The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Criterion Collection)
List Price:
Our Price: $21.76
You Save: $18.19 (46%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $16.80 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Hutcheson, James McKechnie, Neville Mapp, Roger Livesey, Vincent HolmanBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 163 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-10-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: A film unlike any other
Summary: 5 Stars
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a true rarity in moviedom, a film that is intellectually engaging, filled with life and innovation, a film that stands as a celebration of cinema, that explores the medium to the fullest. It was released not too long after Citizen Kane, and deserves to be held on the same level of esteem because of its glorious innovation and storytelling techniques. Blimp is a uniquely British film, yet universal, a film of its period(early '40's), yet light years ahead of its time. In my opinion, it demands to be seen and appreciated by a wider audience because it is unquestionably a landmark motion picture.
Comparisons between Blimp and Citizen Kane are not uncalled for. Both films are daring in their assertion that the cinematic style of a film is as important an element of the storytelling as the screenplay and the actors and the set pieces. The difference is that Blimp isn't drunk on its own power, dazzling the viewer with chiaroscuro lighting and warped, unusual camera angles, thereby self-consciously drawing attention to itself. Kane was either a film editor's dream job, or nightmare, with its brazen cutting and narrative reorganization. In essence, Kane has a kid-in-a-candy-store feel to it, the sense of a brilliant young director being given a camera for the first time and told to go nuts. And the result is undeniably engaging. Blimp isn't as wild or baroque as Citizen Kane, with this film we have more the sense of a couple of seasoned filmmakers who have always been visually adventurous expanding their reach even further, coming into their own, making a firm decision to explore the potential of cinema to the fullest. And the result is a more subtle form of legerdemain, wherein the visual trickery is firmly integrated into the overall narrative and never overwhelms the story or its characterizations.
The most striking example of this is having the great actress Deborah Kerr play three different characters, the important women in Colonel Blimp's lonely, male-dominated world. Her first appearance leads to a case of unrequited love. The second involves a storybook romance with the woman who eventually becomes his only wife. The third is a commander-subordinate relationship that leads to friendship based on mutual respect and admiration(and maybe some deeper feelings that are never acted upon, or even spoken). But this isn't just a neat cinematic hat trick, there is a good reason for the strategy. Deborah Kerr's three characters(and perhaps Deobrah Kerr herself) embody all the traits that constitute Blimp's(and presumably Powell and Pressburger's) ideal woman: inner and outer strength, intelligence, beauty, articulation, independence, worldliness, a willingness to speak her mind, a one-of-the-boys quality, among other things. This makes The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, despite its military, male-oriented setting, a feminist motion picture. It also invites comparisons between this film and Powell and Pressburger's later(and in my opinion their greatest) film, The Tales of Hoffmann, based on the opera by Jacques Offenbach, in which all four of the women in the poet Hoffmann's life are seen as parts of a single romantic ideal.
Another example of the film's cinematic inventiveness involves the den at the home of Colonel Blimp's aunt. At two points during the film, both of them moments of Blimp losing one of his great loves, the blank walls of the den suddenly fill up as the heads of animals Blimp has killed on safari appear one by one. This is a sly, clever way of visualizing romantic and sexual frustration(witty and heartbreaking), perhaps the greatest ever put on film.
Finally, the framing device of the war games, wherein Blimp is confronted and "arrested" by a brash young officer who isn't content to play by the older gentleman's outmoded rulebook(might this young man represent Powell and Pressburger and their effort to knock the art of cinema on its ear?), has a manic, almost comic tone, and this adds a touch of levity to the proceedings while also accentuating what is probably the film's primary theme.
Because Blimp is about much more than romantic entanglements and feminine ideals. It is also about a man steadfast in his traditional values who gradually becomes superannuated as the world becomes more complex, and heartless, at the same time less civilized. In this sense it reminds me of an inverse version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, wherein a man who is in many ways part savage faces the prospect of fading away unheralded as his environment becomes more civil and restrained. The difference is that Powell and Pressburger's film is no tragedy, despite its bittersweet air, and the character Colonel Blimp doesn't fade away, he simply accepts a different, smaller role in a world he is no longer able to comprehend. He doesn't come across as ineffectual, on the contrary his willingness to stand by his ideals while recognizing that their place in a changing society has degraded somewhat gives the character a singular kind of strength, and blustery charm.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a long film, and not exactly fast-paced, it demands a lot from the viewer because of the complexity of the ideas it contains and because of its one-of-a-kind storytelling technique. Yet at the same time it has a breezy quality, due to the vitality of the characters and dialogue, the freshness of its approach, it never bogs down, and shouldn't bore any viewer who is willing to invest some intellectual capital into the experience. It's lovely, moving, thought-provoking, inspired and inspiring - exactly what movies, and art, are supposed to be.
Summary of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (The Criterion Collection)
LIFE & DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP - DVD MovieSimilar DVD Movies
Ill Met By MoonlightRelease date: 2011-08-16; DVD
Best price: $13.47
Price in other shops:
In Which We ServeRelease date: 2011-03-29; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Essential Art House: Tales Of HoffmannImage Entertainment; Release date: 2009-09-15; DVD
Best price: $12.66
Price in other shops:
The Small Back Room (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2008-08-19; DVD
Best price: $18.35
Price in other shops:
Four Feathers (Criterion Collection)IMG; Release date: 2011-10-11; DVD
Best price: $18.17
Price in other shops:
49th Parallel (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-02-20; DVD
Best price: $23.08
Price in other shops:
A Canterbury Tale (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2006-07-25; DVD
Best price: $23.08
Price in other shops:
Black Narcissus (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2001-01-30; DVD
Best price: $25.99
Price in other shops:
I Know Where I'm Going! (The Criterion Collection)HILLER,WENDY; Release date: 2001-02-20; DVD
Best price: $25.96
Price in other shops:
Age of Consent / Stairway to Heaven (Double Feature)Sony; Release date: 2009-01-06; DVD
Best price: $18.14
Price in other shops: