Who Gives Good Commentary?

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, he's not going to get a good sampling if his profile's set to friends only- but if he worked on the Rifftrax model of $3 or $4 per movie, I'd happily download several. Particularly for movies that had no commentary whatever at the moment (or had terrible Schickel or someone commentaries before.)

[Ovader]

Sorry to imply he was seeking responses exclusively from this forum but I could direct him here to browse some recommendations.

[domino harvey]

It's an interesting idea, and I'd certainly be willing to pony up a couple bucks a pop, but I'd hope his doing so wouldn't endanger his future dealings with studios wanting his contributions to their releases. That said, I think something in the area of $2.99 would be the magic number-- cheap enough to make even the reluctant bite, but enough to make a nice sum with a minimum of downloads.

[zedz]

One thing I've never understood is this implication that I've encountered in quite a few reviews that scripting commentaries in advance is somehow a bad thing (the use of the word "but"). Obviously, it's great if you're a natural raconteur like John Waters and you actually made the film, but I'd actually be more reassured if a critical commentary had been scripted in advance than otherwise.

I can point you to a number of critical commentaries that clearly weren't scripted in advance and which can sap you of the will to live in ten minutes flat.

[stwrt]

I can point you to a number of critical commentaries that clearly weren't scripted in advance and which can sap you of the will to live in ten minutes flat.

Agreed. Walter Hale's feature commentary for the Strange Love of Martha Ivers Blu-Ray is a shocker.

[manicsounds]

I'd rather have scripted scholarly commentaries rather than unscripted Richard Schickel commentaries.

[skuhn8]

I can point you to a number of critical commentaries that clearly weren't scripted in advance and which can sap you of the will to live in ten minutes flat.

Indeed, I have yet to hear a Schickel commentary that provided significantly more than a quick gloss of imdb could provide. Unless you simply like the sound of his voice--and I have no objections there--I fail to see how his contributions to the art of commentary can be celebrated.

The prejudice against scripted commentaries seems to come from some misguided notion that commentaries should be treated as improvisational performance art.

[TMDaines]

I wasn't even aware that scripted commentaries were considered a negative until a few days ago, bizarre. Give me an in-depth accurate commentary by the likes of Forgacs or Kalat over some mumbling shite anyday.

[zedz]

I can point you to a number of critical commentaries that clearly weren't scripted in advance and which can sap you of the will to live in ten minutes flat.

Indeed, I have yet to hear a Schickel commentary that provided significantly more than a quick gloss of imdb could provide. Unless you simply like the sound of his voice--and I have no objections there.

There's a guy who did very basic commentaries for some of the Poverty Row 'Forgotten Noir' sets, along the lines of: "I've just printed out the imdb pages of everybody involved in the film and now I will read them to you. For added spice, if I come across an interesting film title, I might say, 'that sounds like an interesting film.' " But the guy's accent was so lulling it was kind of like a narcotic. But Schickel and Friedkin (my go-to guy for absolutely terrible off-the-cuff commentaries - you feel like you come away from one of his knowing less than when you started) don't have that advantage.

[MichaelB]

There's a guy who did very basic commentaries for some of the Poverty Row 'Forgotten Noir' sets, along the lines of: "I've just printed out the imdb pages of everybody involved in the film and now I will read them to you. For added spice, if I come across an interesting film title, I might say, 'that sounds like an interesting film.' " But the guy's accent was so lulling it was kind of like a narcotic.

That reminds me of my business-degree days, when we had to learn how to do effective presentations. I remember one guy who wrote his out in spidery handwriting on an overhead projector transparency and then proceeded to read it out to us, mostly with his back to the audience. It was so surreally terrible that I instinctively reinterpreted it as some kind of performance art.

(My own presentation in the same session used re-edited Tex Avery and Road Runner cartoons as a metaphorical backdrop for the Barings Bank disaster - things like the gigantic cat in King-Size Canary bounding across the planet when I was talking about City fat cats, or the clouds suddenly parting to reveal a chasm yawning beneath Wile E. Coyote as Nick Leeson realised the depth of the hole he was staring into, and so on. It went down a storm, but became known as "the Disney presentation", much to my annoyance.)

[colinr0380]

Re: Excrutiating presentations. I seem to remember one of my university tutors signing off his Powerpoint introduction to a course I was taking with the infamous CGI dancing baby from the Ally McBeal show, complete with the "oogachaka!" music cue. Which has become my definition of a totally random reference, something likely thrown in to wake the pupils up at the end of the lecture.

I think we should have a list somewhere for the best audio commentaries, for all the way that they are complained about. My own vote of course goes to the Jonathan Weiss and J.G. Ballard track on The Atrocity Exhbition - they didn't need a script to do a freewheeling run through the material, using the images going by as a trigger for further discussion!

[swo17]

I think we should have a list somewhere for the best audio commentaries

Here's a thread.

[effigy105]

Indeed, I have yet to hear a Schickel commentary that provided significantly more than a quick gloss of imdb could provide. Unless you simply like the sound of his voice--and I have no objections there--I fail to see how his contributions to the art of commentary can be celebrated.

