Product Details

• Actors: Étienne Becker, Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux
• Directors: Alison De Vere, Carmen Elly, Chris Marker, Guy Maddin, Joachim Solum
• Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: January 4, 2000
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000031VPS
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,263 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Short 2 - Dreams" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 2 in The Short Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This reissue of the second release in a series of DVD anthologies of short films, like its fellow Short titles, is loosely organized around a common theme--in this case, the terrain of the subconscious. The big fish here is Chris Marker's 1962 classic, La Jetée, the forever- haunting, post-apocalyptic story of a man's descent into a time-tripping dream state, where his origins and destiny fold together in one fleeting moment at an airport. If that scenario sounds somewhat similar to a certain Terry Gilliam feature (oh, OK, it's 12 Monkeys), you're right, and Gilliam can be heard on an alternate soundtrack here talking about the challenge and fun of being "inspired by" Marker's film. (Yet another alternate soundtrack features commentary by 12 Monkeys screenwriters David and Janet Peoples.) Not surprisingly, La Jetée turns out to be a hard act to follow, and there's not much on Short 2 that even comes close to its league. Alison De Vere's 1974 animated piece, Café Bar, about a blind date at a coffee house, is more intriguing for its historical value as a "brushsticks style" of crafting images than as a work of art. Joachim Solum and Thomas Lien's watery Depth Solitude is an effectively blunt and bizarre--but ultimately obvious--fable about a pool cleaner who lives in his deep-sea-diving suit at the bottom of a public swimming facility. The best thing going for it is an English-language narration by Max Von Sydow, who unfortunately is not involved with Carmen Elly's A Guy Walks into a Bar. This competent but wearying film, about a college-bound young man (Fred Savage) who meets up with a sexy hitchhiker (Allison Moir) and finds his world changed, does not inspire thoughts of a second viewing. On the plus side, there's an interview with independent director George Hickenlooper and an accompanying, interesting bit showing us a pre-production prototype of select scenes from Hickenlooper's The Big Brass Ring. If you've seen the latter movie in its finished state (based on an original script by Orson Welles and Oja Kodar), it is startling to watch an entirely different roster of actors (including Malcolm McDowell) in roles that Hickenlooper ultimately recast with William Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, Miranda Richardson, and Irène Jacob. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yes, Warner's, there IS a difference., April 13, 2000

By	Kayla Rigney (USA) - See all my reviews

Okay; I'll admit it. I bought this DVD solely so I'd have a copy of La Jetée that doesn't degrade every time I watch it. Unfortunately, this version of La Jetée is narrated in ENGLISH. Huh?

The cadence of the original French narration is hypnotic -- and its meaning filled with subtleties that get lost in translation. It's a FRENCH thing.

One of the major perks of DVD ownership is the wondrous world of alternate audio tracks and a wide selection of subtitles. (You haven't lived until you watch Groundhog Day subtitled in French!) Evidently, Warner's thinks the babble of Chris Marker wannabe's is interesting. I certainly don't. I'd rather listen to the soundtrack of my childhood.

We all have defining moments. We all walk along one pier or another. La Jetée is an eerie, magical film whose importance in my life cannot be described.

I'll stick with my ancient, fuzzy VHS version in the original French, thank-you-very-much.

Yes, Warner's, there IS a difference.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars La Jetee--- devastating film, but lousy redone narration... , October 18, 2004

By	widowedwalker (USA) - See all my reviews

This DVD contains one of non-mainstream cinema's most haunting (there's that word again) classics, "La Jetee". A French short done (almost) entirely in B&W stills.
The problem is that the DVD has the 1962 narration, originally done in French with English subtitles, changed to ENGLISH narration.

This is NOT snobbery, but this really hurts the mood of the picture. It's not simply that they dared translate it, but (as one poster points out below) the English narration, aside from changing some of the meaning of the phrasing, is just not as well done as the French. The original French narration was as stark and ominous as the film itself, and the new English narration lacks this, altering the effect of the film, taking it not simply out of France but out of the era in which it was filmed.

Mistake!!! Allegedly, Chris Marker gave his thumbs up on the new narration. If true, that doesn't mean that much to me (Peter Weir cut 7 minutes out of his 1975 film "Picnic at Hanging Rock" years after the fact and, in so doing, ruined it!) Besides. Marker probably thought the English narration would make the film more accessible to American audiences.....

Well (and this WILL sound snobbish), film fans who are going to appreciate "La Jetee" are not the same folks, frankly, who will demand such changes. To do so, panders to an audience that "La Jetee" is never going to have anyway.

Find a fuzzy cassette copy with the original French narration: otherwise, you haven't really seen the film.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice reissue, bit of a botched job..., January 19, 2000

By	Ian Fisher (Toronto) - See all my reviews

Warner's, in reissuing this excellent disc, has added some audio commentary, but deleted some material. I imagine most people will buy this to see La Jetee, but they will miss the excellent documentary "The making of Portrait of a Lady," which was included on side 2 of the old version.

Oh well.

Warner's has also redone the menus and removed some fairly humorous interstitials.

Oh well again. Warner's are not known for their aesthetics (see the Eyes Wide Shut censored disc, for example) as much for their attention to the bottom line.