Blu-ray Review: The Last Temptation of Christ from the Criterion Collection

The Film
Martin Scorsese's deeply thoughtful, gorgeously shot The Last Temptation of Christ is one of the most moving, beautiful and spiritual films ever made about the life of Jesus — not that you would know it from the national conversation that surrounded its 1988 release. These days, the culture warriors have moved on it seems (although Stephen Colbert told Willem Dafoe he hadn't forgotten about it in an interview just last week), but Scorsese's film remains an iconic work thanks to its artistry, not its controversy.

Based on Nikos Kazantzakis' 1953 novel of the same name, The Last Temptation of Christ focuses on the uniquely human element of Jesus. The Gospels inform us that he was both fully God and fully man, but his divinity is certainly more prominent. Last Temptation largely follows the major events of the Gospels, from the Sermon on the Mount to the calling of the disciples to the joyful events of Palm Sunday and the horror of the crucifixion, but peers at Christ from a different angle.

We see doubt, confusion, fear and a desire for normalcy all coursing through Jesus (Dafoe) as we first meet him, constructing crosses for the Romans and confronted by Judas (Harvey Keitel) for his complicity in the killing of Jews. But this is not some bizzaro world construction, designed to subvert the values of the Jesus we know — he's well-intentioned but troubled by his sense of purpose. After a sojourn in the desert and a meeting with John the Baptist (André Gregory, capturing the wildness of the character like no other film portrayal), Jesus embraces his calling to speak for God and his position as God's own son.

And yet the humanity continues to be on full display alongside the divine miracles and penetrating parables. Jesus' relationship with Judas is one of the most intriguing alternate looks, fraught with tension and Judas' desire for a more political leader but deeply imbued with love and friendship all the same. In so many of the great biblical epics, it's hard to imagine the stiff, remote Jesus characters having any real relationships at all; here, we see a man with emotions and desires. You know blood flows throw the veins of Dafoe's Jesus and not just because he spills it in a sacrifice for all mankind.

The film's titular last temptation comes up on the cross, as a little girl claiming to be his guardian angel escorts him off and to his wedding to Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey), a woman who he's always felt a grave responsibility for. The imagined salaciousness of their romance never materializes — this arresting sequence does nothing to taint the figure of Jesus, but guides us to reflect on his sacrifice and life in a profound way. A sense of reflection is one of the film's chief takeaways, and for all of the vitriol that's been spewed in its direction, The Last Temptation of Christ will endure as a masterpiece of thoughtful spirituality.

The Blu-ray Disc
Criterion presents The Last Temptation of Christ in 1080p high definition and its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The disc represents a substantial upgrade over the 2000 Criterion DVD, presenting an image with excellent clarity and impressive film-like fine detail. Michael Ballhaus's dusty photography looks superb here, the earthy hues coming across especially nicely. The image isn't tack-sharp, but the slight softness appears to be Scorsese's desired look for the film, and the stability of the image clarity and sharpness doesn't waver.

The 5.1 DTS-HD soundtrack is fantastic, providing an immersive environment and offering a great showcase for Peter Gabriel's diverse score. Effects are dynamic, dialogue is crystal clear and ambient noise fills out the surrounds nicely.

Special Features
Criterion ports over pretty much everything from the DVD. Supplements are a little light but are solid. An audio commentary with Scorsese, Dafoe and writers Paul Schrader and Jay Cocks features the participants recorded separately. Shot-on-VHS location footage by Scorsese offers a look at production in Morocco, while an interview with Gabriel features him discussing the various influences on his score. Image galleries feature the instruments used in the score, productions stills, costume designs and ancillary research materials that shaped the look of the film.

The package also includes an insert with an essay by critic David Ehrenstein, slightly updated from his DVD essay to include a brief section on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

The Bottom Line
A beautiful presentation of Scorsese's moving, (deliberately) misunderstood film.
 

