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DVD 3 Women - Criterion Collection
"The cinema," Orson Welles famously noted, "is a ribbon of dream." 3 Women is one of few feature films on record as having taken form in a dream. The dreamer was Robert Altman, and although all his best work has an oneiric quality--the floaty zooms, the eerie pastels bleeding into one another, the slip and slide of characters' trajectories overlapping in the fluid accumulation of what passes for narrative--this last masterpiece in his amazing seven-year run of 1970s masterpieces is only more so. Shelly Duvall, that most unorthodox of Altman creatures, locks in the tone with her eerie portrayal of Millie Lammoreaux, a Texan hoyden whose nonstop prattle turns life into a stream-of-consciousness reverie even as most of the people in her vicinity studiously ignore her. Her primacy is worshiped, then emulated by a strange, certifiably dysfunctional childwoman named Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) who comes to work in the same old-age home as Millie, moves in with her, and progressively usurps her lifestyle and finally her identity. The third woman, Willie (the late Janice Rule), is a pregnant artist who paints reptilian humanoid figures on the floors of swimming pools. Willie's husband (Robert Fortier), a strutting gun nut who once had a bit part on TV's Wyatt Earp ("He knows Hugh O'Brian"), is just about the only male character of consequence in the film. This macho man gets his--but what "his" may be is only one of the movie's beguiling mysteries. It's only appropriate that the cameraman, Chuck Rosher, should be the son of the man who photographed F.W. Murnau's Sunrise. --Richard T. Jameson
The connection between women...a surreal experience...
Pinky (Sissy Spacek), an immature and timid girl, has recently left Texas for some unknown reason and acquired a job as a geriatric healthcare aid in the Palm Springs area. She is guided into her new job by the talkative Millie (Shelley Duvall). Millie's chattiness is often disregarded by her coworkers, neighbors, and all others as she desperately attempts to make connections with men. However, Pinky perceives Millie as the perfect woman as she is the only person that pays any attention to her, which leads to the two of them becoming roommates. This is the beginning for what could be called a surrealistic experience as the connection between two women with their similarities and differences develops. Their connection leads into a whirlpool of emotional turmoil where the third enigmatic woman, Willie (Janice Rule), enters. Wille is an artist that creates murals of amphibian women in struggles.
3 Women is dreamlike vision of what Altman once dreamed and later envisioned on the silver screen for the public to see. When Altman's vision has been seen it is difficult to make into a clear picture as painfully uneasiness is instilled into the cerebral cortex while ambiguous notions are drifting in multiple directions. This leaves interpretation completely to the audience as some hints of what Altman might want to say could offer some direction, yet lead astray the most cunning of cerebral minds. Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall perform with brilliance as they bring this delusional imagination to life. In the end, Altman leaves a brilliant cinematic experience for an audience to ponder for ages as there is no absolute analysis of 3 Women.
MILLIE & PINKY & WILLIE....
As a Robert Altman fan, I'm fully aware that he's a hit or miss director...with equal amounts of hits and misses. Yet, when he hits---he's a genius. "3 Women" contains the genius with the uncanny casting of Shelley Duvall as Millie, a would be sophisticate with no sophistication and Sissy Spacek as Pinky, a strange blank slate of a girl from Texas. The third woman is Willie (Janice Rule), an equally strange (and strangely silent) pregnant middle-aged artist who paints obscenely macabre murals of half-reptile half-human creatures in empty swimming pools. The setting is a small desert town in Arizona where Millie works as a physical therapy aide and meets Pinky, a new aide, who winds up her roommate. Pinky is fascinated by a pair of twins who work at the rest home and begins to study Millie's life and mannerisms. After nearly drowning in a suicide attempt, she winds up in a coma. When she recovers from the coma, Millie is told she has temporary amnesia. But Pinky is no longer Pinky, she's evolving into Millie. Willie will also assume a different role in the film's eerie, pastorial conclusion. Whether you like this or not depends on your tolerance for the unusual and challenging. Certainly the film has it's humor, like Millie's desperate attempts at being a social butterfly and everyone's blatant ignoring of her. It's funny, but there's also a sadness in Millie's refusal to accept her own failings. It's also chilling to watch Spacek as the childlike Pinky Rose, seemingly dumb as dirt yet studying everything around her---especially others as she apes their movements and mannerisms. As if she's looking for a vessel to inhabit. Then there's Willie, so silent---yet waiting, not only for the birth of her baby, but for something else as she paints her hideous art work. Nothing about "3 Women" is easily explained. It's a subtle, complex film with symbolism to spare. Even the film score is unnerving. Recommended for film purists and of course Altman fans, but watch it for the stellar performances of 3 stunning actresses as well.
Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek ROCK!!!
I first encounterd '3 Women' while flipping through the cable channels on a lazy summer day in 1997. I tuned into the movie right at the scene where Sissy Spacek was screaming at Shelley Duvall from a hospital bed, "DON'T CALL ME PINKY -- GET OUT OF HERE!" It was from this moment on that I became fascinated with Robert Altman's dreamlike masterpiece, '3 Women.' I made sure to tape it during a repeat screening, and for years hoped that it would make it to DVD, for it was never even released on VHS! So when I heard about Criterion giving it the deluxe treatment, I was very excited.