I think Schickel's audio commentary for Dirty Harry might actually have been recorded from somewhere within Clint Eastwood's rectum.

[feihong]

David Kalat's commentary on Godzilla is one of the best commentaries I've heard. In fact, he seems especially motivated, beyond his usual good standard.

[Tommaso]

No comparison probably to the so-called commentaries by Mark Gervais on the MGM Bergmans. The most embarassing things you're likely to come across. 100 minutes of non-information for each film.

[MichaelB]

Unless I've missed an earlier mention, David Forgacs definitely belongs in the "best commentaries" camp.

Easily one of my favourite commentators, he combines formidably in-depth research into the films, the source novels (which he's clearly read in the original), the historical period of both the setting and the shooting and just about everything else vaguely relevant with a delivery that's just about perfect.

I thought I knew The Conformist (Arrow) pretty well, but he delved into areas I'd never even considered, such as Bertolucci's entirely deliberate tributes to the cinema of the 1930s - references to so-called "white telephone" comedies, casting of now forgotten former 1930s stars, etc. He's equally good on Red Desert (originally recorded for the BFI, subsequently licensed by Criterion) and The Leopard (BFI, a double act with Rossana Capitano), though I haven't heard his Ossessione (BFI). Has he done any more?

[TMDaines]

I gave Forgacs a nod above too. It's clear from his work that he's someone whose expertise have a far ranging reach. It's so frustrating reading or listening to a lot of film scholars' work, when they clearly have so little knowledge of the enviroment in which the film was made.

[feihong]

That Red Desert commentary seemed top-flight last time I listened.

My favorite commentary track is probably Stephen Prince on High and Low. His information and shot-by-shot analysis adds so much to that experience. The James Ursini/Alain Silver commentary on Kiss Me Deadly is one I listen to often as well. I also very like Ginnette Vincendeau's commentary on Army of Shadows--I wish Criterion could have had her do commentary on Cercle Rouge as well--that film feels far less clear to me than Army of Shadows--and I like it even more than Armee. I definitely have developed a preference for well-prepared, intellectual commentary over off-the-cuff filmmakers generally unable to articulate their work any further than what we see on the screen. I do like the Robert Altman commentaries on his own work, but I think I like them more out of affection for Altman and his films than for any great insight they offer.

I would really have liked to hear Tony Rayns do commentary on either of the Seijun Suzuki re-issues from Criterion--and he would have been amazing on Zigeunerweisen. In his writing Rayns has a lot of special insight into Suzuki's films--he is much more sensitive to what is happening in Suzuki's films than so many critics, even those who like Suzuki's films, but for whom Suzuki's style is some kind of "pop-art phantasmagoria."

Also, I wonder if it's too soon for someone to provide some kind of critical commentary on Johnnie To films? It seems to me that David Bordwell is ready to get in-depth on Johnnie To any day of the week. I'd like to hear him talk about Election, or Vengeance, or maybe The Mission, if anyone ever gets any of those done up in really nice releases anywhere.


Possibly the worst commentary I have heard is Peter Brunette's commentary on Blow-Up. His constant insistence that no one has provided satisfactory readings for what any image or event in the film might mean flies in the face of so much actual analysis of Antonioni and of Blow-Up that the commentary gets very depressing, very quickly. Crazier, but every bit as terrible, is the commentary on Once Upon a Time in the West. The cavalcade of critics, actors, filmmakers and gushing Leone fans cobbled together on that commentary track is like watching one of those Godfrey Ho movies assembled from the parts of other movies. None of it coheres at all, and when one person recorded separately replaces another person recorded separately on the track, we jump from one way of looking at the movie to a completely different one, one level of involvement to another, and one difficult tone of voice to one that sounds wholly dissonant next to the previous one. Listening to that thing is like being lost in the labyrinth.

Is it my imagination, or are audio commentaries being phased out of disc production these days? It seems to me there are fewer and fewer commentary tracks coming out these days.

[matrixschmatrix]

Christopher Frayling is another commentator I'd put in the top tier, even outside the Leone movies that seem to be his wheelhouse- though it's a huge shame that he didn't get a solo track on Once Upon a Time in the West, as that track absolutely is a mess. Ditto Casper Tyberg, who is enough on his own to justify importing the BFI Day of Wrath. Though I think what may be my favorite commentary ever is Del Toro's on Vampyr, which was enough to transform my whole take on the movie and on Del Toro as a filmmaker.

It definitely seems as though commentaries aren't an extra of choice anymore- which may be part of why David Kalat no longer works in the field.

[manicsounds]

Frank Darabont
He even gives a behind-the-scenes on "The Green Mile" track, about how long it takes to do the commentary, the research he did himself with notetaking, the producer's role to make sure he doesn't shut up or to prompt questions, the editor's role to take out the 'um... but... so' moments and the prompt questions, and also edit any information that came later but forgotten to mention in previous scenes. A lot of hard work that doesn't go into other commentaries.

Ryuhei Kitamura
Says a lot of anecdotes on his own technical commentaries, moderates well on cast/crew commentaries, and speaks English on a few discs. Although not as fluently, but he gives some info that otherwise wouldn't be talked about on the Japanese tracks.

