The Human Stain
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.99 You Save: $15.00 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.25 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Human Stain
Movie Review: To Escape One's Past.
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Human Stain" is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth, which employs the not entirely novel device of seeing through the eyes of a novelist. Gary Sinese plays novelist Nathan Zuckerman, who, after a bestseller and a divorce, has secluded himself in a cabin outside the town of Athena, Massachusetts. He grows close to the newly retired Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins), who has become an outcast of sorts himself, having been forced to retire after 35 years of service as a professor of classics and Dean of Faculty at nearby Athena College. Against the admonitions of friends and colleagues, Coleman has an improbable affair with a much-younger cleaning woman, Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman), which seems even less advisable when her unstable ex-husband (Ed Harris) arrives on the scene.
"The Human Stain" has a deliberately slow pace. It diligently picks its way along. It seemed oppressive for the film's first half-hour, but eventually I was drawn in by the characters. Both Coleman and Faunia's characters are defined by their pasts, ironically, as both have dedicated their lives to putting the past behind them. The mysteries of these pasts are revealed slowly, and that is the means by which the audience is drawn into the story. Both Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman give impressive performances, but the casting is conspicuously odd. Neither of these characters looks his or her part in the least. This doesn't detract from their emotional power, but I have to wonder what the powers that be were thinking when they cast this film. I guess they were thinking that two talented A-list actors could pull anything off. Wentworth Miller is perfectly cast as the younger Coleman Silk. And I was particularly impressed by Anna Deavere Smith as Coleman's wise but heartbroken mother. "The Human Stain" is a nice character drama. It's just not for the impatient.
The DVD: "Behind the Scenes Special" is an 8-minute featurette about making the film that includes interviews with the cast and director Robert Benton. It's not very focused and doesn't say much. "Jean Yves Escoffer Tribute" is a short tribute to cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffer to whom "The Human Stain" has been dedicated. It's a compilation of clips from films which he photographed and clips of Escoffer working behind the scenes. Escoffer died in 2003, after a 30-year career as a cinematographer. Subtitles are available in French and Spanish, captioning in English. Dubbing is available in French.
Movie Review: Compelling in flashbacks
Summary: 4 Stars
I came away with mixed feelings about the film on multiple levels, which speaks to its complexity. Previous reviewers have articulated many of the same thoughts as mine. Ed Harris was flawless playing an angry ex-Vietnam vet, one of his finest performances. Nicole Kidman's acting was excellent, but her efforts to sound American also made her sound stilted and every word took twice as long to be articulated. Mr. Miller who plays the young Silk and Ms. Smith who plays his mother were so compelling together, they stole the show. The talented performances by a fine cast, strangely did not work well as an ensemble.
The political correctness theme superimposed on the Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal was an annoying distraction. Yes, political correctness has been used and turned around such that its good intentions became its own destruction. Here, the word "spook" is used to illustrate how it can be manipulated to make its usage seem ill-intentioned. That is the argument against political correctness, that we attach moral connotations to words and judge people not by their actions or intentions, but their verbal diarrhea. But, the deeper issue is the way society creates these moral dilemmas in the first place, which challenges detractors of political correctness. What ultimately bothered me about this film was the over-moralization of young Silk's choice, which undermined society's role in his choice. The young Silk was not a sympathetic character, which is reflected in the undercurrent of accusation that all his losses stemmed from his dishonesty. The irony is that racial prejudice created this conflict for him, and in this instance society bears the bulk of the responsibility.
The interactions of young Silk and his family were so moving, it is a shame that they were given homage only in flashbacks. The poignant dialogue will be remembered for a long time. It could have been a great film, but too much time devoted to the older Silk brought it down a notch. The older Silk's relationship with Nicole Kidman's character was overplayed, where it should have just been an interesting sidebar. The strength of the movie relies on the past so much, it should have stayed there. But, well worth seeing and an excellent movie overall.
Movie Review: POIGNANT THEME, GREAT ACTING, COULD HAVE BEEN DONE DIFFERENT
Summary: 4 Stars
Benton (of "Kramer vs. Kramer" or "Places in the Heart" acclaim) has always made movies with themes on the subtlest emotional vectors. If you've read the marvellous but somewhat un-adaptable book by the same name (Phillip Roth's "The Human Stain") you'll know what I am talking about and in that case, watch the movie without any expectations of seeing a loyal adaptation because this isn't.
If you are not familiar with Roth's book, the movie's spinal theme may be racial prejudice, but it is really the story of a man deciding, late in life, to love the unknown what is beyond books, pride, even self. To learn that lesson is to turn a stain into a blessing.
