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| 2.38:1 DVD capture: Romance & Cigarettes |
The Film |
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| Buy ROMANCE & CIGARETTES posters at Moviegoods (click on image) |
Dennis Potter was a genre unto himself, and when he died, he took his recipe for what Heinz Antor called "humanist postmodernism" with him. It's painful to watch writer-director John Turturro, one of the great character actors of our time, invoke the writer in Romance & Cigarettes, as he reduces Potter's notion of pop music as existential catharsis to exactly what it wasn't: a gimmick--an alibi for air band. In the spellbinding film version of Potter's Pennies from Heaven, Christopher Walken comically menaces Bernadette Peters by lip-synching and doing a show-stopping striptease to Irving Aaronson and His Commanders' "Let's Misbehave"; in Romance & Cigarettes, Walken's performance of Tom Jones' "Delilah" is seemingly motivated by a weakness for junk musical numbers. Considering the applause the film elicited from the typically unresponsive press/industry crowd at my TIFF screening in 2005, I guess the technique alone is visceral enough, but instead of illuminating the inner lives of the characters (which even a novelty ditty like "Teddy Bear Picnic" managed to do in the original The Singing Detective), Turturro's prosaic song choices superficialize the inner lives of his characters, making glorified jukeboxes of them all. Granted, once James Gandolfini's Nick Murder--a palooka cheating on his wife (the ubiquitous Susan Sarandon, who's really starting to wear out her welcome) with an English tart (Kate Winslet, too good for this)--is diagnosed with lung cancer, the movie becomes less arbitrary, but we're left to do the heavy-lifting required by the tonal shift; suture and respite come only briefly in the form of perennial pinch-hitter Elaine Stritch (see: Monster-in-Law). Give her an Oscar, already. |
The DVD
Sony brings Romance & Cigarettes to DVD in a respectable 2.38:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Revisiting the film at home, I was reminded just how affecting it is in fits and starts (particularly the one-two punch of Elaine Stritch's cameo and Kate Winslet lip-synching Nick Cave's haunting "Little Water Song," a stretch of film Turturro says in his commentary belongs on his proverbial "reel")--and how thoroughly the puerility and pandemonium of the rest of it demolishes our goodwill. As for the transfer itself, after a murky opening the image rights itself and in the end is held back only by minor compression issues, while the adjoining DD 5.1 audio is suitably robust, if slightly shrill. Turturro is all over this disc, recording not merely the aforementioned yak-track with teenaged son Amadeo--who storyboarded Romance & Cigarettes and claims that his father is much more profane when there aren't any microphones around--but also individual intros for the film and seven deleted scenes totalling 16 minutes. More of the same among these elisions, really, with the exception of two on-the-set improvs that apparently felt atonal in context. (Talk about splitting hairs.) Somewhere along the line we learn that Turturro began writing Romance & Cigarettes on the set of Barton Fink so he'd have something to type in character, and that "18 of the 19" scenes he wrote during that time made it all the way to the final draft. Susan Sarandon and Winslet are the lone voices from the somewhat literal choir, chiming in via telephone over the home movies that comprise "Making a Homemade Musical" (12 mins.); they don't have much to add beyond a sort of generic pride in the project. Blu-ray propaganda plus trailers for Slipstream, Revolver, and The Good Night cue up on startup and are joined by previews for Southland Tales, The Nines, Goya's Ghosts, Across the Universe, Saawariya, and "Damages - Season 1" under a special sub-menu.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.
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DVD GRADES:
Image A-
Sound A-
Extras B |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
106 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.38:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese
DVD-9
Region One
Sony
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Published: March 4, 2008
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