[The Narrator Returns]

The more obvious choices would probably be David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh. Fincher just has the ability to make even the most technical of details fascinating. And Soderbergh is always insightful, candid, and hilarious, and I'm disappointed he's stopped doing them.

[feihong]

Jasper Sharp's commentaries on "Wild Life" and "An Obsession" are just packed with information on a whole era of Japanese filmmaking and everyone in it. It made me wish and hope an edition of "Eureka" might come out one day with a Jasper Sharp commentary. A blu-ray. One day. At least, it's my dream (actually, "Wild Life" and "An Obsession" also desperately need some kind of upgrade).

Is Kalat done with commentaries? I just listened to his commentary on "Scarlet Street" a while back. I thought that was a recent one, but maybe not....

I have listened to Frayling's solo commentary on "Duck, You Sucker," and while I liked the information he provided, I am not overly fond of just how overly fond he is of Leone. I like the Leone movies, but I wish he had just a slightly more critical frame of mind when dealing with Leone's films. Once in a while he seems just overwhelmed with how great he feels Leone is. His commentary really neglects lots of other spaghetti westerns of the period that dealt with the Mexican revolution, and he seems to endorse Leone's narrow, jaded attitude towards idealism; rather than simply commenting upon it, he goes whole-hog after Leone's own provincialism--of course, that tips my hand considerably, but I would rather he have couched his points in what Leone was doing in his films and why he might be doing it. It seems to me as if Leone's narrow range is most on display in "Duck, You Sucker," and Frayling doesn't seem to notice or care. He is an articulate commentator, but I wouldn't put him in the class of Stephen Prince, whose obvious love for Kurosawa never oversells the resulting movies. Incidentally, Prince delivered an excellent commentary on "The Naked Prey," in addition to his Kurosawa commentaries.

It was a bit repetitive, but I liked the Ed Mueller/James Ellroy commentary on "Crime Wave" quite a lot. Ellroy was pretty hilarious, and it meant that Mueller had to play the straight guy. I much prefer that to Mueller's solo commentaries, where he always seems to drop some profound indelicacy in your lap when you aren't expecting it. His Evelyn Keyes story during his otherwise very good commentary on "The Prowler" and his bit in the beginning of "I Wake Up Screaming" about the kid who grows up to be Gloria Grahame's husband struck me as sort of out-of-control, as he has the need to blurt stuff like that out all the time. Ellroy, much less inhibited, is never jarring in that role, and Mueller falls back and seems more in-charge of himself as a result.

Apparently no one thought anyone wanted a commentary on "Goyokin," or "Sword of the Beast," even though Alain Silver wrote a book with two chapters in it dissecting those very films--and Silver seems ready to do any commentary on offer, and to do a good job of it. How I would love to hear him talk about "Bandit Vs. Samurai Squadron" or "The Hunter in the Dark," if Criterion ever decides to release those titles.

One of the great disasters in audio commentary has to be HKL's commentary for Once Upon a Time in China. Bey Logan tries pretty hard to keep things positive, but he's saddled with one of the caucasian bit players from the picture, who not only hates the film, but actually hates narrative film in general (he has become a documentarian in the intervening years). The jackass has no memories of making the film that he can be cajoled into sharing, and he despises Hong Kong narrative film with a special flat negativity that seems vaguely racist in its bent. He seems to equate what he views as the "cheapness" of Hong Kong film productions with something he feels he has gleaned from Hong Kong culture in general. The guy comes across at the least ethnocentric, a ridiculous downer, and he even seems to have been a somewhat unwilling participant in the film--at least in his memories. The free-wheeling, high-spirited movie on display (actually one of the least "cheap-looking" Hong Kong productions ever) seems to have nothing but a negative impact on this guy. Bey tries to be cool, but the jerk hogs the mike and never lets Bey properly defend the movie. The saddest bit is at the end, when Bey announces that he'll be doing commentary on Once Upon a Time in China II with his pal Donnie Yen. I put in the sequel right away, only to discover that Bey was talking all by his lonesome the entire time. Oh, what could have been! Bey and Edison Chen were hilarious together; Bey with Cheng Pei-Pei--twice--was fascinating; imagine Bey with Donnie. But it was not to be.

[dwk]

Is Kalat done with commentaries? I just listened to his commentary on "Scarlet Street" a while back. I thought that was a recent one, but maybe not....

I'm pretty sure Kalat has said that the Godzilla commentaries are his last.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, the commentary on the Scarlet Street was a carryover from the old DVD- Kalat's in a different line of work now, and Godzilla was his swan song. Which is a damn shame, because it would have been really nice to have him on Nibelungen.

[Saimo]

I have recently listened to Wim Wender's commentary on The Scarlet Letter. Ok, the film is pretty bad, but its commentary track is really entertaining: Wenders clearly admits that was the wrong picture to shoot, and then chronicle all the (incredible) production disasters they had. For example, they were supposed to shoot in America, but a few weeks before starting production they had to replace US with a spaghetti-western setting in Spain...