Customer Reviews

Six Degrees of Separation [VHS]

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The first scene is very confusing, and the next 20 minutes of movie a bit of a drag: the Kittredges are so unbearably affected! Later on, i came to realize how important those draggy moments were. This is a movie that got progressively better and better, and kept me engaged to the very end. In a nutshell: Flan (what a name!) and Ouisa Kittredge are art dealers living in posh East Side and are entertaining a guest when this young black man drops by their apartment, victim of muggers. He claims to be not only the son of Sidney Poitier, but also friends with the couple's children at Harvard. He is so well spoken, exotic, fascinating, flattering, that soon he has everyone in that apartment wrapped around his little finger. When you finally get to meet the children, you quickly understand the reason for that. Paul Poitier is a classy con-artist that makes people fall in love with him. For example, after explaining what his thesis is about (stolen by muggers), Flan Kittredge throws a passionate and outraged "I hope your robbers read every page of it!" It is impossible not to like him. After Paul does the rounds among the Kittredges' friends, he becomes cocktail party anecdote. Ouisa is the one who eventually admits how much she cares for this boy and becomes incredibly guilty for not having helped him enough. The best metaphor in the movie is represented by the Kandinski painting, the chaos-control canvas, because while on the surface it seems that Oiusa has her life under control with lots of money, powerful friends and poshy luxurious lifestyle, in fact she has another side where there is little sense of meaning.

My biggest objection is the title music. Somehow that chintzy violin tune clashed with the story big time. The acting is magnificent, the NY shots beautiful, and there are some hilarious moments in the film, like the scene at The Rainbow Room. This movie is a 10, a must-see, a masterpiece. Don't miss it!

One night in a posh Manhattan apartment a young black man (Will Smith), appearing to be mugged enters the home of Flan (Donald Sutherland) and Ouisa Kittredge (Stockard Channing). The man who says his name is Paul, claims to be friends of the Kittredge children. Over the evening Paul flatters the couple and a buisness guest they are hosting with his exotic tales and fascinating life stories. However, things aren't always what they seem to be. Like the painting in the movie, what is chaotic on one side, may be controlled on the other and vice versa.

This was the first major film breakthrough for Will Smith, proving that he isn't just the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and is a serious actor. Donald Sutherland does a superb job as the stuck-up art dealer who makes millions of dollars but spends more than he can make. However, the real star of the movie is Stockard Channing. Her performance is perfect and her portrayal of Ouisa's self-disovery, realization, and spiritual redemption could not have been better.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION has become a part of the American pop conscience (thanks largely to the Kevin Bacon game). However, the movie is much more than a pop cultural reference. It is a movie for the critical movie viewer. It explores questions of great magnitude and in the end, concludes on a comic, rather than tragic, note. It is a small world after all, just six degrees of separation.

The ability to tame the imagination and in so doing to recreate our personal world: this is the point of Guare's adapted play. The film centers around two themes: the inevitable interconnectedness of mankind and the often untapped ability of everyone to create themselves, determine their fate. Wil Smith plays the saddeningly pathological 'Paul Poitier,' a young, black, inner-city youth stuck in a life that has led him nowhere until he finds 'the right people' to open the door to another world: the Kittridges. Stockard Channing's character, Weeza Kittridge, learns the beauty in Paul's deranged art and comes to understand the serious meaningless and 'collage' that her lack of imaginative participation has allowed her life to become. Everything means something. Everyone is a sign, a symbol, an opportunity, a 'door opening up to a new world.' " It's a profound thought."

Puzzling offhanded moody film. (Critique for those who have seen it, primarily.)

I was struck by what seemed the underlying assertion: the deep if unconscious longing of the divided social classes in our country for each other. The deep longing to heal the rift of "separation" -- the wealthy and the disenfranchised -- that the whole class system perpetuates through how people behave, who they associate with, who is considered desirable.

The rich couple and especially Stockard Channing's character of Louisa is caught up in an affluent world of witty pretentious empty existence -- one they are exceedingly skilled at, and are able to milk to good profit. When they meet Paul (Will Smith's character), they are drawn to his directness, his charm -- he is skilled at being relaxed and conversant in their cultured world, yet he lacks the pretense of the elder members or the (satirically exaggerated) spoiled disaffection of the younger members, their children. Both Louisa and her husband (the Donald Sutherland character) relish telling the story - and their friends seem undyingly riveted by it -- and Loisa especially tastes of a richness, a directness, a spark to life that she does not have.

Will Smith's character of Paul also longs for a life he does not have, their Upper East Side life. For the wealth, certainly, but also for the very real values of education, ideas, and that spark of art that is separate from the worldly commercial side of art's buying and selling. The slap that Louisa joyously gives to the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel.

Both sides are profoundly hurt by the rift, the gulf, that exists almost never to be crossed between Paul's ghetto and the Kittridges' beautiful penthouse. There may be a "mere" six degrees of separation between them - but as Louisa meditates, how to broach them? How to find the people that came connect you?

