DVDs: A Horror Remembered

In the days leading to the release of The Passion of the Christ, many people voiced fears that its bloody re-creation of Jesus' last hours on Earth could result in a torrent of anti-Semitism. Mel Gibson denied he was motivated by any hatred for Jews and so far, the only place the film has proven itself incendiary is at the box office.

Gibson's father, on the other hand, apparently didn't think enough gasoline was being thrown on the fire. Instead of keeping his ridiculous opinions on the Holocaust to himself, the old man launched into a diatribe that had folks who cared about keeping the debate reasoned and low-key shaking their heads.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the media-fed controversy might have the curious effect of shining a spotlight on the long-awaited DVD edition of Schindler's List. Even though the Holocaust drama was named Best Picture back in 1994, Steven Spielberg has resisted most opportunities to exploit its exalted status in ancillary markets. This lovingly reassembled version includes the testimony of men and women saved from the gas chambers through the efforts of industrialist Oskar Schindler, as well as a featurette on the Shoah Foundation.

Considering the sensation caused by the film's theatrical release, it may come as a surprise to learn it fell short of cracking the $100-million box-office barrier in the U.S. At $96 million, it ended 1993 in ninth position on the domestic charts, more than $200 million behind Spielberg's No. 1 Jurassic Park. Schindler's List did, however, gross more than $220 million outside the U.S.

Mind you, $96 million is nothing to sneeze at. Still, many saw the numbers as disappointing, and a reflection of the public's indifference to the Holocaust. Others cited the film's three-hour-plus length and inarguably depressing content. In the same way critics belabored the unrelieved brutality in Passion, early reviews of Schindler accentuated the horrific scenes involving Nazi thugs and helpless Jews, over Spielberg's parallel story of survival and unexpected heroism.

The performances all are first-rate and the digital transfer is pristine, but it is Janusz Kaminski's incredibly evocative camera work that makes Schindler's List soar artistically. The decision to go mostly black-and-white ensured a look that was chilly, foreboding, and perhaps, meant to give the film a documentary texture. Shooting on location added even more punch, as did John Williams' memorable score.

Its R rating aside, Schindler's List is a film that should be seen by teenagers, but only in the company of someone who can put the depictions of extreme violence and bigotry into historical context and provide answers to questions that almost certainly will arise.

Mona Lisa Smile represents a rare commercial miss by the ever-radiant Julia Roberts, whose character delivers a message of liberation from 1953 California to the uptight matrons who ran Wellesley as a finishing school for soon-to-be trophy brides. As Roberts tells one conservative educator, "I thought I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow's leaders, not their wives." Apparently, the writers of this period-perfect picture were inspired by Hillary Clinton's college experience, which will either impress shoppers or encourage them to run for cover.

After splitting up with her newspaper-editor husband, go figure, it was only a matter of time before Sharon Stone would return to Hollywood to make movies exactly like Cold Creek Manor, which is to say, thrillers that aren't very thrilling or believable. Like so many other movieland urbanites who flee the big city for rural bliss, Stone and Dennis Quaid move into a house they'll have to share with demons real and imagined. How director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) got involved is anyone's guess.

Anyone looking for a similar escape might want to watch the quasi-documentary Wisconsin Death Trip, adapted from Michael Lesy's discomfiting 1973 cult classic. Using vintage photographs and news clips, Lesy chronicled the epidemic of human tragedies that befell rural Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in the 1890s. In addition to the source material, James Marsh uses dramatizations to depict the incidents of extreme Goth behavior in cheese country.

While we're on the subject of clichés, the usually reliable Rachel Griffiths found herself in a typically British one with Very Annie Mary. She plays a singing Welsh canary kept in a cage by her overbearing father. Her efforts to regain her voice, and the locals' respect, will only please admirers of intensely quirky, Brit, feel-good flicks.

Fans of Big Brother and the Holding Company, especially those who can remember their days before Janis Joplin's arrival, are getting pretty long in the tooth, by now. Eagle Vision's documentary on the San Francisco rockers, Nine Hundred Nights, will take these aging hippies back to the formative days of the SF sound, and the nexus of artistic anarchy and hip capitalism. Their grandkids should get a kick out of it, too.