Product Details

• Actors: Joanne Woodward, Sally Field, Brad Davis
• Directors: Sr. Daniel Petrie
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: July 18, 2006
• Run Time: 186 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EHQU0S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,205 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Sybil (Two-Disc Special Edition)" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The word "landmark" is fairly used in the case of Sybil: this 1976 TV movie brought new frankness to television, it raised the quality bar for the made-for-television movie, and it utterly changed the career of a future Oscar-winning actress. The film was based on the bestselling nonfiction book about a multiple-personality patient and her exhaustive therapy. It opens with a brilliant series of scenes that suggest how a young woman named Sybil (Sally Field) experiences unexplained blackouts, which brings her to the attention of a psychiatrist, Dr. Wilbur (Joanne Woodward). The film unfolds around the searching therapy sessions, laced with flashbacks to Sybil's toxic childhood. There's also a tentative romance between the lonely Sybil and a manchild (Brad Davis) who lives across the alley. Most notably, of course, there are the appearances of Sybil's alternate personalities, who express her strangled emotional life. Stewart Stern's sensitive script seems to flow organically from one scene to the next, and director Daniel Petrie frequently allows the camera to observe the acting acrobatics in long, challenging takes.

Woodward, who won an Oscar for playing a multiple-personality patient in The Three Faces of Eve, is all nurturing warmth as the steadfast doctor. But really this film was a sober coming-out party for Sally Field, who astonished viewers at the time by erasing all memories of Gidget and The Flying Nun, the bubblegum roles she'd mostly been known for. Field's work is anguished but non-actor-y, and despite the character's hidden personalities, she seems as clear as day in her performance. The production won four Emmys, not surprisingly including nods for Field, Stern, and Outstanding Special (Drama).

The 187-minute movie takes up one disc; the second disc has informative featurettes about the making of the film. Examining Sybil is an absorbing hour-long documentary with comments from Field and Woodward, as well as executive producer Peter Dunne. It is dominated by the spellbinding storytelling of Stewart Stern, who developed the screenplay by spending time with the real Dr. Wilbur and listening to tapes of her sessions with Sybil. His tale of Sally Field's unlikely audition triumph is a small movie in itself. The Paintings of Sybil presents a generous selection of paintings by the real Sybil (who became a professor of art), along with recollections by one of her friends. Something listed on the DVD cover as "Sybil Therapy Session" is misleadingly titled, suggesting some kind of actual footage or transcript of the real Sybil and her treatment; in fact, it's Stewart Stern describing the harrowing process of listening to the doctor's tapes. The real Sybil (now deceased) remains protected, as she should. --Robert Horton

Product Description

Based on a true story. Sally Field - in an Emmy Award winning and career-turning performance - portrays Sybil, a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder who develops over 16 distinct personalities in order to cope and escape haunting memories of her harrowing childhood. Joanne Woodward plays the understanding and compassionate psychiatrist that helps Sybil confront her horrific past and eliminate her demons.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 98 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sybil Finally Finds It's Way Unto DVD...With Special Feaures It So Rightly Deserves! February 18, 2006

By Laurie Lear

Format:DVD

The film that set into motion Sally Field's long acting career, "Sybil" was an emotional tornado of multiple personalities, child abuse, and modern psychology. Set in a now distant New York, the mini-series settled down upon an introverted young woman by the name of Sybil Dorsett. Living in constant fear of social situations, she struggles to understand what is happening within herself. But when things steadily worsen, she must seek the help of a psychiatrist: Dr. Wilbur.

The two women soon become one in each other; Sybil depends on Wilbur to help get her out of this mental mess while Wilbur depends on Sybil for the knowledge of the unknown world of multiple personalities. However, as the answers to Sybil's illness creep closer, they both suffer emotional breakdowns, whilst Sybil begins to understand the Knifes, the Glass, and the Green Kitchen.

A horrific yet beautiful series, Sybil stands alone as one of the best made for television movies of all time.

And now, it is finally being released, uncut, on this special DVD.

Originally released in a condensed volume on VHS, fans of the film have been dying to get their hands on a more complete edition for years. But the long wait was all worth it.

This DVD includes the following special features: a look at the real Sybil's drawings, an actual therapy session between the real Sybil and Psychiatrist, a featurette with cast interviews and more, along with the original 3 hour long broadcast version. And *though not confirmed* there is word of possible commentaries included in this 2 DVD set as well.

