Loving

Rating:
Summary: Great film, good transfer, no extras...
Review: I was happy to see that my DVD of LOVING showed up yesterday. It's a great, little known, film that stands, I think, as a "missing link" between such European classics as LA NOTTE and later Hollywood films like AMERICAN BEAUTY and THE ICE STORM. The transfer is nice and the sound fine. The trouble is that for such an expensive DVD, there is a startling lack of extras. In fact I've never seen a DVD with LESS extras. While there are chapter stops and English subtitles-which they'd have to do anyway for the deaf and hard of hearing-there are no subtitles in any other language, there's no original trailer for the film, no filmographies, and no commentary tracks. This latter omission is puzzling considering the director Irvin Kershner is still with us, as are the film's two stars (George Segal and Eva Marie Saint) and its legendary cinematographer, Gordon (THE GODFATHER, MANHATTAN) Willis. Considering this was Willis's first film, and the film that many critics consider to represent Kershner, Segal, and Saint's BEST work--Pauline Kael called Saint's performance "stunning"--I can't imagine the talent wouldn't have been interested in getting together to discuss the film and help bolster its profile. It's as if the people putting out this DVD had no idea what a special film they had on their hands. It's one of the rare critically acclaimed films I've ever seen on DVD that doesn't feature a single critic's quotation anywhere on the front or back cover. The way it has been packaged, people might well assume it's some bomb that nobody liked and is of no interest to anyone. That's really too bad. It's a great little film. (Rating: 5 stars for the film, 3 for the DVD = an average of 4.)