The Adventures of Antoine Doinel on DVD |
When I was a much younger man, I lived
within walking distance of one of the best repertory cinemas I've ever known:
Charlottesville, VA's Vinegar Hill Theater. The films it showed ranged from popular films
just out of release to restored classics from every era -- and if you bought bulk passes,
which I did, you could get a complete education in film in a matter of months.
Some of the double features shown there were the stuff of
legend. One afternoon and evening I sat through both Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (the
205-minute director's cut!) and Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala, a combination so unlikely
that one film buff told me I must have fantasized it, since no theater owner could ever
imagine that even a movie lover could sit through both (there were a few empty seats, but
over 100 of us managed to make it through the whole six-and-and-half hours).
<Activate old codger voice> Ahhh, they don't make
'em like that any more. <Deactivate old codger voice>
Actually, they don't. The videocassette killed the
repertory movie theater in all but a few big cities. For years, I really lamented the
decline of those old art cinemas, but DVD is turning all of us into film nuts. Over the
last year, I've spent hours poring over the films of Kurosawa, Alec Guinness, and now
François Truffaut -- all issued in fine box sets.
The Adventures of Antoine Doinel is the sort of
thing my beloved Vinegar Hill Theater might have programmed -- except I can watch it on my
own schedule over a few evenings (or weeks), rather than in one big gulp, although, I
suppose, you could do it in one marathon encounter. Even better than those good old days,
Criterion has packaged these films with really useful extra features, such as footage of
Truffaut talking about the film cycle and a booklet full of his notes, scripts, and
commentaries on the films -- sort of like being able to attend a masterclass on film with
one of its uncontested masters.
But what, you may be asking, are The Adventures of
Antoine Doinel? Doinel was Truffaut's alter ego in five films, done over a period of
some 20 years. The films -- The 400 Blows, Antoine & Collette, Stolen
Kisses, Bed & Board, and Love on the Run -- follow the character
from a childhood of petty crime well into his adult life. Doinel is portrayed by
Jean-Pierre Léaud (who so personified the French New Wave cinema movement that the
adjective most often linked to his name is "iconic"). The chemistry between
Léaud and Truffaut does seem miraculous. He is charmingly irrepressible, and we follow
him through adolescence, young love, marriage, parenthood, and ultimately, divorce --
through a sequence of events that are haunting, hilarious, and affecting.
The Doinel saga isn't so much a matter of sequels, as it is
an artist (many of them -- film is a collaborative art, after all) meditating on
life -- or should we say, on a life? It is widely held that Antoine Doinel is
Truffaut's most autobiographical character. I couldn't say -- but these films do seem to
exhibit an intensely personal kind of awareness. If Doinel isn't Truffaut's stand-in, he
is most certainly a character he knows intimately.
By the end of this five-disc set, we know him pretty
intimately, too. Fortunately Doinel, like Truffaut, is awfully good company. He's not
always admirable (where would be the fun in that?), but he is almost always likable. We
understand him -- and we forgive him his trespasses.
Criterion deserves unstinting praise for The Adventures
of Antoine Doinel. The telecine transfers are sumptuous, the sound is better than I've
ever heard in a theater, and the extras are all we could ask for.
Sorry, old codgers -- these days, when we're offered a
special retrospective of a great work of cinematic art, we get to take it home and revisit
it whenever we want.
That's progress.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
