Eclipse Series 9 - The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection)

Eclipse Series 9 - The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection)
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Eclipse Series 9 - The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection)
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Delirious Fictions of William Klein
Director: '
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 293 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection

Movie Reviews of Eclipse Series 9 - The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection)

Movie Review: FUNNY, OUTRAGEOUS, EXCESSIVE
Summary: 3 Stars

These aren't great films, nor are they serious artistic achievements. They're low-budget, campy burlesques of contemporary culture. While I couldn't take them seriously, the movies do manage--in their wacky, irreverent, ham-fisted way--to successfully parody the world we live in. MR. FREEDOM, my least favorite of the three movies, centers around a superhero who, when he's not wearing his caped red-white-and-blue crusader uniform, walks around in a slick, tailored suit and cowboy hat. Of course, there's always some nefarious global enemy Mr. Freedom has to defeat. As Klein makes clear, everything and anything can be justified in the name of "freedom," even going nuclear. When freedom becomes a universal pretext, you end up debasing the word, hurting the very cause you claim you are fighting for, and potentially even destroying yourself in the process. At least that is Klein's argument. Klein effectively caricatures the right wing. He skewers -- then roasts them. But subtle he is not. The movie gets too campy and heavy handed.

In WHO ARE YOU, POLLY MAGGOO?, Klein attacks the fashion industry. Polly is a model from Brooklyn who travels to Paris, where she makes a splash in the world of haute couture. Everybody thinks they know Polly, she's just a pretty face whom everybody is falling in love with, including a Prince. But there's much more to her than meets the eye. She becomes the subject of a documentary that seeks to reveal the person behind the glamorous exterior. For awhile, she's all the rage. Still, fads are fickle, and by the end of the movie poor Polly is falling out of fashion. Everybody fell in love with the image, not with the real person behind it, who is more beautiful than the image. This "kaleidoscopic deconstruction" grew out of the years Klein spent as a photographer for Vogue magazine. It's interesting what Klein does here with black and white still photography as well as collages made up of magazine cut-outs.

In THE MODEL COUPLE, an average couple is chosen by the French government, held up as a model for society to study, and subjected to perpetual television monitoring as well as some very intrusive scientific tests. In our age of reality TV shows such as "Big Brother," THE MODEL COUPLE is a portrait of what popular culture has become. There are two wonderful scenes where Klein speeds the movie up, one where the couple set up their furniture in the studio that is now their home, and one where we see them eating together at a table over several days. They eat, argue, make up, kiss -- Klein manages to squeeze a whole relationship into just a few minutes. It's really lovely to watch. Unfortunately, the film too often veers toward parody that is too blunt and excessive for its own good.

The two latter films are in French with optional English subtitles. MR. FREEDOM is in English.

POLLY MAGOO is in black and white. The other two are in color.

Although made in the 60s and 70s, Klein's films are still relevant. Comparisons to George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin, the war in Iraq, "freedom fries," the Patriot Act, the continued influence of a vapid fashion industry on consumer culture, reality TV, and intrusive government -- all these comparisons are not only inevitable but will, at times, make these movies seem downright prescient. Alas, Klein too often wields a club when a cane might have been more effective. The films hardly ever manage to climb out of B-moviedom.
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Summary of Eclipse Series 9 - The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection)

William Klein s explosive, challenging New York street photography made him one of the most heralded artists of the fifties. An American expatriate in Paris, Klein has also been making challenging cinema for over forty years, yet, with the exception of his acclaimed 1969 documentary MUHAMMAD ALI, THE GREATEST, his film work is barely known in the United States. In his three fiction features WHO ARE YOU, POLLY MAGGOO?, MR. FREEDOM, and THE MODEL COUPLE he skewers the fashion industry, American imperialism, and middle-class complacency with hilarious, cutting aplomb. Today, Klein s politically galvanizing and insanely entertaining social critiques seem even more ahead of their time than works of the more famous New Wavers that overshadowed them: colorful, surreal antidotes to all

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