Who Gives Good Commentary?

[MichaelB]

I sanctioned that extension! Which was no problem at all - if I remember rightly, we ended up seamlessly branching five minutes of black at the end if anyone selected the commentary.

And yes, as you say, there was no good reason to cut it.

[EddieLarkin]

Jonathan Clements

As important as content obviously is to a commentary, I still struggle to make it through if the delivery is lacking. David Kalat, Adrian Martin, Tony Rayns and Michael Brooke are all fantastic at getting both of these elements right, and after listening to his commentary on Heroes of the East, I'd add Jonathan Clements to that list. He doesn't waste a second and speaks at breakneck pace, doesn't slavishly commit to talking only about what is on screen, and is very informative whilst at the same time being genuinely fun to listen to.

I was unable to make it through any of the other commentaries on Shawscope 1, because they were simply too dull and uninvolving to commit 100 minutes to, either in content or form or both.

It appears Clements has done 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and Martial Arts of Shaolin for Arrow too, can I find him anywhere else?

[yoloswegmaster]

He's done commentaries for the third Daimajin film and for one of the Street Fighter films, as well as some anime films, such as Golgo 13 and Vampire Hunter D.

[MichaelB]

after listening to his commentary on Heroes of the East, I'd add Jonathan Clements to that list. He doesn't waste a second and speaks at breakneck pace, doesn't slavishly commit to talking only about what is on screen, and is very informative whilst at the same time being genuinely fun to listen to.

Ooh, thanks for that - I've been a huge fan of that film ever since watching a dubbed pan-and-scan VHS version (as Shaolin Challenges Ninja) nearly four decades ago, and although I have the Shaw Brothers box I've barely scratched the surface of the extras.

[Maltic]

I was unable to make it through any of the other commentaries on Shawscope 1, because they were simply too dull and uninvolving to commit 100 minutes to, either in content or form or both.

David Desser on King Boxer was very good too, imo, although boomer paced as opposed to Clements' Gen X pace.

[colinr0380]

Jonathan Clements

It appears Clements has done 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and Martial Arts of Shaolin for Arrow too, can I find him anywhere else?

I mostly know Clements from his published writing. He does a monthly "Manga Snapshot" article in Neo Magazine in which he reads through a random current manga title out in Japan and analyses its stories and what they mean for the surprisingly specific kinds of demographics that particular publications are being aimed at. And I first came across his writing (oo-er!) when he was the co-author with Helen McCarthy of the Erotic Anime Movie Guide encyclopedia from 1999 (Clements specifically contributed the chapter synopsising the Urotsukidoji series), which was the slimmer but more eye-opening companion to McCarthy's previous Anime Movie Guide from 1996. Both of which, dare I say it, should be considered seminal works for any anime fan.

And here he is on University Challenge!

[Rayon Vert]

I think it's my first time listening to Jason A. Ney on Imprint's release of Wyler's (Sister) Carrie. Not extraordinary, but very solid - a lot on the Dreiser novel, the difficulties in adapting it, the film's production history. No cast and crew's biographies whatsoever. My only criticism is it's recorded or set low against the film's soundtrack and sometimes a bit of a struggle to hear, especially when the music swells.

This is one of Wyler's best in my book, and it's good to have a label release some of the Paramount classics.

[colinr0380]

A few interesting, if gloomy, comments from Jonathan Clements in this month's edition of Neo (issue 233). In his section of the "Meet the team" sentence in the contents page we get this:

Disappointed that my commentary track for Gunbuster was binned (along with all the other extras) but super-pleased that a new generation is going to get to see it for the first time.

Which is a shame but makes me glad about not waiting and importing the Diskotek edition of the series (also extras-less) a few months ago now. Then in Clements' monthly column on page 19, titled "The Paper Chase", he gets into how a lot of his criticism is 'hidden away' as written material in boxsets that often gets ignored in reviews that only get the discs to look at, which is apparently becoming more of an issue with the increase in paper and printing costs making such extras more of a premium:

Particularly in the UK, where including an on-disc video extra like a commentary or Making of incurs punitive extra certification costs, collector's booklets have formed an important niche within bonus material. That's where you get the interview with the director; the storyboards; the Easter eggs. But I already hear whispers of companies cutting back on the size of their bonus booklets, or even giving up on them altogether....

