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I AM CUBA (SOY CUBA)
(Milestone) 1964. Three discs. 141 mins. B&W.

Putin makes it onto the cover of Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ issue, and two Russian films make it onto FIR’s Stocking Stuffer list. It’s a big year for the Ruskies, no doubt about it.
If I’d had a ‘best DVD packaging’ list for ’07, this delightfully imaginative release would have walked away with the top honors. Inside an ingeniously replicated Cuban cigar box, three separate DVDs and a brochure on the film and its crew can be found.
Kalatozov had a larger-than-life way with cinema. He was passionately in love with extravagantly lunatic moving shots and wide-angle lenses. In a film like THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Criterion) he uses these elements with some degree of control, serving the narrative, if with decided flamboyance. In I AM CUBA it seems like he sampled generously from an hors d’oeuvres tray full of uppers before setting foot on the set each morning: the excesses of his stylistic uses of the camera are retina-melting. Shots go on and on, far beyond the measure of any narrative design. It’s a unique demonstration of directorial indulgence, and it’s great fun. You’ll love it, abandon yourself to it, and just hang onto your seat for the duration of the roller-coaster ride.
Sadly, his last film, THE RED TENT, was a misconceived project. If you know his work, you’ll see him trying to tell the story in a claustrophobically visual way, but the scenes with Peter Finch reliving the derigible disaster in his old age are deadeningly flat. Of course it’s great to see the cameo by Sean Connery in the period he was trying to break away from his James Bond image, and Ennio Morricone’s score is transcendent. But Kalatozov’s contribution is the least of the films virtues.
I AM CUBA, however, must be seen, and should be owned, and this presentation lives up to the director’s grand manner with film. To fatten the package, a marvelous documentary is enclosed which communicates Kalatozov’s contribution to cinema with considerable passion, and a great score – A FILM ABOUT MICHAEL KALATOZOV. Including deft testimony from Claude LeLouche (who’s name is misspelled in the doc) who, as a young documentary filmmaker, had the good fortune to visit the set of THE CRANES ARE FLYING when the crane shot inside the stairway was being filmed. It changed the course of his career. And it made me realize the word ‘crane’ has a double meaning in the context of a) the film’s narrative and b) its aesthetics.

The set includes:

Disc One: High Definition master from the original Russian 35mm fine grain master. Martin Scorsese interview. Cuban version of the opening credits. Stills gallery.
Disc Two: THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH. 2005. 91 mins. Vicente Ferraz’s doc on the making of I AM CUBA. 2004 interview with Screenwriter Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
Disc Three: A FILM ABOUT MICHAIL KALATOZOV. 2006. 120 mins.

Director – Mikhail Kalatozov. Cinematography – Sergei Urusevsky. Script by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Enrique Pineda Barnet.
With: Sergio Corrieri, Jean Bouise.

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TWIN PEAKS
(Paramount Home Entertainment)

About TWIN PEAKS, what can one say. It’s one of the most important, experimental series ever created for TV, ranking up there with THE PRISONER and THE ERNIE KOVAKS SHOW. It was a bold move for Lynch, moving from theatrical features to the small tube, but he remained true to his vision, and this 25 hour adventure lies midway between his lucid work and his dense, impenetrable creations (eg., his most recent, interminable, stultifying, inaccessible and poorly shot INLAND EMPIRE).
Pre-dating Tarentino, Lynch resurrected some actors who’d fallen into the cinema ether, such as Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn. Unlike with Tarentino, their careers weren’t resurrected – just their older images.
The best thing to be said about this collection, and it’s no small compliment, is that everything looks great, including the pilot, which has infamously looked terrible over the years. There are some engaging supplementals, but no commentary track…yet. Kyle Maclachlan hosts Saturday Night Live on September 29th, 1990, and we get the monologue and a TWIN PEAKS parody, both of which exhibit that curious mix of SNL emotions – uneasiness bordering on embarrassment, and genuine relief and amusement when a gag works. “A Slice of Lynch” finds the director sitting at a bar chatting with three of his key people, and calling them by their nicknames he’s given them (Kyle MacLachlan = Kale). I like the tone of the piece, and it’s a pleasure to see the director having fun and trying to accommodate the requirements of a featurette while keeping faithful to his vision. He contemplates a slice of cherry pie, sips coffee, and discusses off camera trivia in a very relaxed manner. Much fun and a valuable artifact.

