{"id":14941,"date":"2016-12-14T17:30:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T22:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14941"},"modified":"2016-12-14T17:30:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T22:30:18","slug":"revisiting-bubber-arthur-penns-the-chase-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14941","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Bubber: Arthur Penn’s The Chase (1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chase_poster\"Back in 2011, I saw The Chase<\/a> <\/strong>(1966) on the big screen at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, part of a retrospective whose subject I\u2019ve long forgotten, but I caught the screening to see if a film I found long, frustrating, and uneven would work better, and to an extent, it did.<\/p>\n

Its bulky length was still a problem, and John Barry\u2019s score recycled the main theme whenever a ponderous scene needed some dramatic push, but you know, the film wasn\u2019t so bad.<\/p>\n

I love Nick Redman\u2019s opening statement\u00a0on Twilight Time\u2019s commentary track, assessing this adaptation of Horton Foote\u2019s play + novel as a great film and <\/em>a terrible film, but I\u2019m more in the middle: it\u2019s a film whose makers thought it would be a definitive statement on racial tensions in America, but ended up being a cautionary example to future filmmakers on how to scale back metaphors and Big Moments and let the characters do the hard work, and reduce the character count as well.<\/p>\n

The Chase<\/a><\/strong> has one of the greatest casts ever assembled, grabbing veterans and newcomers from various periods and acting styles, and I still find watching a scene between Method Marlon Brando and classically trained Miriam Hopkins fascinating because it\u2019s two very different acting styles almost duking it out via two very high maintenance performers.<\/p>\n

Brando could overindulge in character minutia and drag a scene away from its intended function (playing a scene drunk with a horse in The Nightcomers<\/a><\/strong> was a dumb idea), while Hopkins could be very high-pitched and rabid with gravitas, and yet they\u2019re both fascinating to watch.<\/p>\n

Lillian Hellman\u2019s script has far too many characters \u2013 I rewrote chunks of my original review because parts made no sense, and I caught an erroneous character description \u2013 but like a steamy southern potboiler, everyone\u2019s eyeing or sleeping with someone else\u2019s better half. It can be a little tricky keeping tabs on who\u2019s who because minor characters are away for extended periods, but there isn\u2019t a lousy performance among the cast.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu is gorgeous \u2013 Sony\u2019s HD transfer is a stunner \u2013 and the disc feature\u2019s one of TT\u2019s best commentaries ever. This is what studios lost when they abandoned the continuation of special editions to deep catalogue titles: assembling historians for prepared, candid, sometimes passionate discussions for a track to contextualize a classic, a dud, or in this case, a grandiose misfire.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a vast, untapped knowledge base out there, and it\u2019s unsurprising the best work in Special Features comes from indie labels. I guess it\u2019s a sign of the times where studios focus on fortifying their libraries with fresh transfers in future-proofed 2K and 4K transfers, and indie labels license the transfers for their own custom special editions for specific markets.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably the best solution instead of studios sitting on classic films and doing nada, but then again, if we go back to the early days of the laserdisc, we have Criterion\u2019s packed sets. Indie labels had to find a way to distinguish their product from prior releases and justify the higher price point for a superior format, but I miss the days when studios would bring out themed collections, actor and director sets, and other value-added special editions every fall.<\/p>\n

Coming next: <\/em>Sheldon Renan\u2019s shockumentary The Killing of America<\/strong> (1981) from Severin.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revisiting Arthur Penn’s film version of Horton Foote’s The Chase (1966), new on Blu from Twilight Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[396,2562,2563,398,400],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Chase1966_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3SZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14949,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14941\/revisions\/14949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}