TV on DVD: George Wallace (1997) -- Two Disc Special Edition DVD Set

Own the Emmy & Golden Globe Winner

On 1/20/08

"Drama is reality in imaginary circumstances."

-- John Frankenhemier

(As Quoted in Vision and Conflict:
Collaborating on the Wallace Saga; Disc 2)

Long before "We Know Drama" became TNT's slogan, John Frankenheimer knew drama. He always had a special admiration for works of historical, cultural and political importance, including not just the made-for-television award-winning biopics and true tales that defined the last chapter of his career with the creation of films including Andersonville, The Burning Season, Against, the Wall, and Path to War but as evidenced in his earliest work like The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, The Young Savages, Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May.

A fascinating and politically active man in his own right-- still having never gotten over the haunting feeling of-- as he notes on Disc 2 of George Wallace-- driving his house-guest Robert F. Kennedy to his death at the Ambassador Hotel, as a filmmaker, Frankenheimer paid special attention to all eras but as an audience, we felt that it was never as urgent as when he chronicled his own. Namely, he was at his best when tackling the turbulent era from the '50s through the '70s in the wake of civil rights struggles, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam war, and countless assassinations.



Upon the initial description, it may seem-- much like when we'd heard Oliver stone was taking on first President Nixon and then President George W. Bush-- to be an odd fit to imagine Frankenheimer spending time on the life of controversial segregationist, presidential candidate, and divisive Alabama governor George Corely Wallace but a masterful filmmaker with a penchant for the evolution and development of nearly theatrical acts in his storytelling structure, it's precisely this idea of a friend of R.F.K. having the empathy, fascination, and open-mindedness to do a film without intense judgment or agenda. The result of which made Wallace one of the most critically acclaimed miniseries from 1997.

Earning its star Gary Sinise, his leading lady Mare Winningham and the director an Emmy award for their tremendous achievement, the film also proved to be a hit with the Hollywood Foreign Press, earning the Golden Globe for both Best Miniseries as well as a Best Supporting Actress award for its breakthrough performance by an impossibly young Angelina Jolie in her first major role.



Recounting tales from both the set and their relationship with the deceased director in a wonderful roughly twenty minute extra in which we learn that Frankenheimer considered by Jolie to have been "one of the most influential men in my life." Additionally he was also so esteemed for his willingness to collaborate by actor Gary Sinise (by that time an acclaimed director in his own right with Of Mice and Men) that he and Frankenheimer had actually begun to form a company in the hopes of continuing to develop and create great projects.



Above all, Frankheimer's widow says that while her husband had an overwhelming affinity for political material, his sheer love was for stories about "people coming back against all odds." Obviously, this is epitomized by Wallace whom, Frankenheimer described as a twentieth century Faust who sold his soul to the devil for political gain by aligning with the Klan and inspiring so much racial hatred and destruction that during his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, he survived the five bullets fired at during a harrowing 1972 assassination attempt in Laurel, Maryland which left him wheelchair bound and paralyzed until his death (incidentally one year after the release of the miniseries).



Refusing to simply paint the easily labeled man a "monster "or true villain, Frankenheimer made an intriguing choice along with writers Paul Monash and Marshall Frady who worked from Frady's book to chronicle an extraordinary amount of the man's life, of which most viewers are unfamiliar.

Beginning with the shooting itself, we move back into the man's life back in the '50s when he was known as a left wing idealist tirelessly crusading for an "equal deal for the common folk" under the guidance of his mentor, Alabama's Governor Big Jim Folsom. This particular act of the film ends at the critical point when he breaks free from the civil rights minded Folsom to form a shocking alliance with the powerful Klan in order to secure himself the governor's seat after losing the election his first time out.



Growing increasingly segregationist and easily pliable-- bending to the will of the Klan and his handlers to ensure he stayed in power-- the film moves through the tumultuous '60s which found him taking on Robert F. Kennedy over the battle of letting two African-American college students into the University of Alabama, using horrific tactics to stop Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Birmingham until he begins to make amends for his ways, apologizing and seeking the forgiveness of the African-American community after those fateful bullets changed his life forever.