...Two of my most recent books were written under the radar, so to speak, given away as extras as part of Blu-ray boxes. Some of you, I hope, were super-pleased to discover that your copy of Momotaro Sacred Sailors came with my 120-page book about its director - one of a tiny handful of full-length anime director biographies to be found in English. Others hopefully enjoyed the chance to read Future Boy Conan: Miyazaki's Directorial Debut, a chunky 88-page monograph co-authored with NEO's Andrew Osmond. Ironically, although such items were intended to add value to Blu-ray releases, they often went unmentioned (and unseen) by reviewers who stuck to describing the contents of the discs themselves....

...Hand-on-heart, some of my best writing in recent years turned up in places like Arrow's Shawscope box set, where punters might only encounter it when idly flipping through the extras. But if we're on a slippery slope towards no extras, then we also risk a world where there's nothing collectible at all to which a "collector's edition" can be attached. In that case, all we have left is bare-bones releases, which itself is a drift towards no physical media at all.

[MichaelB]

Booklet essays and commentaries do indeed currently rank amongst the best repositories for lengthy criticism. The longest piece I ever wrote for Sight & Sound was a cover feature of some 3,000 words, but that's an extreme outlier - most of my commissions for them clock in at 1,000 (if a lead review) or a fair bit less. Whereas a commentary can run to 15,000 words and up - I'm currently recording one for a film that's two and a quarter hours, so we're in realm of the length of a BFI monograph (which I think is 26,000 words). And my three commentaries on the Wajda War Trilogy aren't far off 50,000 words in total, which is properly book-length. Even booklet essays are typically 1,500 to 6,000 words - I can't imagine a magazine giving me 6,000 words to rhapsodise about Zoltán Huszárik's Szindbád, whose Second Run DVD booklet essay ranks very high among the pieces that I'm proudest of - not least because, like Clements' Motomaro Sacred Sailors book, it contains stuff that had never appeared in English before or indeed since (unless the writer is directly quoting me).

And so I absolutely echo Clements' frustration with the face that these things are often completely ignored, often because either the reviewer was never sent the booklet/book in the first place, or (at least in one case) they were, but didn't realise that it was actually quite an important PDF attachment. And on-disc stuff gets blanked as well - to date, the only substantive feedback I've had (and by that I mean "more than acknowledging its existence") about my commentary for Vinegar Syndrome's War of the Worlds: Next Century came from the disc producer at the time of submission; if it's been mentioned at all in reviews, there's been no evidence that anyone has actually listened to it. And sometimes even when the commentary is "reviewed", they only mention stuff from the first five or ten minutes, which could hardly be more of a giveaway - most people won't notice, of course, but the guy who recorded the commentary in the first place absolutely will! And sometimes they don't even do that, as demonstrated by the bloke who managed to misgender Samm Deighan, thus revealing that he clearly didn't listen to five or ten seconds.

This is why I go out of my way to praise review sites like CineOutsider - they're constantly apologising for the lateness of their reviews, but they demonstrably do put the effort in and they're consequently always worth waiting for.

