479, 599, 762 André Gregory & Wallace Shawn: 3 Films

[domino harvey]

Maybe paired with a Blu-ray upgrade of My Dinner With Andre?

[swo17]

Is it strange that this would get a first-run Criterion release but evidently not Boyhood?

[sir_luke]

Is it strange that this would get a first-run Criterion release but evidently not Boyhood?

I thought it was assumed Boyhood *would* have its initial release done by Criterion. What'd I miss?

Also, this is amazing news. Being a huge fan of both My Dinner With Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street, I've been eager to see this since it was announced.

[swo17]

Is it strange that this would get a first-run Criterion release but evidently not Boyhood?

I thought it was assumed Boyhood *would* have its initial release done by Criterion. What'd I miss?

This

[ianungstad]

There is something wonky about the Amazon listing for Boyhood. Amazon also has the VOD/Streaming credited to Paramount. While IFC doesn't do physical media; they have a pretty well established VOD platform. Doesn't make sense.

[Numero Trois]

Being a huge fan of both My Dinner With Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street, I've been eager to see this since it was announced.

Reviews have been generally positive, with some reservations.

Judging by the published translations, I bet some people will be disappointed with the film. Unlike with Vanya the play, the translated Master Builder doesn't carry over very well on the page. It doesn't have the outward appeal that Vanya and My Dinner with Andre have even in print. Eve le Gallienne flat out states (in the foreword to her book of Ibsen translations) that the play is best read in the original language. That said, I do agree with just about everyone else that Rolf Fjelde's is the best translation. With Eve le Gallienne's translation more or less in second place.

[Jack Phillips]

I thought Demme's film worked rather well. Ibsen's setting was, I guess, the 1890s. Demme chose not to do a costume picture, and there's no attempt to make things realistic. It's as if a group of actors in an empty house were staging a production of the play and we're in among them watching it all. Shawn updated some of the language. There's kind of the idea that we're watching a contemporary story operating beneath an overlay from the past. The two periods are existing simultaneously.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Not a huge fan of plays, but for some reason I was compelled to re-watch Malle's Vanya on 42nd street on Blu recently (I had seen the DVD years ago). Wow - excellent film. From the beginning NYC street scenes to the ending dialogue around the table, this was a truly brilliant movie. Glad that Malle immortalized this on screen...

And, for the first time, I made the connection that W. Shawn & Andre G. are basically playing themselves again here, as they first did in the '80's cult classic, My Dinner with Andre.

The Blu was decent - I'm not sure how much of an improvement this was over the DVD, though as with many Blu's, the colors were more vivid - not sure if the PQ was much better than the regular DVD, however.

[swo17]

Boxset coming June 16th

[warren oates]

A good call to bundle them like this. I don't mind buying Vanya again. And I'm curious about A Master Builder, but not enough to for a solo blind buy.

[danieltiger]

Bah, of course I just bought Vanya during the flash sale. You're welcome everyone. I don't even mind, given that I've wanted a My Dinner upgrade for ever.

[warren oates]

Turns out that this is what Fran Lebowitz was doing for CC. Who's seen A Master Builder? How does it compare to the other works in this set or to Wallace Shawn's own solo work as a playwright?

[CSM126]

Won't be needing the boxset since I already have Vanya. Very anxious to pick up Master Builder. I watched it on VoD a couple months back and it is a flat-out masterpiece. The mumblecore aesthetic of the opening almost put me off but when

SpoilerShow

it changed from cheap handheld video to vivid, gorgeous widescreen (film? It sure looks good enough to be 35mm).

it sucked me right in and did not let go at all. It weaves a dreamlike ambience and newcomer Lisa Joyce is so entrancing and ethereal that I couldn't take my eyes off the screen at all. I was absolutely transported in a way few films have ever done to me. I cannot express properly in words how amazing I find this film to be. It's just as damn great as Vanya and My Dinner with Andre, if not even a little bit more so. If you haven't seen it...You simply must.

[warren oates]

Thanks for that rave. I was a little on the fence, since I realized I could just upgrade My Dinner with Andre and not get the box, but you've convinced me.

