Well, it's finally here, all you rabid film enthusiasts. *Peter Ibbetson* -- never before released for home consumption, not even on VHS, and very rarely revived in art-houses since its 1935 flopped release -- is now on DVD as part of Universal's new "Gary Cooper Collection". On this five-movie set, *Ibbetson* is clearly the crown jewel, though the others are certainly worth a look, depending on your degree of interest (I've already reviewed on these pages Lubitsch's *Design for Living*, which should interest anybody interested in good movies). *Peter Ibbetson* is the very definition of the term "cult classic": its extreme rarity admits only a select club of in-the-know members, and its surrealist subject-matter -- sundered lovers who communicate to each other through their dreams -- especially as realized by such American workmen as director Henry Hathaway and actor Gary Cooper, makes this movie irresistible to the cinephile.
It also appeals to other disparate types, such as the chick-flick connoisseur -- for what can be more deliriously romantic than lovers who live in their own telekinetic, dream-world universe? It's the kind of movie where Cooper builds Ann Harding a glistening castle in the air, made out of clouds and stardust, only to see it crumble when he doesn't believe strongly enough in his own dream. For those who will find all of this rather silly or at least doubtful, I can tell you that the unremitting sense of tragedy throughout the story's arc helps to keep things grounded and cleans out any extraneous gossamer. The entire movie depends upon the lovers' grievous separation, from childhood onward to old age, and Coop spends the majority of his adult life shackled in prison for a crime from which he should have been exonerated. Rather than commit suicide or allow himself to die after a savage beating from a jailer, he decides to go on living so that he can spend every night with his girlfriend, who is sharing the same dream with him. Romantic enough for you, ladies?
Of course, the real points of the story are both the indomitable longevity of the libido and the endless resources contained within the human imagination -- fertile grounds for Surrealism. Not surprisingly, Luis Bunuel considered *Peter Ibbetson* to be one of the 10 greatest films ever made. The dreamy set-design, the gauzy photography by Charles Lang, and the beautiful score by Ernst Toch contribute to the generally bizarre feeling that the movie evokes. It's a rare American film, from any era, that insists on dreams having at least as much, if not more, significance than so-called "reality", but such is the case here in this mainstream release from 1935. The movie failed with mainstream audiences then, and probably wouldn't sit well with mainstream audiences today. Americans have always been practical people, even during the Great Depression: their need for escapism back then clearly didn't outweigh their reluctance to accept Coop as an English architect suffering the pangs of transcendent love that is stronger than the grave. (Their loss.) I suspect the same is true of audiences today, who, when they bother to watch old movies, certainly do not want to see one in which Gary Cooper wanders through a European-style art-movie directed by an action-adventure journeyman like Henry Hathaway. (Their loss.)
10 stars out of 10.
It also appeals to other disparate types, such as the chick-flick connoisseur -- for what can be more deliriously romantic than lovers who live in their own telekinetic, dream-world universe? It's the kind of movie where Cooper builds Ann Harding a glistening castle in the air, made out of clouds and stardust, only to see it crumble when he doesn't believe strongly enough in his own dream. For those who will find all of this rather silly or at least doubtful, I can tell you that the unremitting sense of tragedy throughout the story's arc helps to keep things grounded and cleans out any extraneous gossamer. The entire movie depends upon the lovers' grievous separation, from childhood onward to old age, and Coop spends the majority of his adult life shackled in prison for a crime from which he should have been exonerated. Rather than commit suicide or allow himself to die after a savage beating from a jailer, he decides to go on living so that he can spend every night with his girlfriend, who is sharing the same dream with him. Romantic enough for you, ladies?
Of course, the real points of the story are both the indomitable longevity of the libido and the endless resources contained within the human imagination -- fertile grounds for Surrealism. Not surprisingly, Luis Bunuel considered *Peter Ibbetson* to be one of the 10 greatest films ever made. The dreamy set-design, the gauzy photography by Charles Lang, and the beautiful score by Ernst Toch contribute to the generally bizarre feeling that the movie evokes. It's a rare American film, from any era, that insists on dreams having at least as much, if not more, significance than so-called "reality", but such is the case here in this mainstream release from 1935. The movie failed with mainstream audiences then, and probably wouldn't sit well with mainstream audiences today. Americans have always been practical people, even during the Great Depression: their need for escapism back then clearly didn't outweigh their reluctance to accept Coop as an English architect suffering the pangs of transcendent love that is stronger than the grave. (Their loss.) I suspect the same is true of audiences today, who, when they bother to watch old movies, certainly do not want to see one in which Gary Cooper wanders through a European-style art-movie directed by an action-adventure journeyman like Henry Hathaway. (Their loss.)
10 stars out of 10.