Who Gives Good Commentary?

[feihong]

I like Peter Cowie's commentaries for Criterion, though he sometimes runs the risk of that horrible fault of many commentaries, repeating to us exactly what is about to happen on screen. But for the most part I like Cowie. He sets the films in an historical perspective, letting us know what it was like to experience them at the time they were released. That is very valuable information for me. He works at unpacking symbols and metaphors within the work. He doesn't overreach and conclude for us what the film is about, he just offers hints as to what may be the director's intent.

I also very much enjoy Bey Logan's commentaries on films, predominantly Hong Kong films. He is able to communicate to me the ways in which he appreciates the films he watches, he's able to relate personal annecdotes regarding the films' creators, and he's able to illustrate for us technical procedures behind various things we see on screen. He has certain lines he falls back on constantly (I get kinda sick of hearing that Rosamund Kwan is "not an actress with a temendous range," but that she has "an undeniable kind of luminous beauty"), but damn, the man does more commentaries than anyone.

On the whole I don't appreciate director commentaries too much. They tend to just be nostalgic sessions in which the directors gurgle and reflect on things about the films they just barely remember, and technical details so mundane you wonder why it is that this is all they remember from the film. But on the whole there are two directors that stand out for me: John Carpenter is hilarious when he talks about how hard he worked to fly beer to the set of The Thing, and John McTiernan is fascinating on his films, especially the films that disappoint him. It seems that at this point in his career he doesn't even bother to hide his disappointment in some of the schlock he has directed. It was also very interesting to hear him on Die Hard talking about his influences in the New German cinema. Suddenly his film aesthetics made a whole lot more sense to me.

I hate Criterion's policy of recording multiple commentators separately. It is always more telling to have them in a group. One sees the true dynamics between them and the result gives one the life behind the production rather than some cold tape-source. The worst commentary of all is the bizarre hallucinatory mix of different characters commenting on Once Upon a Time in the West. Everyone comes on repeatedly saying the same stuff they said the first time they were on, and little of it has much to do with the film. None of them have any production information, and hardly any of them have any in-depth analysis of the film to offer. Claudia Cardinale spends the whole time talking about Luchino Visconti instead of Sergio Leone. The tad little bit she talks about Henry Fonda is the most illuminating section of the commentary. Alex Cox offers nothing, and Schickel is insanely hard to listen to. I think Schickel may be the single worst commentator in the history of DVD commentaries. The man seems to get distracted actually watching the movie and he forgets to say anything of interest. If he does any preparation for the commentaries, you wouldn't know it.

I like Anchor Bay's idea of putting their own moderator in on the Herzog commentaries. Herzog is very good at explaining to you his method and his ideas, and the moderator is usually wonderful at clarifying things for us.

I liked hearing Nic Roeg and Jenny Agutter on Walkabout, though I wish they had been recorded together. One of the best commentaries I've heard is also one of the worst-recorded: the commentary on the King Hu classic Come Drink With Me. Bey Logan is in his highest spirits (probably happy to finally have someone to talk to in this stuff), and Cheng Pei-Pei is kind of incredible. She seems to be so open, so revealing of everything about herself. Bey brings in some information, Pei-Pei supplies a great deal of personal information...it's pretty great. But for some reason Pei-Pei's daughter Marsha is closest to the microphone. She has a very nasal laugh that shatters one's ear drums, especially since you have to turn the volume up a lot to hear Cheng Pei-Pei. Marsha is deafening. She doesn't have much to say, but she does corner her mom at one point, and it proves very funny.

I enjoyed the Ran commentary for Wellspring, I can't remember who did it. It was the author of The Warrior's Camera, I think. That was for me the most fascinating analysis of a director's shooting style, and how that style reflected the themes of the film and the voice of the director.

[Mr Sausage]

I enjoyed the Ran commentary for Wellspring, I can't remember who did it. It was the author of The Warrior's Camera, I think.

That would be Sephen Prince who gave us commentaries for, among others, Criterion's Ikiru, Red Beard, Stray Dog, as well as that apotheosis (and rightly so) of Criterion commentaries: Straw Dogs.

[Narshty]

Interestingly, his entry and discussion of Kagemusha in his book The Warrior's Camera is not the outright rave it is for other Kurosawa films, which, perversely, makes me all the more keen to see it.

[ola t]

I hate Criterion's policy of recording multiple commentators separately.

