The Illustrated Man (1969) – DVD

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man
*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, Robert Drivas, Don Dubbins
screenplay by Howard B. Kreitsek, based on the book by Ray Bradbury
directed by Jack Smight

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (hereafter The Illustrated Man) lays its cards out on the table right from the start. There's not much going on, just a couple of drifters named Carl (Rod Steiger) and Willie (Robert Drivas) taking a dip in the river, unaware of each other's presence. It should have been fairly simple to communicate this, but director Jack Smight is no simpleton: he throws the cuts at you, struggling to achieve with sweeping helicopter shots and other ephemera an effect he ultimately can't articulate. This pretty much sums up the movie, a series of attempts to look like somebody's working when nobody has any idea why they bothered. Coupled with Steiger's obnoxious persona and Drivas' blankness, The Illustrated Man is largely a hole in the screen that turns Ray Bradbury's gripping anthology of the same name into something sluggish and unpleasant to behold.

The whole "illustrated man" conceit–that is, Carl's tattooed body facilitating glimpses into the future–was merely the connective tissue for Bradbury's allegorical tales, making its elevation to the centre of the narrative a little disconcerting. Once Carl and Willie are out of the water and properly introduced, it's time for Steiger to scowl his way through a belligerent performance while Drivas tries too hard to appear either spellbound or horrified. It's an act that gets very old very quickly, and Drivas can't keep up besides: he's simply not forceful enough to provide an identification point for enduring Steiger's bullying. As Carl/Steiger shouts louder about the tattooist woman Felicia (Claire Bloom) on whom he wants to exact revenge, you get the feeling he got his just desserts–sort of retroactive payback for what he's putting us through.

The film eventually does get down to telling the short stories, but in the most anesthetized way imaginable–and however thematically applicable, matters are not helped by the recycling of the three principals throughout. "The Veldt," wherein nervous parents (Steiger and Bloom) fear the African setting of their children's holodeck, takes place in one of those rounded, mod A Clockwork Orange futures with miles of white and no way to shoot it. Steiger remains remarkably unsympathetic and overpowers Bloom as she sits around looking pretty. "The Long Rain" finds Steiger barking orders at crewmembers shipwrecked on an alien planet; not only does the scenery suggest a muted version of some cheesy "Lost in Space" set (clearly, futurism was not famed production designer Richard Sylbert's forte), but the bit–in which the crew dwindles down to Steiger and Drivas–doesn't have the screentime to establish the right mood of despair. Finally, "The Last Night in the World" casts Steiger and Bloom as parents again, deliberating over whether to kill their children the night before the end of the world. The two still lack chemistry and the diaphanous drapery surrounding them doesn't help.

Even at that, The Illustrated Man's major misstep is fixating on the framing device, which also encompasses the flashbacks to Carl's tattoo sessions with Felicia. There's almost no drama on offer here: as The Illustrated Jerk makes Method hay of his predicament, his captive audience consistently fails to volley back, leaving you with such a passive surrogate that you begin checking your watch every ten minutes. And while those psychedelic illustrations sure are neat, they don't compensate for the fact that the film is all bone and no meat. There's a sense that what we're seeing is "fantastic" and "wondrous," yet it never translates into an indelible image or an imaginative shot.

THE DVD
The Illustrated Man, one of a handful of titles that won Amazon's DVD Decision 2006, comes to disc from Warner in a definitive presentation. The 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced image is astonishingly detailed and lustrous; blooming, foggy whites may have some mistaking the diffuse, early-'70s aesthetic for ringing artifacts, but they're no doubt native to the source. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono sound is similarly unimpeachable, strikingly full and robust for a one-channel mix. The only extra is "Tattooed Steiger" (10 mins.), a heavy-breathing take on Steiger's body-art process. A couple of behind-the-scenes clips–including a trite script reading with the cast–are only prelude to the main event of the star and his art department. It's way too serious but entertaining enough. Trailers for The Illustrated Man and Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning complete the package.

103 minutes; PG; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 1.0, French DD 1.0; CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Warner