Stylistically, I felt the theme could have been dealt with in a somewhat smarter way. Without giving too much away, the "scandal" at the heart of the movie really gets very little screen time which helps diminish its importance in comparison with Coleman's past. But we see so little of it that it belittles its own thematic importance, and the movie spends a great deal of energy setting up storylines and elements that get little eventual payoff.
This is why I say the novel was a bit difficult to adapt. Following Coleman's life all the way along, not just its beginning and end, could have made the movie work better as a movie; so could exposing his secret to the world of the film instead of just to the audience. At one point, Coleman's sister says doing just that would have instantly cleared up all the scandal and misunderstanding. Wrong. It would have made everything much more complicated, much more textured, much less black-and-white. As it is, we are left with a movie about two people whose lives have already ended clinging to each other for comfort.
But the cast alone is something I'd go rushing into the theatres for: Hopkins, Kidman, Harris. Hopkins' acting here is a slow, painful flowering, and Kidman, who late in the film has a long dialog delivered with such musical delicacy that it becomes an aria of regret and self-apprehension.
In sum, despite my gripes with the handling of the film, this is a film you HAVE to see. I'll go as far as to say that it's worth owning a DVD of.
Movie Review: Serious complex story, but the casting just didn't ring true
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a feeling that the book by Phillip Roth is a good novel. The story is full of the complexities of a man who lives with a deep secret all his life. And it questions political correctness and all the assumptions that go along with it. It's a deeply human story, which brings up questions for which there are no easy answers. And I'm sure that if I had read the book I would have embraced it completely. But I didn't read the book. I saw the DVD. And so I have to judge it on its own terms.
Anthony Hopkins is cast as a college professor in New England. He's been there for many years and is well respected. And then he makes the mistake of saying something in class that is not politically correct because it seems to offend African Americans. He loses his job over this. And the upset causes his wife to have a heart attack and die.
Somewhere along the line he makes a friend of Gary Sinese, a writer to whom he reveals his life story. Through flashbacks, we learn that the professor is actually an African American himself who has crossed the color line in his youth and never looked back.
Meanwhile, while the back-story is told in flashbacks, the professor has an affair with Nicole Kidman, a young woman half his age who works as a janitor. Her ex-husband is deranged and abusive and actively pursues her. She, too, is troubled deeply, and has led a difficult life with a lot of sadness.
This is a serious story and is very depressing. The acting is excellent too. But I just couldn't get into it. First of all, Anthony Hopkins does not look black. And I never believed that Nicole Kidman was a working-class janitor. The young man, Wentworth Miller, who is cast as the professor at a young age, doesn't look like Hopkins. And the whole situation just didn't seem real.
It was a very ambitious try on the part of the filmmakers to bring this story to the screen. It is certainly a worthwhile film. But there were just so many problems with its believability that I find it difficult to give it more than a lukewarm recommendation.
Movie Review: Engrossing, but...
Summary: 4 Stars
...I had the feeling that this film pretty much lost sight of the woods for the trees. It begins with Achilles' dilemma in The Iliad with a slave girl which his king also covets, then quickly moves to the excesses of political correctness in academia, then to American sexual hypocrisy and sanctimony in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, to a Viagra-assisted, sixty-something sudden-widower who suddenly lands a vivacious thirty-something woman from a very different social and economic class background with a very checkered past, her Vietnam-scarred psychopathic ex-husband who stalks her, the dramatic reinvigoration and sexual reawakening in such a winter-spring relationship, to the deeply ingrained racism in American society as experienced by a mulatto boy who decides to pass himself as Jewish and breaks ties with his family.
All this might be gracefully contained in a 400-page novel (maybe...I haven't read Roth's book yet) but crammed into a 2-hour movie, it all feels a bit disjointed.
While Kidman, Hopkins, Harris and Sinese are all a bit miscast in their roles, all three put in solid performances...Kidman has never looked more appealing and real, in contrast to her usual generic-blonde look. Hopkins isn't quite up to the anguish and explosive rage that his character is supposed to express in a few of the scenes---he simply doesn't have the range for it---but is otherwise competent. The film is beautifully shot, with a very effective score, and technically superb.
What's missing though is any kind of overarching theme or point to tie everything together. I suppose we could deduce one from the title: "The Human Stain" as a rather misanthropic treatise on the abject depths to which humanity constantly sinks? It's possible but there is no strong impetus to be found in the movie, which ends with Harris and Sinese conversing upon a frozen lake. The scene is well-acted, well-written, well-directed...but again, like the entire film, while enjoyable leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what in the world it was all supposed to be ABOUT.