'3 Women' is not a conventional film by any means. Every person I invite over to watch it, either loathes it or is so utterly puzzled that they need to have a stiff drink afterwards. It is not a film that all audiences will appreciate. However, those with an interest in unusual characters or artsy cinema should find it a rewarding experience, especially with repeated viewings. It's not so much a matter the film being ahead of it's time -- '3 Women' is in a timespace all of it's own!
The strongest attraction of '3 Women' for me, is the remarkable performances by Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. Duvall brings a sense of pathos and false reassurance to Millie. Can't we all think of some Millie-types who we know that try so hard to fit in with society but just fail miserably? Spacek, on the other hand, gives Pinky an other-worldliness that at times borders on a personality disorder right out of the DSM-IV manual.
Like '2001: A Space Odyssey,' '3 Women' leaves several mysteries unanswered and leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks. For instance, why was Pinky was warned about the twins early on in the film? Why did Pinky give Ms. Bunwell Millie's social security number instead of her own? And of course, what was the inexplicable final scene all about?
Criterion's DVD presention is acceptable. Robert Altman provides a commentary track which is more than welcome. There's also some interesting period photos, a teaser trailer, the theatrical trailer and two TV spots. I would have loved a documentary or some interviews with the cast, but I am quite satisfied with what is presented.
Intriguing but never overbearing, '3 Women' is one of the most interesting and brilliant films of all time. Watch it with an open mind, and some wine -- perferably Lemon Satin or Tickled Pink, of course.
With this magnificent Criterion DVD release, Luchino Visconti's 1963 historical drama The Leopard will finally earn widespread recognition as one of the most beautiful epics ever produced. In adapting the popular novel by Giuseppe Tomassi di Lampedusa (an Italian equivalent to Gone with the Wind, set during the tumultuous Garibaldi revolution of 1860-62), Visconti was initially reluctant to cast Burt Lancaster as the melancholy Prince of Salina--the aging aristocrat "leopard" of the title--who accepts change as inevitable during the struggle for a unified Italy. But Lancaster (even with his voice dubbed in the fully restored Italian release) delivered one of his finest performances, modeled after Visconti himself, and reacting to political and familial upheavals with the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Burt Lancaster DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Providing a unique opportunity for the appreciation of Yasujiro Ozu's signature style, Criterion's definitive double-feature of A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) and Floating Weeds (1959) demonstrates the evolution of a master. Drawing inspiration from the now-obscure 1928 American carnival-troupe drama The Barker, Ozu first made A Story of Floating Weeds as a silent film (despite the advent of sound by that time), and Criterion's DVD features a sublime, newly recorded original score that sounds and feels like it's been part of the film all along. The film itself concerns a traveling Kabuki troupe faced with dramatic revelations as they perform in a rural village: Their master has had a son from a former lover whom he is visiting for the first time in a dozen... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Yasujiro Ozu DVD Release Date: Released the 20 April 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Consistently cited by critics worldwide as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's bittersweet drama of life, love, class, and the social code of manners and behavior ("the rules of the game") is a savage critique undertaken with sensitivity and compassion. Renoir's catch-phrase through the film, "Everyone has their reasons," develops a multilayered meaning by the conclusion. A young aviator (Roland Toutain) commits a serious social faux pas by alluding to an affair on national radio. To avert a scandal, the cultured Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio), husband to the aviator's mistress, Christine (Nora Gregor), and a philanderer in his own right, invites all to a weekend hunting party in his country mansion. The complicated maze of marriages and mistresses (social register... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nora Gregor - Marcel Dalio Director(s): Jean Renoir DVD Release Date: Released the 20 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage opens with a couple--Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson)--being interviewed for a magazine. Every moment seems to teeter on the brink of some rupture; just as they start to get comfortable, the interviewer has them freeze for a photograph. After making some bland general statements, they both start admitting intimate details, confessing that they were brought together by mutual misery, then cheerfully claiming that theirs is a model marriage. The entirety of Scenes from a Marriage, which chronicles their emotional relationship even after their divorce and marriages to other people, continues to have these contradictory moments of honesty and self-deception, cruelty and kindness, concern and self-obsession--all laid bare... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Liv Ullmann DVD Release Date: Released the 16 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1966 masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni (The Passenger) is set in the heady atmosphere of Swinging London, and stars David Hemmings as an unsmiling fashion photographer hooked on ephemeral meaning attached to anything: art, sex, work, relationships, drugs, events. When a real mystery falls into his lap, he probes the evidence for some reliable truth, but finds it hard to reckon with. Vanessa Redgrave plays an enigmatic woman whose desperation to cover something up only seems like one more phenomenon in Hemmings's disinterested purview. This is one of the key films of the decade, and still an unsettling and lasting experience. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vanessa Redgrave - David Hemmings Director(s): Michelangelo Antonioni DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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