Blu-ray Review: Tiny Furniture from the Criterion Collection

The Film
By the time I got to Tiny Furniture, it was close to impossible to have formed an opinion inside a vacuum. Lena Dunham’s second feature had won South by Southwest’s top prize and become a bit of a cause célèbre in the independent/mumblecore-ish movement. It had also gained many, many detractors, and its announcement as a forthcoming Criterion title didn’t help any.

Now, doing my best to put aside notions of Dunham’s privileged upbringing, her flippant comments about Nick Ray, her autobiographical character’s admission that she hates foreign films and the fact that Azazel Jacobs already made a much better film about returning to an actual childhood New York City home with his own artist family members playing themselves, my reaction to Tiny Furniture is generally indifferent, one way or the other. 

It is hard to leave the film thinking that Dunham has anything insightful to say at all about postgraduate malaise, the perils of privilege, shitty jobs, awkward friendships and sibling rivalry. Now, Dunham doesn’t seem to be striving for a grand statement in regards to any of these things, but the fundamental emptiness of Tiny Furniture emerges nonetheless.

Dunham has a knack for dialogue and not overly manufactured wit that is fitfully apparent throughout Tiny Furniture, and it’s this quality that seems to bode the best for a great future work. But the scattered sharp one-liners about entitlement or frozen dinners are engulfed by Dunham’s own mannered, obsessively self-conscious acting. Better are the slightly stilted Laurie Simmons (Dunham’s own mom) as Aura’s mother and the prickly Grace Dunham (her own sister) as sister Nadine, but any potential truthfulness in the numerous domestic scenes is frequently undercut by the performances.

If it weren’t for the ace, cleanly drawn cinematography by up-and-comer Jody Lee Lipes, Tiny Furniture wouldn’t stick out much from the crop of shaggy, hollow indies that have proliferated in the digital world. Dunham may one day make a film as incisive and personal as those from rough contemporaries like Jacobs or the Safdie Brothers, but for all of its autobiographical elements, Tiny Furniture isn’t it.

The Blu-ray Disc
Presented in 1080p high definition in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Tiny Furniture looks sharp and clean here. Its digital images are nicely detailed, and the white expanse of the loft doesn’t betray any obvious digital artifacts. Colors aren’t terribly arresting, but the palette retains a consistent look. Naturally, there’s no damage to speak of.

The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is perfectly adequate for the dialogue-heavy film, with city noise and crowd chatter allowing for some light ambiance throughout.

Special Features  
Fans of the film get a nice selection of extras, although there’s little here to convince a doubter to reassess their opinion. A 30-minute conversation between Dunham and Nora Ephron sees them discuss what it’s like for women in the industry, writing autobiographically and influences like Woody Allen. The great filmmaker Paul Schrader offers up a very defensive take of the film and Dunham, essentially claiming jealousy as the driving force behind the film’s many detractors. 

Also included are Dunham’s first feature, Creative Nonfiction, and a filmed introduction by Dunham to it, and four short films that originated on YouTube — Pressure, Open the Door, Hooker on Campus and The Fountain, which appears several times in Tiny Furniture.  The package includes an insert with an essay by critic Phillip Lopate, who offers a much more cogent analysis of the film than Schrader.

The Bottom Line
Neither Dunham nor Tiny Furniture deserves the vitriol sent their way, but the film is hardly a revelation. A nice package by Criterion will be a treat for fans though.

On the Bowery, now on Blu-ray from Milestone Films

The interesting construction and the arresting black-and-white images of Lionel Rogosin's 1956 documentary On the Bowery make for an unforgettable film. Over at Blogcritics, I review Milestone's new two-disc Blu-ray set, which includes two other Rogosin films.

Blu-ray Review: Three Outlaw Samurai from the Criterion Collection

The Film
Hideo Gosha's film debut, Three Outlaw Samurai (based on an earlier TV show of the same name that Gosha worked on), is a lean, thrilling genre picture. Gosha draws his details sparely, working with archetypal characters and familiar samurai notions of honor and bravery to deliver a brisk 93-minute entertainment, unfettered by extraneous particulars. But though its setting and character types are common, Three Outlaw Samurai's chief pleasures come not from the comfort of the familiar but from Gosha's bracing visuals and inventive direction.

