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Divorce American StyleRating:
Release Date: 06 January, 2004 Retail Price: $24.96 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (17 total) |
Divorce American Style Reviews
time capsule to a more innocent era
If you have ever read any of my other reviews, you'll know I don't really offer a play by play description of the script or the more technical aspects of the production - I leave that up to all the others. All I offer is a more personal, extremely biased view of what the movie means to me, and hopefully there are others out there who share my feelings. Looking at some of the other reviews it seems like they are split between people attacking it strictly for the DVDs production value (or lack of) and the other group who seems to be writing and writing and writing more in an attempt to see how clever they can be, or possibly, trying to prove to themself exactly how intelligent they are...well, you know what they say, you can say nothing and run the risk of having people think you are an idiot, or you can open your mouth and remove all doubt. There's really nothing to say about the second group, they do make some points, and you can learn some things through their writing - as to the first - what's the point in whining about the lack of production values? You can't change what is, or how large companies are going to produce their re-released movies - I think as long as it is viewable and you can understand the dialogue, you're doing fine. Obviously some of those people don't remember the days before cable when all you had was a 12 in B&W image with a lot of snow (that's black and white for you post baby boomers) With regards to the movie, it's a wholesome family comedy made in the day when that still had much value. I think most people will enjoy it if they view it in the spirit it was made - the folks who will enjoy it the most are the old geezers like me - the baby boomer generation - people who were around to see this movie on it's first run release, whether it was a summer night at the drive-in with friends or family, or in a theater - remember those? One large screen - yes, that's right, only ONE movie per theater, and that was also the time there were NO malls, and not everyone was able to afford air conditioning in their home - so an afternoon in the chilly theater on a hot summer day can be quite the experience. It is movies like this, and others, that bring back memories of the early 60's - so when I watch this movie, specially the scenes shot outdoors in LA and I see the brand new 1960's vehicles driving down the road, and you can see the signage from the service stations that read .37 cents per gallon - well, it makes me feel good. I'm not saying put me in a time capsule and send me back, it wasn't all fun and games, time passes - that's life, but it is a nice place to re-visit now and again.
PLAYTIME American Style
Back in the day, as Dick van Dyke stumbled over a hassock in the Petrie living room week after week, somehow managing to rescue himself from ignominy and tumble right side up again, in triumph, the kids who watched him thought of him as their generation's version of Chaplin. He seemed to take these comparisons to heart, however, and how painful it was to see Van Dyke tackle serious roles, the kinds of parts they gave Jackie Gleason when he got the serious bug as well. It was horrible and, though we loved him deeply, that love only lasted for about a minute, replaced by a frantic indifference that sought to minimize even his obvious gifts. He had an easy way about him, and he seemed to break into song as easily as falling off a log: not such a simple gift, for many stars never got the hang of it, even Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, you watch them inhale uncertainly right before the music starts up on the soundtrack. They're panicking, and Van Dyke was always Mr. Cool, even when he wasn't cool. His attempts at "characterization" were always, like Olivier, built on some physical trick, like playing Caracactus Potts the inventor in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG with that unsightly squint, as though he were going blind instead of driving through the clouds. And yet the sincerity he brought to Potts, and to Bert in MARY POPPINS and to Albert in BYE BYE BIRDIE, though bland and unexceptional, guaranteed the success of those pictures. But in DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE the unexpected thing happens and Dick Van Dyke gets sexy on us. And in addition he displays some of the gift for comedy not of Chaplin perhaps, but of the revered French genius Jacques Tati.
In fact PLAYTIME, which must have premiered around the same time as DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE, hasn't a patch on the latter when it comes to that strange, misty cinematography--its mise en scene, nothing less than everything in modern life including romance. The great setpieces of DIVORCE are so reminiscent of those in PLAYTIME that one would be hard pressed to decide which came first. The celebrated sequence in which Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds, furious spouses who aren't speaking to each other and in loud closeups, prepare for bed by getting in and out of each other's way, is just like the PLAYTIME sequence in which the hero enters the glass-walled apartment in Paris and encounters all the modern appliances. How about when Debbie Reynolds and her girlfriend try to close down a savings account at the bank while Van Dyke and his buddy empty the safety deposit box, the camera cross cutting between the two groups of action like invisible arrows of distress and Eros.
And when Dick Van Dyke, stung by Reynolds' intention to divorce him, winds up on the darkened lawn of Jean Simmons, gazing up at her window, trying to make up his mind, stretching and lean in a pair of slacks and a windbreaker, he's like John Cusack with the radio over his head in SAY ANYTHING, except, yes, he's sexy. I'm looking at him in profile and marveling, like a perve, my God, he's got some butt on him! And then to top it all off there is the insane hypnotist sequence at the end where all the main characters assemble at a club while Ms. Pat Collins, an adult hypnotist of the era, goes through highlights of her notorious act. She's from Fellini--they seem, eerily, and possibly in contrast to her, like real people in a real world of grief, pain and hope.
And how about Tim Matheson as the older of Van Dyke and Reynolds' two kids. Has there ever been a more natural teenager in the movies--I don't think so.
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