The set includes:

10 discs. 1990-91. 25 hrs. 1 min. Not rated. 1.33:1 RA. 29 episodes plus the original pilot in two versions. Deleted scenes. “Secrets From Another Place” feature doc. “A Slice of Lynch” doc. ”Return to Twin Peaks” doc. Kyle MacLachlan’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. Julee Cruse’s ‘Falling’ music video. TWIN PEAKS DVD postcards. Etc.
Directors: David Lynch, Lesli Linka Glatter, Caleb Deschanel, Duwayne Dunham, Tim Hunter, Todd Holland, Tina Rathborne.
With: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Richard Beymer, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Peggy Lipton, Jack Nance, Everett McGill, Piper Laurie, Joan Chen, Ray Wise, Russ Tamblyn.

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TREASURES VOLUME 3 (Image Home Entertainment) 1900-1934. 12+ hours. 48 films. 4 discs. Audio commentary by 20 experts. More than 600 interactive screens about the films and music. 192-page book with film notes and credits. Postcards from the films.

Directors represented: Cecil B. De Mille. Lois Weber. William Desmond Taylor. Francis Marion, Edwin Porter, D.W. Griffith, King Vidor, Victor Schertzinger.

A dedicated archival staff has been compiling, supervising the scores, and releasing these collections of early cinema. This one, Volume 3, focuses on Social issues in American Film, and ranges from shorts to a 1928 feature with an intermission. The quality is often jaw-dropping, particularly with the feature REDSKIN, parts of which are shot in 2-strip Technicolor. One has come to expect a slightly surreal experience from that process, nowhere near realistic color, but pleasantly expressionistic and ingratiating nonetheless. However in REDSKIN, the Tech sequences are as close to real color as I’ve ever seen. And the pre-Monument Valley vistas are admirably impressive.
THE GODLESS GIRL is the 2 hr. 8 mins. two-part feature, De Mille’s last in the silent era, and not a commercial success in its day. But it’s a wonderful, outrageous, daring, campy, dynamic, and ultimately powerful piece of cinema, accompanied for a while by the commentary of De Mille’s granddaughter, Cecilia. The sexy leader of an atheist society in the local high school takes on her male counterpart in the god-fearing contingent, and in De Mille’s estimation, both are severely misled in their approach to their convictions. Their journey takes them into major deprivation conditions, and therein lies much of the harrowing fun.
This is a large, enjoyable collection, the four discs separated into the following categories: ‘The City Reformed’, ‘New Women’, ‘Toil and Tyranny’, and ‘Americans in the Making’. You have your evening’s entertainment laid out for you in this package – first a short of your choice, then the main feature.
A 192-page book included within the cover goes in detail over each represented item, and gives almost equal time to the scores for each film. In addition, for the historically-minded, there are commentators for every film. Occasionally they seem to be reading from prepared texts, which is off-putting. But no one can fault the National Film Preservation Foundation their intentions in doing this valuable work. Those institutions who have participated in these volumes: George Eastman House, Library of Congress, Museum of Modern Art, National Archives, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

And in keeping with this extensive collection of primarily silent films saved from oblivion, you might want to purchase a handsome program from a silent film, sold at the theaters when it originally premiered. Titles such as BEN HUR ($45.), THE BIG PARADE ($60.) and THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE ($75.) are among the hundreds of movie programs, some hardbound, some soft, most in great shape, spanning the silent and sound eras, available from Larry Newman, 909 Clinton St., Philadelphia, PA – 19107. These are cherished collectibles, and you can email Larry at larrynewman49@aol.com.

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