Product Details

• Actors: Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, Wallace Shawn, Genevieve Bujold, Geraldine Chaplin
• Directors: Alan Rudolph
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: MGM Studios
• DVD Release Date: September 17, 2002
• Run Time: 126 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000069HZW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,393 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Moderns" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

This witty, elegant, graceful and clever film (Los Angeles Reader) stunningly evokes the legendary milieu of Paris café society. Starring Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, Genevieve Bujold,Geraldine Chaplin, Wallace Shawn and John Lone, The Moderns is 'tantalizing unabashedly romantic [and] a glowing evocation of an era (The Hollywood Reporter)! Paris, 1926. A time whenanything could happen and usually did. At the center of this world is Nick Hart (Carradine), a struggling painter who makes a meager living drawing caricatures at his favorite café. Nick longs for success and even agrees to forge masterpieces for a wealthy divorcée (Chaplin). But what he really desires is Rachel (Fiorentino), the seductive wife of an obsessively jealousand lethally dangerous businessman (Lone).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Next-To-The-Last really good Alan Rudolph movie...., March 18, 2003

By 

Photoscribe "semi-renaissance man" (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moderns [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Between 15-18 years ago, filmmaker Alan Rudolph, a protege of Robert Altman's, came out with a trio of really excellent films that captured the feeling of the times and places they were set in beautifully. The first was "Choose Me", a story about singles in the tail end of the disco era and the effect casual sex has on its characters; "Trouble In Mind", to this day, the ONLY film that attempts to capture the bizarre zeitgeist of the early eighties and the late seventies, a time that every person over 30 has lived through cognitively, but no other filmmaker sought to fictionalize....

Then there was "The Moderns": A movie so thick with atmosphere, good acting and mood that you'll be hard pressed to find something to compare it with. The story centers around unemployed artist Nick Hart, (Keith Carradine, the star of Rudolph's other two masterpieces,) dealing with the sudden appearance back in his life of Rachel, a woman who blows hot and cold, and who just happens to be his peripatetic wife from an earlier life. The odd thing is, she's ALSO the wife of a shallow, materialistic so and so named Bert Stone, a "little man" who made his fortune in prophylactics. These parts are played by Linda Fiorentino and John Lone....Lone being a truly quirky bit of casting.

Despite her long absence from his life and Stone's presence, they rekindle their old relationship under Stone's nose, although he obviously suspects something from the beginning.

Set in Paris in the 20's, Hart and his fellow characters are pictured as having a peripheral connection with Gertrude Stein's inner circle, a circle that includes Ernest Hemingway. This is where the atmosphere comes in, along with excellent music, as Rudolph recreates the period and setting near-perfectly, allowing his actors to reveal the mechanics of bohemian relationships, circa 1925 or so...

In true Altman/Rudolph fashion, the ensemble cast's the thing, as every character seems to get equal screen time. Geraldine Chaplin has a turn here as one of Hart's paramours and sponsors and Genevieve Bujold is a cagy art dealer Hart has business with. Wallace Shawn also has a part as a "passing scene" columnist for a Parisian newspaper who contemplates suicide.

Rudolph pays attention to every tiny detail, and has his American characters speaking English in interplay with each other and his French characters speaking French. Bujold speaks a form of "esperanto" that includes BOTH languages throughout the film.

Can't afford that ticket to La Belle France? Rent this movie, break out the brie, boules and chablis and enjoy this substantial, quirky movie!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The little things, December 6, 2001

By 

J. Jennings "jjenings" (California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moderns [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I would give this movie five stars for myself, but objectively I recomend it at four. The other reviews do a good job of summing up. I just wanted to add that if your a fan of little touches and subtle humour, this is one of the greats. Hemmingway played more as the kind the drunken writer you might actually meet in real life, constantly giving out philosophy and observations in an un-solicited manner, obsessed with fair play (see the boxing match). Two American tourists in the cafe getting their literary facts wrong in the begining of the movie. An oil painting bobbing up and down as the background of a scene in a moving car... Hope I'm not giving away too much, but the little touches are part of why this is such a fun movie. If your into art, literature and the romantism of the twenties, but can still laugh at it and yourself, this is a great film.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Speak to me of love....", November 19, 2001

By 

Don Gullett (Denver, Co) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moderns [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A good, solid movie. I was drawn to this film by Alan Rudolph the director and Keith Carradine the lead actor, then when I saw the other members of the cast I knew the film HAD to be good. It is set in the art and literature world of 1926 Paris, and has overtones of John Huston's "Moulin Rouge" in its occasional biographical sketches. The characters are living in 1926, and the movie does such a good job of transporting the viewer to The Jazz Age Paris, that no one seems stale. Keith Carradine once again does a great job of being a disillusioned, cynical man with still a heart of human goodness. Geneiveve Bujold is excellent as a true, supporting friend, and Linda Fiorentino plays her part perfectly as a love who slips into and out of places, and not always when you would like her to. Geraldine Chaplin is terrific in her removed and superior manner in dealing with everyone.
The song "Speak to me of Love" sung slowly and softly in French thoughout parts of the film acts as a binding agent to keep bringing the events together to the main theme. Most of the situations that come up are believable and attention holding, and it is a solidly enjoyable experience seeing them get worked out.
I drank the wine from its bottle. I watched the movie. It was good.