I don't think it's necessarily a policy. It's got to be fiendishly difficult to get several busy people to find an empty slot in their schedules when they can record a commentary, and if they all have to be in the same room at the same time (some of them perhaps flown in for the occasion, etc.), the difficulty and cost must grow something terrible.

[exte]

I found this original post by Matt from the ezboard forum through google. Since I couldn't find the Trouble in Paradise thread, and thought it was appropriate enough in this thread, I'll quote it here. It’s a pretty great story of how a good commentary gets developed, though I have yet to hear it myself. It’s definitely on my list now, though.

The following article, written by Scott Eyman, was published in the Palm Beach Post on February 23, 2003.

CONFESSIONS OF A DVD EXTRA
Author: Scott Eyman

At random moments, a feeling of professional satisfaction has been known to come over me. I have a job I love, and I've written a series of books about the movies that have taken me around the world for purposes of research and promotion.

But in nearly 20 years of writing, publishing and promoting, I've never been locked in a recording studio for a long, hot day, attempting to perfect an imitation of a professional critic with a decent speaking voice.

Let's backtrack: The Criterion Collection is the Ferrari of the DVD business; the greatest films, the best-looking transfers and the most scintillating extras. So when they called and offered me the chance to do the commentary track for a DVD of director Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 masterpiece Trouble in Paradise, I was immediately smitten.

I wrote a biography of Lubitsch 10 years ago, so I knew the film, about two Parisian jewel thieves who fall in love, is a matchless exercise in style. And it's nice to be associated with something of such quality, even peripherally.

And they were offering a decent fee and a trip to New York. I said yes.

Now, at this point, I should offer full disclosure: I have never listened to an DVD audio commentary in its entirety. The ones by filmmakers are usually ridiculous exercises in preening - try listening to Richard Donner act like he's Kurosawa - and the ones by critics tend to be stupefyingly recondite. I generally hop around to a couple of interesting scenes and see if anything interesting is said. Mostly, it's a void. I'm gone.

The producer, a competent and helpful woman named Johanna Schiller, sent me a couple of Criterion discs with commentary tracks she liked, and, with the exception of Ian Christie's bubbly commentary for Michael Powell's bewitching I Know Where I'm Going, I found them, I am sorry to say, dull.

The next stage came in the mail - a video dub of the film, with a superimposed time code - minutes, seconds, tenths of seconds.

I sat down and watched the film twice, writing down numbers and the content of the scenes, figuring out where the commentary would stop and start.

How tough could it be?

I know what you're thinking: He wrote a book about this guy - how tough could it be? My response: Do you have any idea how long 85 minutes is? In my book on Lubitsch, the section on Trouble in Paradise takes up five pages. Read it out loud - slooowwwlllyyy - and it might last 10 minutes. That left me 75 minutes to fill.

What to do?

Well, there's background on the filmmaker and on the writing of the script, but let's be honest - this is filler. What's required was a sense of alertness to what's going on in the movie - the roiling currents beneath the largely placid surface of the actors and the situations.

As I'm someone who can't ad lib a belch after a Hungarian dinner, I spent about six weeks preparing a 55-page script, broken down into scenes. Ninety seconds here, 45 seconds there.

I see now that I was more focused on what I didn't want to do than what I did. I was determined not to make fragmentary, self-evident comments, such as "Here's another low-angle shot," because those are perfectly obvious to anybody watching.

I was - and remain - a little confused about the exact mission statement. Some commentators bubble over with enthusiasm and interesting, if doubtful, thematic and imagistic theories. Others open their mouths and emit dust, plodding dutifully through obvious plot points.

I realized that there are lots of quality films I wouldn't want to get near for purposes of commentary - where the quality is in the intangible interaction between actors with chemistry, where there's nothing obvious going on with the camera or the story. Once you point that out, what do you say?

I opted for an imaginary scenario of my own: I imagined I was watching the movie with a friend, and I happened to know more about the film than the friend did.

I arrived in New York on a hot July day and went to the Criterion studio for a rehearsal. We watched the tape as I went through my script with the producer and her assistant. Though I had run through my rough script with the time-coded video, it became apparent that I didn't have enough material, and some of the material I did have wasn't satisfactory.

After a session that went till dark, I hurried back to my hotel and spent another three hours writing. My 55-page script was now about 65 pages long.

Marathon recording session

The next day, the recording session took seven hours. I'd liken it to root canal, but that would be a disservice to dentistry.

