Suicides is Coppola's first feature, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. She may've found her audience more with her second film, Lost In Translation, but between the two, this is the one I find myself going back to. They share that same charming recreation of a moment in time that Coppola brings to all of her work, but maybe it's just the heft of the overt melodrama adding some lasting weight to this one. It's the relatable tale of an implausible scenario, where a group of neighborhood boys try to penetrate the romanticized veil of five beautiful sisters who all took their own lives in a small 70s suburb. The kids are all perfect, from the known (Kirsten Dunst) to the unknown, and the rest of the cast is full of heavy hitters like Kathleen Turner, James Woods and Scott Glenn.
Paramount first put The Virgin Suicides out on DVD back in 2000. It was a pretty decent, anamorphic widescreen edition, and so that's been my sole copy of this film all the way up until 2018. But Criterion has now given it a pretty sweet 4k restoration from the original 35mm negatives, and with all new extras to boot, including Coppola's first short film, Lick the Star.
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2000 US Paramount DVD top; 2018 US Criterion blu bottom. |
Apart from that, the blu is heaps clearer. Maybe you don't see it so much embedded in the post, but click through to compare them full size, and you'll really see the difference. Grain is very present and natural, and the distinction is pretty strong despite the fact that the compression's actually pretty decent for such an old DVD. And the colors? Well, it's hard to miss the heavy green shift in that first set of shots, but as the others show, that's not consistent throughout the film. Or, at least, not to the same degree. Even in the second comparison shots, like the scene with Danny Devito and a stronger bluer hue; you can still see the additional yellowish green, too.
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2000 US Paramount DVD top; 2018 US Criterion blu bottom. |
Audio-wise, both discs give us the single English 5.1 mix, though bumped up to DTS-HD for the blu. The DVD also had a French dub, and both provide optional English subtitles.
In terms of special features, Paramount's DVD was already decent. Not exactly a packed special edition, but it included a really good, 23-minute behind the scenes doc that gave some really good, and sometimes funny, insights into the filming. And they had a few other minor bibs and bobs, like the music video for the Air song that Coppola also directed, a stills gallery, insert and trailer. Criterion kept all of that, so thankfully there's no need to hang onto your eighteen year-old DVDs any longer - yay!
And they've also created some great new stuff. Primarily, they've put together an excellent new, 26 minute documentary with Coppola, Dunst, Hartnett and cinematographer Ed Lachman. And possibly even more excitingly, there's an on-camera interview with the novel's author, Eugenides. Then there's an interview with Tavi Gevinson, who runs a fashion website or something that was influenced by this movie? I wasn't entirely clear on that, but she did have some good insights into the movie, effectively acting as a critic's take. There's an attractive, fold-out/ leaflet style insert with an essay by novelist Megan Abbott, a second trailer and of course, there's Lick the Star.
It's a black and white, only fourteen minute short; but it's actually quite good and contains a lot of what makes Coppola's features so compelling. This isn't like Todd Haynes' Suicide, where it might be interesting for devotees to get a peak at his origins, but that's it. This is a surprisingly dark film about the cut throat social hierarchy of high school that I watch and enjoy for its own artistic merits, not just because it's some minor film history artifact. In fact, it's not even the first time I've owned it on disc. I suppose this is a bit of a deep cut, but it was originally included as "This Month's Short Film" on the 2003 Film Movement DVD of Hop.
What's Hop? Oh, it's a completely unrelated, low budget Belgium movie about an immigrant boy and his father living in the country illegally. They get caught and the father is deported, but the kid winds up living with some old, retired revolutionary white guy who teaches him the ways of terrorism in the most literal, make bombs to blow up buildings and make the government capitulate sort of way. It doesn't sound like it, but it basically plays like a feel good movie, and after some bombings, the government brings the kid's dad back. I think I'm making it sound more interesting than it is, though. It's decently acted and directed, but it's the sort of move I've watched several times over the years because I keep forgetting what it's about.
As you can see, it's slightly window-boxed in the overscan area, leaving it with about a 1.83:1 aspect ratio. It's got removable English subtitles and interlacing problems. The only extras are the trailer, a booklet with brief notes about the film, and of course Lick the Star.
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2003 US Film Movement DVD top; 2018 US Criterion blu bottom. |
So, in a way this blu is controversial for its role the on-going Criterion green debate. But that's with a question mark at best because outside of that context, we're talking about a minor possible flaw on an otherwise terrific, top-notch release. High quality scan, terrific new extras, even a restoration of Lick the Star. It's a must for Coppola fans no matter how you look at it.
why can't they just scan the film and not change anything?
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