New DVDs: Dennis Potter, 'Blindness'

"The world, look at what we've done to it," Dennis Potter wrote. "If the world was an old dog you'd want to put it out of its misery."

The line, spoken by an angry young man in one of Potter's "plays for television," provides a decent enough introduction to the late British writer's worldview. 

Potter dwelled in the dark places, exploring the ways in which we put up with existence.

Koch Vision brings to America a set of three mid-period Potter telefilms. They're minor works that benefit from some recycling of previous material, but anyone with an interest in the writer would do well to pick up "Dennis Potter: 3 to Remember."

Potter, best known for the BBC's "The Singing Detective" and "Pennies From Heaven," died of cancer in 1994, after suffering from a severe form of psoriasis he wrote about in "Detective." 

Disc 1 includes a brilliant hourlong TV interview in which the writer discusses his imminent death, in something of a valedictory talk. A flask of morphine at the ready, Potter says he's "serene" but fearful of dying "four pages too early." The dying man's advice: Be in the now.

He wrote this trio of 1980 telefilms for London Weekend Television (LWT). They were produced shortly after the success of "Pennies" and aired on consecutive Sundays. They sound and feel like plays, but were shot on location. The cameras do get out now and then.

The telefilms all have the death of a father as plot devices but don't appear to be a trilogy.

The best work here is "Blade on the Feather," a spy story/mystery with terrific performances by Tom Conti, Donald Pleasence and Denholm Elliot. 

Pleasence had been doing mostly U.S. television and horror films in the wake of "Halloween," so no doubt he was pleased with this substantial role in "Blade" as an aging British professor and author possessed of a dark past. 

Conti plays a witty young man who pops up at the professor's remote shoreline mansion, unknown and uninvited. His reasons for visiting remain murky throughout. Whatever he wants, it includes the prof's beautiful daughter, all too happy to bed the visitor as relief from the family's isolated boredom on the Isle of Wight. 

Elliot, that wonderful character actor, plays an edgy butler with a long and unusually familiar history with the professor.

The three men's relationships become increasingly complex and volatile as the tale unfolds, although there always seems time for Potter's bright banter and afternoon tea. All is revealed in a rush of events that somehow mixes fellowship and violence.

"Rain on the Roof" wastes little time on pleasantries. Foreshadows are everywhere as Potter unveils his warring thirtysomething couple, played by Malcolm Stoddard and Cheryl Campbell (pictured, top). 

The husband casually carries on with a pal's wife while the missus is on the hunt for her own playmate. She finds an unlikely target in a local young man suffering from a mental disorder. He's unable to read or write, but yearns to study the Bible to make peace with his father's death.

The lady of the house decides to tutor the fellow, who soon proves to be a bumbling-mumbling time bomb -- an angry young man who can barely spit it out. There's a bit of Hitchcock in the mix as we await the inevitable explosions.

"Blade on the Feather" offers a good bit of black comedy and Thatcher-era social commentary, while "Rain on the Roof" pours on the misery, a Potter specialty. They're talkie and slow-moving, but the patient viewer will be rewarded.

The three-disc set also includes "Cream in My Coffee," a bookended look at a married couple young and old. It incorporates the 1930s dance music that Potter loved. (The DVD set was released in region 2 in 2005 as "Dennis Potter at London Weekend Television.")

The telefilms all look washed-out, soft, just passable. Like a VHS tape that was kept too long. The 2.0 audio is OK but I had trouble understanding some of the key dialogue as it went down.

Paramount rereleased the U.S. version of "The Singing Detective" last fall. It stars Robert Downey Jr. Potter gets screenplay credit. Reviews were mixed to poor. I'd like to recommend "Pennies From Heaven" with Steve Martin, but the only DVD out there is the scrawny version Warner released in 2004.

 

* * * * *

Potter's interest in decay and afflictions might have made him a fan of the grim survival tale "Blindness," from director Fernando Meirelles ("City of God"). 

The story, from the much-praised novel by Portugal's Jose Saramago, begins in an unidentified modern city in which most of the citizens come down with a sudden and total "white blindness."

The cops seem unaffected; they herd the terrified blind into prison-like dormitories but won't go near them in fear of becoming infected. The newly blind try to police themselves, but order breaks down and soon enough we're in "Road Warrior" territory. 

Meirelles' movie took an ass-beating from critics, so I was pleasantly surprised by the DVD, mostly. The movie feels like one of those Danny Boyle zombie pics, a claustrophobic "Children of Men." Better to work through this one in the living room than in a dark theater, perhaps.

Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo do fine work as a middle-aged couple, both doctors, who take charge of their end of the blind detention camp. Moore, somehow, has escaped the blindness but pretends she's afflicted in order to stay with her mate.

Much of the movie's appeal comes from the series of what-would-you-do? questions it raises. If you'd rather not picture yourself in a sightless apocalyptic future, best to stay away. 

Miramax's DVD includes two routine making-of featurettes. Audio and video are up to major studio standards. The title has not been released on Blu-ray.

Also circling the DVD blog's players this weekend are "Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection" with "Play Misty for Me" and "The Beguiled"; the Joni Mitchell ballet project "The Fiddle and the Drum"; and the indie critical favorite "Frozen River."

New and noted DVDs:

Blindness (Miramax)

Chocolate (Magnolia Home Entertainment)

Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection (Universal)

Dennis Potter: 3 to Remember (Koch Vision)

The Exterminating Angel (Bunuel, The Criterion Collection) 

Simon of the Desert  (Bunuel, Criterion) 

Foot Fist Way (Paramount)

Frozen River (Sony)

Gospel Hill (Fox)

Joni Mitchell's the Fiddle and the Drum (Koch Vision)

Kennedy: The Complete Series (Martin Sheen, MPI Home Video)

The Lodger (Sony)

Melrose Place: Season 5, Vol. 1 (Paramount)

Miracle at St. Anna (Disney)

My Name Is Bruce (Image Entertainment)

The Romance of Astrea and Celadon  (Koch Lorber).

Sam Elliott Western Collection (Warner)

She Stoops to Conquer (Acorn Media)

Tales From the Darkside (Paramount)

What Makes Sammy Run? (Koch Vision)

W. (Lionsgate)