May 23rd: year one.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sally Field's Signature Dramatic Role on DVD at last :-) July 20, 2006

By Eric Pregosin

Format:DVD

If the name Sally Field appeared on a nationwide (better yet a human race wide) word association test, we would be all divided in thirds. One third would remember sitcoms of the 60s and 70s like "Gidget", "The Flying Nun" and "The Girl With Something Extra". The Second Third would remember her wonderful appearances on the big screen since 80s (maybe the 70s too) in "Places In The Heart", "Norma Rae", "The Smokey And The Bandit Trilogy", "Steel Magnolias", "Forrest Gump", and others. The Final Third would be right on the border between the 2 groups. How soon we forget her appearance in the fall of 1976 in an Emmy winning performance in the 2 part tv movie "Sybil". Based on the true novel by Flora Rheta Schreiber, Field plays a young substitute teacher/art student whose battered childhood (thanks to a schizophrenic mother and a henpecked father) shattered her so that she grew to adulthood with 16 distinct personalities (all children) although for the tv film they imply 13 (based on the writing on the back of the box and the ending credits of the film). The film also stars Joanne Woodward (aka Mrs. Paul Newman) as Cornelia B. Wilbur, the psychiatrist determined to help Sybil pull her self (or selves if you will) together (the real Dr. Wilbur served as a consultant to the film). Other stars include bit part actors William Prince as her father Willard Dorsett (in present scenes he is remarried to a "normal" woman), Martine Bartlett (in flashbacks) as Hattie Dorsett, the schizoid mother, veteran bit part actor Charles Lane as Dr. Quinones, the hometown M.D. who in the present helps shed some light on her case to Dr. Wilbur, and a young unknown named Brad Davis as neighbor Richard Loomis, a young widower with a young son Matthew (both of whom become "fond" of Sybil before realizing her "condition"). The film won 4 Emmys including a tie for best Dramatic Special and as I stated above Best Actress in a Dramatic Special (for Field). The film originally ran on NBC in 2 parts (at 2 hours with commericals) each. Most stations nowadays if they run it, show it all at one time. When it was released on prerecorded VHS, it was cut from the 3 hours and change (without commercials) by an hour probably because very few movies over 2 hours hit videotape (except as 2 tape sets). Why it was never re-released is beyond me, but now it has hit DVD with the entire film restored to its full length with a second disc of interesting extras. Whether you are a psychology major or not, you will enjoy this film. It is as the box claims, the role that would launch Sally Field on the way to being the great dramatic actress she is now (she does comedy well too).

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! August 26, 2006

By Leslie Thompson

Format:DVD

I first watched this movie in Health class in 11th grade in the late '90s. Some people in our class had to leave the room when the teacher warned about some of the things Sybil's sick mother was going to do to her in the kitchen. I searched everywhere to buy my own copy but only found a poor quality VHS copy on eBay. Also read the book by Flora Rheta Schrieber (which has eerie drawings by Sybil, including a christmas card for Dr Wilbur where the tree ornament is cracked in half).

Sally Field is extraordinary. Wow. I almost start crying when she sings the "Easter Bonnet" song at Dr Wilbur's apartment, and she's in tears because she wants to sing it just right.

So much stuff in this movie creeps me out - the buttonhook, the whole kitchen scene, her mother tripping her down the stairs and cruelly saying, "Have a nice trip, see you next fall!", the dream with all those evil cats (she awakens climbing the bookcase), the purple crayon in the trunk, banging windows so hard that she breaks them, and when she would look in a mirror but see one of her young personalities staring back.

Some of the music is quite haunting...the high voices of children singing is what I remember the most.

Even after watching this, I can hardly imagine a tenth of all the trauma Sybil had to endure at the sadistic hands of her schizophrenic mother. Her mother needed to be committed and the father should have stepped up and noticed some things. It would have been better if the dr across the street had adopted her. And it's a miracle that she didn't kill herself - Dr. Wilbur really helped her a lot, but I don't think Joanne Woodward (Dr. Wilbur) should have been nominated for an Emmy.

Classic. If you're a Sally Field fan, a psych major or interested AT ALL in mental disorders, watch this movie.