Diva
(1981/Meridian Collection/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
With its
striking images, I had not outright remembered Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1983) until I watched this new
DVD, one of the initial Meridian Collection releases from Lionsgate. When I saw it, I saw a new potential for
French cinema and looking at it now, I asked myself immediately “what
happened!?!” then investigated and can see how quickly the good intents of this
film had a very quick rise and fall.
There is
a story here. One about a young man who
is interested in a beautiful singer, illegally tapes her concert, gets chased
for the tape, has the tape switched that show a political elite involved with a
crime and all hell breaks loose. It is a
good story the director penned with Jean Van Hamme and has not dated too
badly. However, it did not stay with me
and should have been a launching point for a bigger career and maybe new wave
of French cinema. Instead, it turned out
to backfire and ruin French cinema in so many ways for more of the last quarter
century that I could have ever imagined at the time.
Before
the laughable, horrendous Dogme ’95 movement, this film invented a short-lived
style called Cinema du look that made the film’s look more manicured, beautiful
and slicker than they had in a long time.
This was not the first time French cinema enjoyed this, which you can
see by films from their silent era (Children
Of Paradise being a prime example and the Jacques Tati comedies (Playtime) qualify) to sound films
including Truffaut’s work, but apparently, three directors thought the original
French New Wave did not look good enough or any other French films at that!
So who
are these filmmakers and what did they do?
Beineix moved on to make the confused, problematic and overrated Betty Blue and the original version of
the obnoxious The Diving Bell & The
Butterfly. Leos Carax made Boy Meets
Girl before abandoning the movement for the likes of Pola X. That leaves Luc
Besson, who turned in into a slick “style over substance” sellout that has
produced some of the worst French films of all time, often directed by
himself. They include The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita and Leon,
all good looking, but all problematic no mater how much money they made. The bad filmmaking he is responsible for
inspiring since he abandoned Cinema du look is immeasurable and if you look at
his filmography as producer and director, you’ll see more bombs and duds. You can see why the movement began to die in
1984 and was tapped out by the early 1990s.
As for
this film, you can see where it might have been going before the bottom fell
out and fell hard. It did not need to be
about anything politically, but since it inevitably was about nothing but being
slick, what did they expect? The one
good thing that came out of this was the work of cinematographer Phillippe Rousselot,
who moved onto The Emerald Forest, Hope & Glory, Too Beautiful For You, Henry
& June, The People vs. Larry
Flint, The Tailor of Panama, The Brave One and The Great Debaters, showing that a great look can enhance a
narrative instead of distract form the lack of one. I was expecting that from all involved at the
time, but at least his work continues to be top rate, even when working with a
famous U.S> director with more style than substance of late, Tim Burton.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.66 X 1 image is softer than I expected considering
the claim that this came from a new print and transfer approved by the
director, despite some softness that is intended. The inevitable Blu-ray will tell us if there
is print or Digital Internegative trouble.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono has dated-sounding dialogue and a score that
sometimes even sounded warped, which is bad for a film with a music emphasis. Vladimir Cosma’s score deserves better too,
as does the singing here. Extras include
on camera interviews with the cast/crew, Beineix, Rousselot and set designer
Hilton McConnico, all introduced by Phil Powrie, who wrote a book on the
director. You also get scene-specific
audio commentary by Beineix.
- Nicholas Sheffo