Weaving an abundance of technically superb swordfighting scenes with a tale of class warfare and bureaucratic inertia, Three Outlaw Samurai opens with wandering ronin Sakon Shiba (Tetsuro Tamba) happening upon a kidnapping. Three peasants have captured the local magistrate's daughter (Miyuki Kuwano) in an attempt to secure better living conditions for themselves, and Shiba comes around to their plan, acting as the lone wise warrior in a sea of desperate incompetence.

The corrupt magistrate (Tatsuya Ishiguro) sends out bands of his own samurai to overtake the peasants and reclaim his daughter, but there are some defections — the jovial Kyojuro Sakura (Isamu Nagato) and the skeptical Einosuke Kikyo (Mikijiro Hira) join Shiba to defend the peasants' cause. But their own personal honor proves to be an uneven match for the magistrate's underhanded ways, leading to a series of violent confrontations.

The unexpected actions of the three titular samurai set them up in direct opposition to the rigidly defined feudal roles that are deeply entrenched here. The rich live in luxury while the working class suffers, and Gosha is constantly reminding us of this status quo with his richly detailed compositions, frequently framed by doorways, crossbeams and constricting right angles. His action sequences have a tendency to disrupt this visual order — canted frames tilt the proceedings into a frenetic, violent attempt at correcting the injustice. Some of Gosha's most interesting shots in the film see him zeroing in on a specific face and holding the image there while something violent occurs — often to that shot's subject — just outside of the frame. There's an unpredictable energy to the film's violent encounters that makes the film seethe.

Three Outlaw Samurai was an auspicious debut for Gosha, proving that he could transition into the world of TV to film with a flair for expertly constructed action and compelling composition.

The Blu-ray Disc
Criterion's 1080p, 2.35:1 transfer of Three Outlaw Samurai is simply gorgeous, displaying breathtaking amounts of fine detail in everything from clothing fibers to foliage. The image is consistently sharp, with healthy amounts of film-like grain and excellent grayscale separation. The transfer's very few stray marks are almost totally negligible, leaving us with a clean, beautiful black-and-white presentation.

Audio is presented in an uncompressed monaural track that gets the job, with adequate clarity for voices and effects.

Special Features
A release even sparer than the film itself, the disc only includes the film's theatrical trailer as an extra. The package also contains a booklet with an essay by the very fine critic Bilge Ebiri, and his overview of Gosha's career, the transition from TV to film and themes of disloyalty in Three Outlaw Samurai is a great read.

The Bottom Line
Very thin extras for Criterion these days, but the lower price point releases are still meticulously produced, as the beautiful transfer here can attest to.

Seattle Theater: Oklahoma! and I Am My Own Wife

Kyle Scatliffe as a menacing, wounded Jud Fry in the 5th Avenue's production of Oklahoma! Photo provided.

Two excellent shows are running in Seattle through the month of February: the 5th Avenue's stunning, ambitious production of Oklahoma!, with choreography by the Spectrum Dance Theater's Donald Byrd, and Seattle Rep's staging of Tony- and Pulitzer-winning I Am My Own Wife. I review both shows over at Blogcritics:
Oklahoma!
I Am My Own Wife

Wilco with White Denim at the Paramount Theatre, 2/7/12

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco at Seattle's Paramount Theatre
Photo by Dusty Somers

Wilco and White Denim treated a sold-out Seattle crowd right Tuesday night at the Paramount. Check out my review of the show over at Blogcritics, and see more of my photos of both bands after the jump.

Traffic on Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Steven Soderbergh's finely tuned sprawl Traffic gets the high-def upgrade from Criterion, and believe me, those super-grainy, high-contrast Mexico scenes sure look great. The film also nicely anticipates Contagion, which might actually best Traffic in some respects, but the crisscross storytelling here is hard to beat. I review the disc over at Cinema Sentries.