Proving there are countless acts in one American life and never letting him off the hook (inviting us to make our own decision), the film succeeds mightily due to the tour-de-force of its star Gary Sinise who, understandably admits that-- having just played President Harry Truman and given the film's subject matter-- he wasn't sure he was willing to take on Wallace.

However, when Frankenheimer arrived at his door with books, videos, and endless logic, Sinise eventually gave in and turned in one of his finest performances in a career that honestly-- we've begun to take for granted-- given Sinise's consistently impressive work (that has amazingly never won him an Academy Award).



Offering remarkable praise not only for his director but also Winningham for whom he felt a deep admiration and joy of being able to work with on a daily basis as she portrayed Wallace's first wife Lurleen, he also recalls how impressed he was by the then early twenty-something Jolie with whom he shared an ongoing ethical debate about Wallace in deciding whether he was a racist or an opportunist and ultimately which one of those was worse.

Wallace is filled with Frankeheimer's trademark classical style cinematography. In doing so, the camera team blended both black and white film to replicate some of Wallace's most infamous moments that are forever ingrained in the American memory as he stood in front of the schoolhouse door to prevent two African-American students from entering as well as startling color that matched each specific year.

Capitalizing on Frankenheimer's fondness for big wide frames or more specifically super-tight closeups on the faces of characters, the lensing gives an off-steady balance (especially in crowd or party scenes) when we feel as though we were--like Wallace-- lost in a sea of people that could suddenly turn deadly.

Arriving on DVD for the first time in this two disc special edition from Warner Home Video-- while the technology of the small screen work does make it look a bit grainy in places--perhaps this is more evident when one tunes into Wallace right after watching a 2008 or 2009 DVD or Blu-ray-- it's an immensely fascinating piece filled with integrity that above all, illustrates as Sinise noted, his admission that when it came to Frankenheimer, he'd "never seen a director fight harder to protect the quality of the product" during the film's shoot.

Opting to release the film on DVD especially on January 20, to coincide with as Warner Home Video Vice President of TV and Special Interest Marketing Rosemary Markson revealed, "the inauguration of this country's first African-American president" in order to illustrate "the tremendous strides the United States has made since Wallace's day," to this reviewer the idea of these two items happening concurrently--especially considering that Wallace was still preaching hate less than forty years ago-- makes the DVD an especially valid choice for a high school political science classroom.

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions

VISIT

The Official Discovery Channel Website for the Series

Film Intuition: Video Clips & Photo Gallery

NASA's Website

NASA's Video Vault on Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel's Official When We Left Earth YouTube Channel

On May 5, 1961 when astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American man sent into space, a NASA interviewee reported that although the mission lasted just twenty minutes it was the equivalent of “total joy” or more accurately the “purest, happiest twenty minutes” of our lives in an event for which the excitement has never been matched. While many who grew up in the era of the space race and President John F. Kennedy’s historic challenge just twenty days following Shepard’s mission aboard Freedom 7 to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth within the decade can recall with unparalleled accuracy just where they were when Neil Armstrong fulfilled that goal, there’s no doubt that they’ve never been given the full story until now... unless they worked at NASA.

Despite catching glimpses of the much larger picture or “small steps,” if you will to quote Armstrong in cinematic epics like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 and documentaries like From the Earth to the Moon and In the Shadow of the Moon that outlined some of the paramount achievements of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions and astronauts, never before have we gotten such an insider’s view of the intricacies and entire history of the program until 2008.

In addition to “candid interviews of the people who made it all happen” we’re offered “priceless footage… from NASA’s own secret film vaults,” and “hundreds of hours of never-before seen film footage from the NASA archives, including sequences on board the actual spacecraft in flight,” which “have been carefully restored, edited and compiled” in the Discovery Channel’s groundbreaking six-part miniseries When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions.

Following a rave reception in its initial airing over the past summer, Image Entertainment has transferred the incredible set, narrated by award-winning actor Gary Sinise to both DVD and Blu-ray High-Definition. Boxed in a collectible tin and with a fourteen page booklet that chronologically outlines some of NASA’s most incredible major events, a rare and exclusive interview with Armstrong, it also contains an entire bonus fourth disc of never-before-released footage right from the NASA vaults.