[Maltic]

The Kino/Metrograph releases of Millennium Mambo and Goodbye, Dragon Inn made me think of a certain genre you might call "the contemporary art film critics commentary":

Stone/Kamen (James Quandt, Cinema Guild)
Red/Rouge (Annette Insdorf, Miramax)
Maborosi (Jasper Sharp, BFI)
La Promesse (Adrian Martin, Madman)
For Ever Mozart (James Quandt, Cohen)
Crash (Adrian Martin, Arrow)
Lost Highway (Tim Lucas, didn't make it onto the Kino disc in the end)
Histoire(s) du cinema (Adrian Martin, Madman)
After Life (Linda C. Erlich, Criterion)
The Wind Will Carry Us (Rosenbaum/Saeed-Vafa, Cohen)
Faithless (Adrian Martin, BFI)
Millennium Mambo (K Austin Collins, Kino)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Phoebe Chen, Kino)
The Strange Case of Angelica (James Quandt, Cinema Guild)
The Turin Horse (select-scene, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Cinema Guild)

Not so common, for whatever reason... director disapproval, at least in Lynch' case, or critics not feeling up to the task of talking through those long-takes in Stray Dogs or Horse Money.

[Soothsayer]

Not so common, for whatever reason... director disapproval, at least in Lynch' case, or critics not feeling up to the task of talking through those long-takes in Stray Dogs .

I’d suggest that the long scenes in Stray Dogs would be the perfect time for the commentator to lay out. I’d love a commentary for that film someday.

SpoilerShow

If just to potentially learn if there’s an intended connection between the song earlier in the film, and the final shot.

[colinr0380]

I still have not heard James Quandt speak as yet, either in an interview or commentary, so I mostly still associate him with his 1998 book on Robert Bresson. Which I have to admit I over-used the photocopier at the library of the Manchester Metropolitan University to illicitly copy a few entire chapters of back in my wild and reckless student days.

[Matt]

There’s a “podcast” called DVD Commentary: The Original Podcast that is exactly what it says it is: ripped commentaries, including a few now rare Criterion laserdisc and DVD tracks. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

[MichaelB]

Are they all OOP? I only ask because there's a podcast that's basically giving away much more recent commentaries whose owners would understandably prefer them to remain attached to releases that are still very much a commercial going concern. I know that one label has already sent them a cease-and-desist letter, and word tends to spread quite quickly in really flagrant cases like this.

A few months ago, a YouTube channel that was essentially giving away extras - not rare OOP ones but current and in-print ones - got as far as 500-plus uploads before it forcibly bit the dust; inevitably, one of the rightsholders found out about it, and since that rightsholder was a major studio, I'm not surprised that YouTube took the whole thing down.

But what really baffles me is the way that people think that they can get away with it - as a prolific creator of extras myself, it's no skin off my nose (I don't get royalties, and so once I'm paid, that's that), but this could hardly be more open-and-shut copyright infringement, and by attaching a meaningless "educational use only" disclaimer, they're essentially admitting in writing that they're aware that what they're doing is legally dodgy.

[domino harvey]

They’re mainly uploading commentaries for big budget or film bro titles, so they are putting a target on themselves. Their most recent uploads are laserdisc tracks, which is more excusable/valuable, but they’re going to get annihilated for uploading commentaries for Scott Pilgrim, Scorsese, etc

[MichaelB]

There's a potential copyright problem even with OOP laserdisc tracks, because if the film soundtrack is clearly audible in the background, that in itself is a potential infringement.

I'm very tempted to give away my one OOP commentary - for the Tavianis' The Night of the Shooting Stars - when Radiance's Allonsanfàn is released in February, but that depends on whether the original unmixed version survives (it should do), because I don't have the rights to the underlying film soundtrack. I'd also have to ask Arrow's permission, as they technically own it, but given that Arrow Academy is now defunct I can't see them ever reissuing it.

[ianthemovie]

I still have not heard James Quandt speak as yet, either in an interview or commentary, so I mostly still associate him with his 1998 book on Robert Bresson. Which I have to admit I over-used the photocopier at the library of the Manchester Metropolitan University to illicitly copy a few entire chapters of back in my wild and reckless student days.

Do you happen to have the Essential Jacques Demy box, Colin? If you're interested in hearing James Quandt, he narrates his video essay "Jacques Demy A-Z" on the Chambre en Ville disc.