[Minkin]

My Dinner with Toozé

This was probably among my top 20 or so for wanted blu upgrades. After having dragged my heels on Vanya, the boxset works out to be perfect. Do wish we knew what the packaging for the boxset will be (3 keepcases - like Che, standard boxset design? 3 booklets? One large booklet?).

[criterionsnob]

Beaver on A Master Builder

[Self]

Beaver on 3 Films

[knives]

Out of curiosity does anyone know why the DVD lists two aspect ratios for A Master Builder? I'm not aware of them doing this before for a film.

[swo17]

The film alternates between both ratios. Are there no other films in the collection that do this?

[danieltiger]

The film alternates between both ratios. Are there no other films in the collection that do this?

Grand Budapest Hotel certainly will, I can't immediately think of any that do but it wouldn't surprise me.

[domino harvey]

A Master Builder is indeed a wonderful film (I'd rank it above Vanya but below Andre), adapting a play (unread by me) that all principals involved freely admit they don't quite fully comprehend and the degrees of understanding and vision compete with the unease of where it's all going and even, sometimes, what's happening. Based on what we get here, the decision to stage the adaptation as a dream play is inspired, and, as CSM126 spoiler-mentions earlier, the transition between the two narratives is clever (and welcome-- I had my doubts on the visual style of this one early on). Lisa Joyce is tremendous as the young visitor who sends architect Wallace Shawn's household into rupture. The extended thirty minutes or so upon her arrival is some of the most tenuously agonizing and unpredictable cinema of recent memory, with Joyce's demeanor alternating between kittenish and accusatory, giggling incessantly like a vaguely sinister reject from Du côté d'Orouët as Shawn is prodded on something untoward he may or may not have ever done. It's an exhilarating and knotty sequence, and the film is never quite able to live up to it or recover from it, but the overall end result remains strong, with tenuous and changing relationships and strong work from the "name" principals (the actors playing the apprentice and his fiancee I found quite poor, however).

There are only three extras on Criterion's disc but they're a series of substantial interviews (nearly two hours' worth) that present actors and theatre with a sense of intelligence and perceptiveness from all involved. I was especially taken by the shared interview with Joyce and Julie Hagerty, who have great chemistry together and relay perhaps the most insightful comments about the material found in the extras-- it's nice to see proof of the collaborative nature of the project outside of the famous names grouped together in a boxed set. This is one of the year's best Criterion releases for sure.

[knives]

Definitely agreed. The early sections played poorly on first viewing, but with the reveal of the more traditional style even that makes a lot of sense and truly lifts the film up to one of the best pieces of American cinema I've seen in a while. Are you sure it is supposed to be a dream though? I took it as more as a series of memories that were getting mixed up with his own Freudian regrets.

[domino harvey]

SpoilerShow

Yes. Apparently in the play Joyce's character is real, but it's mentioned several times in the extra that Shawn's hallucinating the majority of the film in the moments before his death, which was my impression when watching as well. I didn't read this section of the film as reflecting memories of actual encounters since Joyce was also the nurse who gave him a glass of water at the beginning of the film, though the dream is obviously Shawn's way of dealing with and finding closure on some of the issues raised before he passes, so there are no doubt elements of the character's actual past in play.

[knives]

Ah, I didn't remember her as the nurse, but that definitely clarifies a bit.

[bottled spider]

I vastly preferred this to Vanya on 42nd and to the two BBC adaptations of Master Builder (my only familiarity with the play).

I like the instability of the characters, of the kind of one associates with the characters in Kafka or Pinter (I don't know Ibsen very well). Hilde is at times an ethereal, archetypal figure -- a benign psychopomp, perhaps, or a malevolent fury/destroying angel -- at other times very much a solid, complex, flesh-and-blood person. She could be a psychopath, but then she's sometimes the sanest and most humane person in the room. Halvard Solness likewise defies a single, unified description. I can't decide if he's a bastard or not.

Consulting IMDb for name spellings, I noticed it is bizarrely rated at 6.0. One despairs for humanity.