Not only was I convinced I was terrible, I almost convinced the producer that I was terrible. My hard-won sense of professional satisfaction was crumbling.

What could possibly take seven hours? Two words: multiple takes.

If I didn't stumble, my mouth dried up. Or I fumbled trying to interpolate my scribbled rewrites with the computer printout of the script. Or my consonants popped. Or I was just lousy. I felt like an actor working for William Wyler, whose favorite phrase was "Do it again."

Shortly before our booking time was up, long after my voice had started to fade, I was finished - in more ways than one. We straggled back to Criterion's studios, and the staff and I went out to dinner. It was a blast - like the post-performance dinner at Sardi's before the reviews come in.

I came home vowing, "Never again, under any circumstances."

I mentioned my dubious experience and firm vow to a friend, an older, eminent publisher and editor, and he purred, "Oh, yes, you will."

Why would I willingly endure more humiliation? I asked.

"Because you're a writer," he replied.

A month later, I got a call from someone at Fox, who asked if whether I would be interested in doing the audio commentary for two John Ford films: How Green Was My Valley and My Darling Clementine.

What's your deadline? I asked, my resolutions washing away like Pharoah's chariots beneath the Red Sea.

Three weeks for Valley, three months for Clementine, they said.

I accepted the latter. How Green Was My Valley runs 118 minutes; I couldn't possibly have prepared a script in that amount of timethat would have made me even moderately happy. But Clementine? Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, with Tombstone transplanted to Monument Valley? Absolutely.

The routine was precisely the same: a video dub with a time code and a lot of writing on my part. But after what I felt sure was a less-than-stellar performance on Trouble in Paradise, I was worried.

This time, the recording was done in Coconut Grove, with the producer patched in via phone from Los Angeles. I finished in three hours and 15 minutes. Either I'm getting smoother or John Ford is easier to talk about than Ernst Lubitsch. Maybe both.

Found courage to listen

The Trouble in Paradise disc came out a month ago, and no, I didn't listen to my commentary first. After summoning up my courage, I managed to get through about 10 minutes, firmly establishing that I don't sound like Elmer Fudd and I didn't say anything egregiously stupid - at least for the first 10 minutes. Maybe I was better than I thought; maybe they saved it in the cutting room. Maybe both.

The reviews of Trouble in Paradise have been both surprising - I didn't think anybody would notice my contribution - and quite good. (My Darling Clementine won't be out until the end of the year.)

The upside to all this is obvious. The money is OK, although figured on a per-hour basis, piddling. And I'm frankly proud of the package; as always, the Criterion people put out a splendid product.

The downside? You get heartily sick of watching a movie that you've always loved. I'm just now getting to the point where I want to watch Trouble in Paradise again, and I can assure you that it isn't to hear my ragged attempt at mellifluousness.

[Subbuteo]

Thanks for posting
Wonderful article
His Clementine commentary is one of the best i've heard

[David]

What about the commentary for Trouble in Paradise? Anyone who've heard that one and have something to say about it? Personally I haven't even seen the movie itself.

[skuhn8]

Trouble in Paradise? Excellent movie with excellent commentary. Very smoooth and conversational. He definitely did his homework and obviously rehearsed...something a few others should consider.

[Donald Trampoline]

One of the greatest all-time commentaries I have ever heard is for "Fando & Lis" (1967) by Alejandro Jodorowsky. (It also includes an incredible documentary on him.) The commentary is like hearing Luis Bunuel explain one of his more head-scratching films. Jodorowsky reveals his intention behind most of the unusual elements in the film.

I didn't read through this whole massive list, but I would have to say if nobody else has that Werner Herzog's commentaries are a hilarious riot. On the silly side his accent cracks me up to no end, but the Fitzcarraldo commentary is masterfully crazy. He keeps hilariously insisting that the production was not as out of control as depicted in "Burden of Dreams" and then stops tell anecdote after anecdote about a guy cutting off his leg or about how they accidentally left a cameraman upriver, contradicting himself all the way along! Great fun. "Heart of Glass" was a pretty good Herzog commentary too.

[porquenegar]

I really like the Wim Wender commentary for Paris, Texas. I find his voice so soothing and oddly comforting.

[Donald Trampoline]

I haven't heard that one yet. Looking forward to it.

I like Wenders' commentaries too.

Have you heard the one on "Lightning Over Water"?
It's pretty interesting (as is the film.) Very good DVD.