(In "Six Degrees" it is interesting and telling that it is the gay member of the set that serves as the crossover person, the means by which Paul can make his more profound crossover. Somehow, those who are owning-class gay stand with a foot in both worlds - they have a large degree of entree into the worldly affluent classes, yet they are also outcasts.)

As a comment outside the movie, it's my opinion that the class system is kept inexorably in place so that the wealthy might never have human relationships as equals with those whose labor they exploit, so as to avoid the pangs of conscience about benefiting unjustly from their labor. (One of Gandhi's seven root causes of injustice is: Wealth Without Work. In a just world, every person reaps the product of her or his own work; while to be wealthy, one generally must have people working for you from whom you derive some percentage profit of their work.) But while this may sound radical, my further belief is that not only does this system hurt the poor, it also hurts the wealthy in profound ways. They get the wonderful apartments and private access to the Kandinsky, but their lives are empty and they don't see a way out, they must keep going to the obligatory mannered dinner parties at the price of a life that feels rich and alive with imagination.

Stockard Channing, Will Smith and Donald Sutherland are rivetting in this unusual and awe-inspiring film. This is Smith's best role in spite of being his least popular. The writing is so magnificent that the acting just flows. This is a must see for any ARTISTICALLY minded film lover. It is not, however, for anyone looking for a run-of-the-mill Will Smith film. In other words, you'll have to have a brain to enjoy it. :)

If you never see any other Stockard Channing movie... at least see this one. In this amazing tale of a con-artist in nyc, Channing plays one of her best roles ever. She is captivating and wonderful and i have watched this movie over and over becuase of this. Many say they don't understand this movie, or what's the point.... i can't give you an answer to this question , you will have to think about this yourself, but this film will have you glued to your seat the entire time. Rent this movie if you want to be pondering it for days.

As Ouisa Kittredge points out, Paul (Will Smith) infiltrates their lives with no other intention than to feel he had a respectible identity and to get a glimpse into their lives; indeed, he even stabs himself for it! And they, eager to have access to Paul's supposed father, Sidney Portier, are all too willing to welcome him.

The message I think this movie conveys that that societal standing does not guarantee happiness: Paul has none, and the Kittredges have a lot, and they are both equally empty. Neither group is content with their current reality, and both opt for an illusion instead. As Ouisa points out, Paul shows them more appreciation in one evening than their children had in an entire lifetime.

Very much on the order of "Bonfire of the Vanities" in its portrayal of upper crust New York, but much more insightful. Stockard Channing is a stand-out here. Script surprised me. Very talky, but talk worth paying attention to, especially the long monologue by Will Smith on imagination. The sets were beyond lush. The references were all so topical in such a broad range of subjects, that even twenty-five years from now, it will become like James Joyce's "Ulysses", almost impossible to decipher. No one will know what it all means anymore. But the heart of the film, like "Howard's End", is all about connectedness. We are all really connected to each other. According to the playwright, John Guare, only six people separate us from knowing everybody on the planet. A good thought, if unprovable. It wasn't really funny at all, except as we are laughing at ourselves. I liked it very much.

"Six Degrees of Seperation"

Schepisi's superbly directed film of the hugely successful play sees Stockard Channing recreating her stage role on screen. The film deals with the Kitteridges, Flan and Ouisa, and what happens to them when a gay hustler tricks his way into their lives one night. It forces Ouisa to re-evaluate what is really important to her; is their art-dealer existence, while affording them some degree of luxury, truly as satisfying as it seems? Or is it that she realises how truly superficial and empty their lives have become, every day filled with trivialised anecdotes and empty gallery talk.

The actors here are mostly exceptional, Stockard Channing receiving an Oscar nomination for her zesty, sharp performance. Perhaps the only problem is Will Smith, who during production refused (apparently at Denzel Washington's request) to perform the gay kiss with Anthony Michael Hall. The resulting shot, with the kiss happening out of sight, is unsatisfying as it is unconvincing.

Nevertheless, as the Kandinski references and Jerry Goldsmith's wonderful themes reflect, there is more to these characters than initially appears. The changes that are put in motion by the arrival of Smith's characters provoke a searching re-examination of the lives of the families who encounter him. It's hard to explain a film that requires so much thought, so I'll give up now. Needless to say, the acting and direction are top notch, and the script is as sharp as the dialogue is delivered.

The transfer for the DVD is good, if not great. The sound is good.

Six Degrees of Separation transports us to upper-crust Manhattan and draws us into a rarefied world of art, intellectual conversations, and posh penthouses before turning this setting upside down and exposing its inherent hypocrocies. What could have been clumsy, heavy-handed satire is instead two hours of delightful repartee in which the characters relate an engrossing narrative about a young man who charmed his way into their world under false pretenses.

Those who know Will Smith mainly as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air or one of the Men in Black are likely to be astounded at the depth of his acting talent. Additionally, Stockard Channing's Oscar-worthy performance leaves the viewer thinking about the movie long after it has ended.

Unfortunately, the DVD version is skimpy on extra features. While it features the original trailer, interviews with the cast or more information about the true story that inspired the play would have been a major enhancement.