[colinr0380]

I do! It's perched precariously on the shelf above my bed next to the Varda box, both ready to fall off and kill me through their sheer combined weight in some bizarre Final Destination-esque ironic incident one day. Although I'm so overwhelmed with stuff at the moment that it is still sealed. I would bet that there are a few other James Quandt commentaries and features that I probably have the disc for (probably on anything Bresson related) but which I have not reached as yet.

[Soothsayer]

James Quandt is on the commentary track for the Criterion edition of Pickpocket

[domino harvey]

He did an A-Z for Kino Lorber’s Marienbad too

[Matt]

Are they all OOP?

Oh no, this is absolutely a copyright infringement bonanza, and I guess the YouTube account associated with the podcast has already been taken down.

[AxeYou]

In fact, getting maybe four or five reactions of any kind at most is a typical best-case scenario, although I treasure an Amazon customer review of Blind Chance:

But also, the film commentary is worth a listen. I don't normally bother with them, but I struggled with the first 30 minutes of Blind Chance during my first viewing over 15 years ago, and now it makes perfect sense... as well as having a far more powerful impact due to understanding Kieslowski's life situation at the time of filming.

Stuff like that’s worth far more to me than a “review” that’s blatantly only sampled the first few minutes (sadly the norm).

Allow me to second this review of your commentary on Blind Chance, Michael!

I, too, was perplexed after a first viewing earlier this year, but a subsequent viewing with your commentary really cleared up much of the confusion surrounding the abrupt jumps in time, especially near the beginning of the film. On top of that, the abundant background info you laid out about Kieślowski, Cinema of Moral Anxiety, and post-war Poland in general was also highly appreciated. It definitely was a packed commentary—never a dull moment! Thank you!

[MichaelB]

Thank you! I love responses like yours, because that's exactly the kind of thing I was trying to cater for.

Every time I sit down to record a commentary I think long and hard about the likely audience - for instance, in Allonsanfàn I explicitly say:

Obviously that’s Marcello Mastroianni on the right, one of the most instantly recognisable faces in European cinema even under that scraggly beard, and I don’t propose to insult your intelligence by rattling off a biography that you’re almost certainly familiar with already.

...because it seems to me overwhelmingly likely that most purchasers will already be more than familiar with Mastroianni's career, and ditto Ennio Morricone's. Obviously I discuss his direct musical contribution to Allonsanfàn itself (I can hardly not; it's one of the great Morricone scores, and is anything but decorative background music), but I only bring up other work if it's clearly relevant - for instance, the way that both Allonsanfàn and Once Upon a Time in the West tantalise the viewer with snippets of the main theme several minutes before we're treated to it in full.

On the other hand, they may well not know about, say, the brief, abruptly curtailed career of supporting actor Benjamin Lev, who was arrested on set a couple of years after finishing Allonsanfàn and given a ten-year jail sentence for drug offences, or that Croatian-born Stanko Molnar (who plays the title character) emigrated to Italy because his dad had been jailed for political offences and official policy there was to visit the sins of the father upon the offspring, so that's gone in there. I'm also assuming that they won't need more than the most cursory overview of the French revolution (which casts a long shadow over the film), but that they probably will need a bit of historical orientation regarding Italy in the late 1810s, when the film is set. And they also probably won't know about Paolo & Vittorio Taviani's pre-Allonsanfàn work, which still isn't very easy to get hold of via legitimate channels. I could, of course, be wrong on all counts, but I hope I'm not!

Similarly, next year I'm recording a commentary for a mid-20th-century British film whose Blu-ray is for various reasons only being released in the US - so I'll be in a similar position to Julian Barnes when he wrote the New Yorker's regular "Letter From London" feature in the early 1990s, which he described as "being like a foreign correspondent in my own country". By which he meant that he could reasonably guarantee an intelligent, educated reader, but not necessarily one who would have the first clue about things that a British reader would take for granted. I'm roping an American ex of mine into this as a test viewer, as I suspect her feedback about what I need to explain and what I don't will be invaluable, because I'm well aware of what a tricky balancing act it is between trying to be informative and ending up being needlessly patronising. And of course I always assume that the viewer has watched the film at least once before listening to the commentary, so may well have gleaned things that I therefore don't need to explain.