He also had an interesting one on one of the Fassbinder releases. I think it was "The Merchant of Four Seasons," which was very interesting to hear him talk about Fassbinder. Heard that one?

[HerrSchreck]

My favorite commentary tracks have been those that gave me insight into films I had just seen and been baffled by.... Kalat on the Mabuse discs)

Ah... David Kalat's commentary for Image's "Dr. Mabuse Der Spieler"... got to be among the very very best ever commentaries, ever.

Hyperinformative with the expected information, plus obscure tidbits, amusing, charismatic, delivered in an unmistakably obsessed voice. Done not for the dry intellectual "privilege" (a very professorial "Criterion" syndrome) but for the lifelong unrelenting manic devotion to the topic. Everything a commentary should be. I'll forever lament the absence of the Kalat commentary that shoulda-been-but-never-was: LA CHUTE DE LA MAISON USHER on his Image-distributed All-Day Ent. label. Last minute budget cut.

Graf O.

[Godot]

Ah... David Kalat's commentary for Image's "Dr. Mabuse Der Spieler"... got to be among the very very best ever commentaries, ever.

While we're barrelling down this off-ramp, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for the 11/22 release by Kino of the newly spiffed Scarlet Street. Not only is this among my handful of favorite watch-anytime films noir, and among the best Lang works, and all previous versions I've seen have been messy soft abominations, but this release will feature Kalat on commentary. Oh, joy.

[Narshty]

I've said it before on the appropriate thread, but Alain Silver's commentary on Thieves' Highway is outstanding. A beautiful dissection of the subtlety of Dassin's direction, info on the making of the film and those behind and in front of the camera and how the film fits into the whole film noir cycle. It's a great all-rounder, but the slight stiffness of his voice may put a few off.

[Popinjay]

[colinr0380]

I've heard Michael Jeck's commentary on Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood. Is he featured on a commentary track and/or special feature of any other DVD?

Not another Criterion from what I remember, but he does interview Bruno Dumont on the Fox Lorber disc of Humanité.

[patrick]

Tim Lucas is a great commentator indeed. I really love his combination of analysis and technical details as compared to most commentators, who usually give you one or the other.

The Milius/Schwarzenegger commentary for Conan is godhead for completely vapid and enormously entertaining commentary, and Kevin Smith's commentaries are often times more interesting than the film itself. I tend to give preference to commentaries that showcase people who were actually involved with making the film in question, but at the same time it's always disappointing to listen to a filmmaker and discover that they're boring/an idiot.

[blindside8zao]

i hope this isn't too off-topic but does anyone know a way to rip commentary tracks to an Ipod friendly format?

[JHunter]

i hope this isn't too off-topic but does anyone know a way to rip commentary tracks to an Ipod friendly format?

If you go to Videohelp.com, there are all kinds of tutorials and tools to help you do that. For instance, here. That's how I learned to handle that.

[exte]

I use Dvd Audio Ripper 1.0 for just about everything.

[LeeB.Sims]

You know who's commentary really annoys me is Anette Insdorf. I love Truffaut and she seems to know her stuff, but she seems so scripted and fake.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I think the problem is her voice. She speaks in a tone like she's made a royal concession to share her film knowledge secrets with us. Her voice is nice and soothing if you want her to read a bedtime story, but with Kieslowski it makes her "insights" (well, the Three Colors ones at least) sound like white liberal film-babble. As if speaking to us in that tone of voice will make them sound more profound. Not that I'm offended by her personally, but it's just her voice. I'm sure she's a nice lady, but that voice grates after awhile. I think that Cowie's voice has the same problem sometimes.

[kaujot]

Anyone else enjoyed the Philip Kemp commentaries on the Lionsgate Bunuel double? He also has a charming voice and slight lisp which, like a mildly accented speaker is very appealing.

I was lucky enough to have Philip Kemp as a lecturer at Middlesex University in London for a film studies course. He is indeed excellent.

[BlackFrancis]

You know who's commentary really annoys me is Anette Insdorf. I love Truffaut and she seems to know her stuff, but she seems so scripted and fake.

Insdorf IS annoying. The dude who did the commentaryy on Advise and Consent is as well...

[magicmarker]

Has anyone gone out and read these critics books/articles based on their commentary? If so, any books etc. to recommend or warn against? Has anyone come across instances where the commentary was great but the writing not so, or vice versa?