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions is the definitive collection on the subject that’s a must own not just for lovers of American (and global) history but also parents and academic institutions eager to educate the next generation about the courageous achievements of the men and women who have gone before them, daring to reach out into the unknown of space and witness the far side of the moon.

While initially I feared that breaking up the saga into six parts may make the series feel padded and test the limits of our decreasing attention spans, I was instantly riveted by the high-quality production value and the endlessly inspiring narrative that hooked me so much I completed the series in just two days.

Having been born into a generation where the only time we ever heard about NASA was when the news wanted to chronicle its failures instead of its achievements in the horrific tragedies of the Challenger and Columbia and the initial failure of the astronomically expensive Hubble Telescope, nonetheless I was always fascinated by the idea of NASA and one of my earliest ambitions was to some day ride a rocket as a female astronaut. While not knowing the difference between a compass and a protractor, proceeding to earn a "D" in college level Math 90, and being advised to sign up for “Physics for Poets,” helped outline my path that writing and the arts were where my talents seemed to fall, I’ve always been endlessly fascinated by the organization and especially its life-affirming unceasing quest to continually ask the existential, humanistic questions of who we are, where we came from, and what exists outside of this one tiny planet in an endless universe.

It’s easy to live day-to-day worrying about the little things or obsessing about the global events but what this series reminds us of-- throughout every single episode--is how much more is out there that we do not understand and that we should be far more united as a planet to unlocking the clues of a universe as opposed to increasing a divide between countries and emphasizing an us vs. them society. For, when the astronauts stare down from space, we’re all together in this great planet—indistinguishable—just mere inhabitants of one globe, which makes it a terrible loss that we haven’t pooled all of our intellectual and optimistic resources to find common ground in reaching for the stars. Still, the “total joy” of Shepard’s flight transfers to total joy on a DVD set that will hopefully inspire a new generation of inquisitive scientists and a new era for NASA.

Immediately challenging our stereotypes of astronauts as space cowboys—instead of just the heroic, clichéd tales of nostalgia, we’re presented fully fascinating portraits of men and women who could be our own husbands or wives or neighbors as they use the ability of hindsight to critique choices, offer a new approach to footage we thought we’d completely understood, or open our eyes to something different altogether. Of course, much like brain surgeons, astronauts and rocket scientists must definitely have a different outlook from the average bear and there are some macabre jokes and cocky assertions but after only viewing what one typical day is like, we realize that the bravado is necessary to get the job done as they find themselves in circumstances one couldn’t possibly imagine.

Chronicling not just the highlights of the organization but also its mistakes and tragedies involving those whose lives were lost along the way—we have a truly insider’s view of the painstaking process we’ve now come to take for granted as we find ourselves applauding each and every success in retrospect from the incredibly risky moment of both lift-off and the return home when you “fall back to Earth” and the heat shields hit Earth’s atmosphere where anything could happen as one blasts out of lunar orbit.

From mastering walking in space to crafting a suit designed to keep astronauts alive to surviving the “vomit comet” in order to deal with the questions of weightlessness, and figuring out how to send up NASA repairmen to fix things and improvise when necessary in order to salvage equipment, ensure successful missions and above all save lives, every single mission and step truly contributed to Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind.”

Continuing on into the last three decades as NASA endured funding crises, public disinterest, disaster, until it began collaborating with Russia on the International Space Station, the set offers a complete picture of the program that has never before been compiled with this much depth and attention to detail.

A true testament to the power of the human spirit, our capacity to question, innovate and endure—When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions isn’t just the best nonfiction miniseries I’ve seen in years and certainly the most authoritative cinematic document on the subject but it couldn’t find its way to DVD shelves at a better time. For when we’re so fixated by the endlessly negative headlines of the state of our nation, we can all take a cue from the lessons of NASA to search for solutions, aspire for change, test the limits of our intellect, realize that we’re all in this as a human race (not just a space race) and remember that it’s not only okay but encouraged to reach for the stars where the only thing stopping us is ourselves.

