Paul's Case
by Lamont Johnson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Eric Roberts, Lindsay Crouse, Michael HigginsDirector: Lamont Johnson
Brand: Monterey Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 52 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-05-03
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Monterey Video
Movie Reviews of Paul's Case
Movie Review: I Am Addicted! - Absolutely Gripping!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am absolutely addicted. I watch it just about every night and sometimes on the my computer on the cab ride. I read "Paul's Case" last year in my literature class at school. I loved it from the beginning and I hope I am allowed to say that it is the greatest short story ever written by an American writer. I highly identify with the handsome, sensitive, loveable, and tasteful Paul in his longing for beauty and the romance of Life for which we all long and can find if we are able to escape the prison of rational, small-minded, machine-like society and cultivate what the great mythologist, teacher, scholar, and philosopher, Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987) called our "bliss".
It is not as faithfully and strictly accurate a dramatization as I would have liked, but the drop-dead gorgeous Eric Roberts' performance is stunning and beautiful. He perfectly portrays the obviously beautiful and just as obviously troubled spirit of Paul. The program is introduced by Henry Fonda (1905 - 1982) who gives a beautiful summings-up of the story. He says about the author, Willa Cather (1873 - 1947):
"Most of all, she mourned the tragic loss to the world when a talented and sensitive child was denied the chance to develop. She wrote that `There is no work of art so big or beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body.' Her story "Paul's Case" ...was first published in 1905. It's a story of longing. It tells of a young man who yearns to escape the frustrations of the daily round and enter the world of high art. In a way, he does succeed, but Miss Cather knew that escape from small-mindedness is not easy."
Like so many archetypal myths, "Paul's Case" tells of the sentient, human spirit pitted against the controlling, uncaring, monolithic Machine of Society (the same as Luke Skywalker against the Empire and Darth Vader) and the suffering that is so familiar to the modern teenager.
For all of the beauty and genius of the performance and dramatization, however obvious the attempt to restore the film, the picture quality is horrendous and the sound is equally horrific. The tape noise is loud and ugly and it is full of unseemly pops. The Henry Fonda intro is so faded that with the DVD picture on the factory setting of half-way on the color scale, the film might as well be in black and white. The brightest colors in the film are, of course, the bright red (usually of the main and iconic symbol of the story, Paul's rather head-turningly bright red carnation flowers), the white of the snow - or snow-threatening sky - the black of Eric Roberts' lovely hair - and suits - and most things, and muddy brown (just about everything else). Probably, apart from the horrific choice of film, part of the explanation for the terrible colors is that, if one searches the credits, one finds that the color has been "provided by TVC Laboratories" - no wonder! The color was added entirely post-production!
However, no matter, this is a beautiful and completely five-star drama which would hopefully make Miss Cather proud. I said it once, I will say it again, this is the greatest short story ever written by an American.
Summary of Paul's Case
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