Eureka - The Masters Of Cinema Series [DVD]

Optimum DVD release(2008).If you're curious about watching this for the first time on the strength of the directors' (Nic Roeg) previous films as I was, I think you may be disappointed as only a little of Roegs & his writers/cinematographers/ editors/ sound designers previous stunning originality seems present in this reasonable drama that starts promisingly but generally fails to deliver as the(based/inspired by a true)story of Gene Hackmans gold prospector progresses & digresses with his growing (mis)fortune.So more 'Castaway' than 'Don't look now','Walkabout' or 'Man who fell to Earth' I feel.But it is decently filmed & the DVD has a quite a good colour range & reasonable print quality, and is quite erotic in parts with an interesting cast that do their best with the material on hand and the sets & design look like an amount of money was spent-or wasted on it,as the distributors may feel ,after committing around 15 million before deciding a full scale cinema release could possibly lead to a disaster of 'Heavens Gate' proportions.Although the film seems to fall between trying to obtaining a commercial hit & providing something much more personal,with its occasional mysticism & 'Citizen Kane' references.The dreadful cover line of "He found his fortune.... But at what cost?" is an unfortunate but accurate indication of just how ordinary much that is present in this film is.Although in fairness to all concerned the mid 80s were not the best time for expressing artistic individuality & some viewers have found a depth in this film that I haven't .I feel the last thing Roeg probably ever wanted was for viewers of his films to say "It's OK I suppose" .But those looking for a watchable drama, with a few striking scenes ,at a reasonable price, who may have found some of Roegs' previous cinematic 'quirks' off putting could do worse.The disc contains no extras(or subtitles) apart from a trailer, disc is 1.85:1 ratio(for 'standard'16:9 TV size) 'mono 2.0' sound,124mins approx.English language.This is now available as a Masters of Cinema DVD/Bluray ,with some extras,including a booklet,& interviews with the writer ,+ producer Jeremy Thomas('The last emperor') who may shed some light on what they expected from the film, its limited cinema release & if they were satisfied with its results.

This film I last saw at the NFT which was just as well because it did not get a general release. As usual with Mr. Roeg's work, there are many layers to the story which concerns how one strong man is de-humanized by his possession of extreme wealth, namely a river of gold. His only aim in life was to find this gold and also find his long, lingering spiritual death.The first scenes with an aerial panning shot over the beautiful mountainous snowy wastes of the Yukon then puts us straight to the realities of death and despair exemplified by the shocking suicide of an unlucky miner who blows his head off. Jack McCann is a hard man who goes out,to find the gold he knows is there; he finds it after falling into a crevasse which is speckled with gold which, with a few strikes with a pick, becomes a torrent of gold. He did not realize at the time, or any other time,that this discovery would suck all humanity out of him and leave a hard,uncompromising shell of a man.Twenty years later he has bought an island on which he lives in a huge mansion called 'Eureka' along with his wife ( from his days in the Yukon) and his beautiful daughter,Tracey. He has an associate who is supposed to deal with the financial and legal aspects of his life. Into this life comes Claude, a runaway Frenchman who is courting Tracey and straightaway causes Jack to hate him. The feeling is mutual and Jack is separated from his daughter when she decides she wants Claude's love as the wealth never had mattered to her. Gradually, Jack loses everything, a non-person alone against a world he found lusted after his wealth.In Miami, the Mob led by Meyercovsky and his lawyer D'Amato, want to build a casino on the island. Jack of course does not want to co-operate. The Mob think he is a dinosaur and should move over for the new generation to make money. At least,Jack dug up his wealth - the Mob have plundered theirs from racketeering. Tracey has gone to visit her mother on Rhode Island leaving Claude to enjoy himself with the native bacchanalia-cum-voodoo culture of the island. Jack is basically alone when the Mob close in with an offer he never got the chance to refuse. What followed was one of the most brutal,gruesome scenes of Jack's death by beating and blowtorching interspersed by dreams of the Yukon, a collision course between beauty and ugliness. Claude and the associate are around at the time but can't or won't do anything to help him; Claude attempts to sail away but is arrested by the police and charged with murder.Claude's trial goes on and it looks like a hopeless case for him - the Mob aren't even mentioned as he has been shanghaied just was Jack was. He eventually defends himself and questions his wife, Tracey, who puts out an impassioned speech about love and commitment in a heart-rending performance by Theresa Russell which probably saved his life. He is deported by the British authorities due to his 'violent tendencies' . Tracey's longing for Claude whilst he was in jail is expressed in a brief orgasmic scene but more telling perhaps was her in her bedroom with the lawyer D'Amato. This added another frisson to the plot. Tracey had said about Claude something like 'You can't pass a mirror without looking at yourself in it' ; this he does at the end of the film and says 'It was always you, Tracey'. Such a conundrum of interpretation!The screenplay by Paul Mayersberg was excellent. Gene Hackman chews the scenery a little but his dialogue is terse and fits the character; the sort of character who would have chopped off Claude's fingers with a cleaver if he could. Roeg's flashback imagery worked well as the audience had to interpret the succession of images, especially at the end. This was cinema par excellence with overlaying visual and oral repetitions like his oft-time statement that he had never benefited from another man's sweat. Jack had always been in a world of his own; if he had allowed someone to share it, his life could have been happier. The love of money is the root of all evil.

Having seen this film at its world premiere (before Roeg withdrew it to fiddle with the editing) I had been impressed. Yet I hadn't seen it again for 30 years. Finding it was now on DVD, I thought I would give it a punt. This is a very quirky film, immersed (as is "Performance" and "The Man Who Fell to Earth") in other things; in this case it is the Kabbalah. (This is made clear when Rutger Hauer wears a shirt with the Tree of the Kabbalah drawn on the front to a formal dinner in the middle of the film.) I found this release of the film both impressive and a let-down. It is impressive because of its ambition as a film; it is a let-down because (the way it is edited) most sense of "suspense" is replaced by puzzlement; this is The Zohar meeting Hollywood and suffering from the meeting. However, this review is about the DVD on offer. As a DVD it offers no extras except for the original theatrical trailer. The sound is firmly mono and there aren't even any subtitles to be had. I would suggest that this (superficially Roeg's least approachable film, but one with a great deal to offer to anyone who has followed his career) is poorly served by this release. It is only the film, virtually nothing more. It is closer to "Performance" than it is to "Don't Look Now", but it has some extremely good moments. It is really for Roeg fans, rather than for the general public. Roeg is a great director and this film has some moments of greatness. This DVD, with its lack of features, is not a good showcase for them. Still, when it is the only DVD available, it is worth having.

A flawed film with a superb cast and high production values. It gets better the more you see it and is always interesting to analyse but as a totality it is disappointing.