To quote John F. Kennedy, “we choose to go to the moon,” and do these things, “not because they are easy but because they are hard,” and when things are this hard, there’s nothing better than telling ourselves that we are a people who have gone to the moon. Or as Alan Shepard might say, “Let’s light this candle,” and “don’t f**k this up,” for the power is ours and the sky is the limit and as we all learned in Apollo 13, "Failure is not an option."

Of Mice and Men

Nominated for the 1992 Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winning writer Horton Foote adapted John Steinbeck’s 1937 classic novella Of Mice and Men for the second and far superior cinematic interpretation from director/producer/star Gary Sinise. As he notes on the DVD, Sinise, who had first seen the play as a 16 year old at the renowned Minneapolis Guthrie Theatre, acquired the rights from Elaine Steinbeck while performing in the Broadway version of The Grapes of Wrath. After a breakneck year of planning, including solidifying the script which was approved on the spot by MGM studios, production was underway.

Having taken part in the play twelve years earlier at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Sinise once again tackled the role of the protective George Milton. In one of his smartest moves as a filmmaker, Sinise reunited with his Mice costar John Malkovich for his pitch-perfect characterization of the mentally challenged Lennie Small in the heartbreaking tale of two close friends who travel together during the Great Depression while working on California ranches as they try to save enough money to buy their own farm and secure a piece of the American dream.

Nearly as vital and timely as it was in its first printing given the state of our questionable economy with frequent discussion of recession, Sinise’s film has also stood the test of time with its painstaking attention to detail in bringing Steinbeck’s vision to life. And perhaps it's even more accessible thanks to Foote’s augmentation of his lean and muscular writing by adding more emotion to the tale in order to enrich Steinbeck’s theme of loneliness.

In addition to being controversial for conclusions made regarding disabled individuals such as Lennie, Steinbeck’s novel also caused a feminist outcry as female sexuality leads to the men’s undoing, in the form of the flirtatious wife of their boss Curley (Casey Siemaszko). However, in the 1992 version both of these oft debated characterizations are deepened without losing any of Steinbeck’s intent. In the DVD interview, Sinise argued that one of the most important things he wanted to address in the movie was the treatment of Curley’s wife by humanizing the woman (played by the lovely Sherilyn Fenn) and emphasizing her loneliness being the only woman on the ranch without a soul to talk to. In doing so, he considerably plays up audience sympathy as opposed to the book’s depiction of her as a dangerous, aggressive symbolic villain. In addition, as Sinise shared, this change of developing Curley’s wife into a fully realized character makes the film’s memorably shocking ending all the more tragic. Additionally, in my view, it makes her yet another one of the many lonely outcasts that populate Steinbeck’s world, inviting the audience to draw greater parallels between her character as well as the others, especially Lennie who is painted as the ultimate outsider, given his childlike innocence that’s contrasted with his dangerous strength and overwhelming size.

While it’s Malkovich that ultimately steals the film, I was especially touched by Sinise’s characterization in depicting George in a tenderer fatherly manner, and after viewing the film a second time around, began to realize that in truth, he had the more difficult role. Not only does George serve as the negotiator of both Lennie’s optimistic fairy tale like hope for a better future and the harsh realities of the ranch but he also served as the glue in the relationships with every character in a way that had me recalling William Hurt’s underrated, similarly all-encompassing role in Children of a Lesser God. While George is nowhere near as flashy or memorable as Lennie who holds our hearts for the entire running time, it’s ultimately George who serves as the contemplative stand-in for the audience as he’s the one we’re constantly judging throughout the movie.

Seeing the two great actors working together at the peak of their careers makes Of Mice and Men all the more precious and it’s this immediate bond the two share that wins us over from the start. This relationship is definitely heightened by Foote’s script which, under the guidance of Sinise who wanted to make his own Scarecrow like “buddy movie” (for lack of a better phrase), allows the two not only to shine but invites Steinbeck fans to look even deeper into the novella. And perhaps it's this more than anything that should be the true test of the success of adapting literature in whether or not it inspires us to go back to Steinbeck’s novella to compare and contrast while appreciating the similarities and differences of each instead of just choosing one over the other. In that regard and so many others, Sinise's Of Mice and Men is an overwhelming success.