Criterion | 1956 | 95 mins. | Not rated | Mar 23, 2010
Nominated for Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life (1956) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. Unavailable on home video until now, Bigger Than Life was a flop upon its release, but has long been considered an important film by many. Martin Scorsese included a tantalizing clip of it in his great 1995 documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and Jean-Luc Godard listed it among his picks for the ten greatest American films ever made. Released in the era of Eisenhower and Father Knows Best, it’s easy to surmise that America simply wasn’t ready for a story about an all-American family torn apart by drug abuse.
Ed Avery (James Mason) burns the candle at ends, teaching by day and working as a taxi dispatcher in the late afternoons. A good husband and father, he needs both jobs to adequately provide for his family. Despite the need for a second job, Ed appears to be living the American dream. He lives in a large, nicely appointed house on a pleasant street with his wife Lou (Barbara Rush) and young son Richie (Christopher Olsen).
The first time we see Ed, he clutches his neck in pain, so it´s no surprise that he turns out to be gravely ill. As it turns out, Ed has a rare arterial disease that will kill him within a year. His only hope is to try a new drug called cortisone. Cortisone is a new drug, so Ed is a guinea pig of sorts—but with no other options, he readily agrees to the treatment. Soon, Ed is back at home. The drug has worked—now he can start teaching again. The family needs money to pay the mortgage, the car, the electric bill, and the new medical bills. Take one pill every six hours, the doctors tell Ed, and come back for a checkup in a week.
Doctors warn him to report any side effects. Like many patients, he doesn´t listen which sets us up for a story in which, as Mason describes it in the film´s trailer, “a handful of help became a fistful of hell.” At first he just seems thrilled to have cheated death; soon enough though, serious delusions of grandeur kick in. He takes his wife to an exclusive boutique in search of the perfect dress; she tries on countless frocks until she becomes so tired, even the salesgirl is begging him to buy the last one she tries on. After that, he takes the family to the “best bike shop in town” to buy son Richie a gift. Despite Richie’s concerns that dad is acting a little ‘strange’ the family continues their upper class shopping spree despite their middle class station in life.
Ed’s mood begins to get progressively darker, as he says of his wife, “It’s a shame that I didn’t marry someone who was my intellectual equal.” He declares that he no longer considers himself married to her, but is sticking around because it is a man’s job to raise his son. Ed becomes a frightening figure of irrational authority in his household, demanding greater control over his wife and son at every turn, as he is losing control of himself.
Ultimately, Bigger Than Life shows us a prototypical 1950s family man who secretly longs to transcend his cloistered existence (posters and maps of far-away countries – places he can’t afford to visit — line the walls of his house), but who is torn by a sense of guilty responsibility to his family. His wife is similarly stuck in societal conventions of the time. In the 1950’s she feared asking for help, because of what that would do to her and Ed’s reputations, and most importantly, his career as a teacher.
This is yet another solid, extremely competent high-definition transfer courtesy of Criterion. Fine object detail is excellent, clarity pleasing and contrast handled with utmost precision. The colors are incredibly sharp. When Ed shows up at his second job, the bright yellow taxis practically jump off the screen, especially in contrast to the drabber colors at the school Fleshtones are spot on.
Given an SD Dolby Mono soundtrack, the restored audio track is perfect, crystal clear dialogue. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.
Bigger Than Life offers the following special features:
• Profile of Nicholas Ray (29 min, 1080i) a half-hour 1977 TV interview with Nicholas Ray, hosted by critic Cliff Jahr, provides a revealing look at the director’s thematic interests, his love of actors, and his unique perspective on cinema.
• Jonathan Lethem (28 min, 1080p) a video featurette with award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City), who talks about Bigger Than Life, one of his favorite films. Lethem’s deconstruction of the film is excellent, and particularly his comments addressing the film’s complex dual structure – protagonist vs. American middle class.
• Susan Ray (22 min, 1080p) a video interview with Susan Ray, Nicholas Ray’s widow, and the editor of I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies. Mrs. Ray talks about her husband’s passion for movies and his work on Bigger Than Life.
• Audio Commentary: an audio commentary with film critic Geoff Andrew, author of The Films of Nicholas Ray, recorded exclusively for the Criterion Collection in 2009. Andrew offers a, very informative dissection of Bigger Than Life as well as Ray’s career as a film maker. He also points out some interesting issues with the film, as he sees them.
• Trailer (3 min, 1080p) a trailer for Bigger Than Life.
• Booklet: a 24-page illustrated booklet containing B. Kite’s essay “Somewhere in Suburbia” (the author is a writer and video maker living in Brooklyn. His essays have appeared in such publications as Cinema Scope, The Believer, Trafic, and The Village Voice, as well as in Michael Atkinson’s Exile Cinema anthology and the Masters of Cinema DVD booklets for Muriel and Tokyo Sonata).
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