[hearthesilence]

I binge-watched several commentaries as I was cleaning house this past week (with little watching and mostly listening), and I was mightily impressed by the two tracks recorded for Three Kings. The standard Blu-ray has become dirt cheap as it's old, having been in-print for a very long time now, but the extras were produced at the height of the DVD market, when studios poured more resources into them - both commentaries are worth hearing, but Russell's is especially good, giving one a detailed idea of what it's like to make a movie for a major studio, including all the advantages and disadvantages one would find.

First Reformed has Paul Schrader going solo, and it's solid all-around, covering everything from the process of low-budget filmmaking to aesthetics. I loved how he elaborates on the idea of setting the stylistic "rules" for a film and then breaking it. As the film progresses, the idea becomes clearer and more compelling when he talks about the moments that do just that. Interesting to hear this film was originally meant to be in black & white - a meal with Pawel Pawlikowski after Schrader was knocked out by Ida inspired him to write First Reformed (which took little time due to his familiarity with the raw material), and Pawlikowski's film also inspired him to do his in black & white in addition to using academy ratio. (It was ultimately done in color when it was explained he was contractually obligated by the financiers to deliver in color.) FWIW, he makes it clear he didn't believe in shooting in color and converting the look into black & white, so doing it after-the-fact down the road seems unlikely. Also once again, Schrader approaches a legendary rock musician to license their music for free (this time Neil Young) and thanks to the song and film in question, his pitch is perfect - he didn't get it for free, but he brought the license fee down from $50,000 to $500.

Yi Yi was enjoyable primarily to hear Edward Yang - I never heard him speak before. (I didn't realize he and his wife are in the film, making a cameo as concert performers, though he isn't really playing the piano, just faking it.) It felt like the bulk of the track was talking about Taiwanese life and culture as it's reflected in the film. One thing I'd never notice - when NJ and Sherry are eating at a restaurant that we watch from the outside, that town (including that restaurant and building) should strike anyone familiar with Taiwan as being frozen in time. It's basically unchanged from the 1960's, which really stuck out for Yang and it's why he chose the location, as the two are essentially reliving their past. The commentary is full of such details about Taiwanese culture where Yang talks about things like the kind of "cults" one might encounter in Taiwan, similar to the one that Min-Min goes to see, or the rapidly growing video game culture he disproves of (and which has become a huge problem in Asia, with video game addiction now a very real problem). Tony Rayns is there to moderate, and it's often his curiosity that brings up these topics.

Videodrome's two tracks are great, especially Cronenberg - every commentary I've heard him do is never less than great. James Woods's is heartbreaking simply because he's obviously a bright, committed and articulate performer who's clearly a cinephile - it's bewildering to think this is the same bigoted nutcase on Twitter. One amusing bit is how Cronenberg and Woods remember Woods's paranoia very differently, and at one point, I wondered if Cronenberg was conflating two incidents while Woods was rightfully recalling one of them and not mentioning the other. When Woods talks about it, he actually sounds sane and reasonable - it takes place when Max is whipping someone. When we hear Cronenberg's recollection, Woods sounds strange and paranoid - this actually takes place when Max visits Barry Convex and tries on the helmet. Both recollections involve electrocution and a reference to water.

[beamish14]

Cronenberg and Schrader are both consistently excellent commentary providers, which doesn’t surprise me, as they’re terrific interview subjects as well. I listened to Schrader’s on the not-fully successful Forever Mine, and he does a great job of articulating why much of it doesn’t stick the landing and what inspired him to tackle such a story in the first place

Cronenberg’s don’t have dead air. He always has something unique to bring up regarding a scene, whether it’s what an actor brought to a scene, his aesthetic decisions, or what inspires him. I just think it’s such a shame that we don’t have commentaries from him on M. Butterfly or Maps to the Stars

Paul Verhoeven’s are uniformly excellent as well