogue is sharp if not
pretentious and the movie-love hasn’t yet crossed over into obsession. The events portrayed as the backdrop of the
film are interesting, but not yet fully formed. There is great possibility with all the pieces that have been
presented.
Unfortunately, Bertolucci can’t keep this tenor going,
although he certainly has fun trying.
What follows after Matthew moves in with Isabelle and Theo
isn’t a barrage of sex that the film’s NC-17 rating suggests, but it’s not far
off. There is a copious amount of
nudity, a couple full on “junk shots,” one of Pitt’s and the other of
Green’s. And there is sex, but it’s
unstimulating to the point of boredom.
There are a couple of gratuitous moments that involve blood and Isabelle
(use your imagination and you’re sure to figure one of the moments out) that
are totally, grossly unnecessary.
But the problem isn’t the sex; it’s what is lost at its
expense.
Prior to this, Bertolucci was recreating scenes from
famous French and American films as a way of getting us as excited about the
lives of these three people as they are.
And these scenes are fabulous.
When Isabelle, Theo and Matthew run through the Louver in an attempt to
break the “record” set by the characters in Bande à part, Bertolucci recreates the shots from the older
film to match perfectly in his. It’s
beautiful. And when the twins chant,
“He is one of us” in a nod to Freaks,
and Bertolucci cuts to scenes from that film, it’s the perfect cherry on top of
his cinema sundae.
Bertolucci also has an idea to have the larger events of
worker strikes and uprisings and a move towards Maoist thought happening on the
streets of Paris play a larger role in the film, as well. But like with the scenes from old movies he
recreates, the social events are lost in the shuffle of showing these three
kids grow more and more uninteresting.
This is a pity. We
shouldn’t feel bored by the characters at the center of the story, but by the
film’s end—a massive riot involving police, Molotov candles and broken
friendships—we don’t care what happens to Isabelle and Theo when they charge
after the police or where Matthew goes when he walks away from his friends and
their “revolution.” For 100 minutes of
the film’s 115-minute running time, none of the characters care about the
workers’ strikes or any of that.
They’re just angry that the Cinemateque closed. So when they climax comes and they’re all of
a sudden filled with a sense of social responsibility, it comes off faked and,
worse, forced.
There is a beauty and ambition in The Dreamers that isn’t fond in
many other films. Unfortunately, it’s
not sustained. The film is, ultimately,
very frustrating because it could have been about something. Instead, it’s
about… oh, forget it. Let’s just talk
movies and fool around. That’s all fine
and good, but there’s an expectation set up at the onset of the film and it’s
never fulfilled.
The Dreamers comes
released on two DVDs: the original uncut NC-17 version reviewed here, and a
slightly shorter R-rated version.
The NC-17 cut looks pristine, and the sound is full and
lush. It’s a dialogue heavy film, so there isn’t a lot of stuff happening
aurally. But when riots and the like
occur and there are more opportunities for sound effects, the disc
delivers. This is a disc that benefits
from its anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 transfer, while the Dolby Digital 5.1
is smoother than usual, though too bad it was not in DTS.
The extras are plenty on this NC-17 DVD. Besides a commentary with Bertolucci, writer
Gilbert Adair and producer Jeremy Thomas, there is a making-of documentary,
titled appropriately enough “Bertolucci Makes The Dreamers,” a featurette on the events used as the backdrop
for the film, “Outside the Window: Events in France, May, 1968,” a music video
for Michael Pitt’s cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic “Hey Joe,” and trailers
for The Dreamers and Garden State, reviewed elsewhere on this site. The complement of extras are worthwhile, but
they bring to light some of the things that were missing from the film and make
you wish that much more that the film itself would have been that much better.
The Dreamers was a
film that was well received upon initial theatrical release, and it’s not hard
to see why. It indulges in something
everyone who goes to the movies to see a movie like The Dreamers indulges in: cinema history, lore and
trivia. But even though it appeals to the
vanity of so many film fans, that doesn’t excuse its shortcomings: style over
substance — hell, everything over substance — and sloppy narrative, among many
others.
Twentieth Century Fox should be commended, first, for
releasing the film theatrically as an NC-17 product rather than caving into
MPAA pressures like so many other studios have in the past five or six
years. And they should be thanked for
releasing a quality DVD for a film that, while well received, went pretty much
unseen.
The Dreamers is a
flawed masterpiece that, thanks to its DVD presentation, can be viewed as such
in its original form.
- Dante A.
Ciampaglia
