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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Rather awkward threading of separate dramas,
By T. R. Kidner "Hucklebrook Hound" (Salisbury, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: My American Uncle [1980] [DVD] (DVD)
This film, DVD in my case, seems to divide opinion. Its quality is fine and subtitles are in English (no need to change settings on the main menu).For me, some French drama can seem lightweight, even trite and one can view one, two or all three of these, unrelated domestic dramas as such, depending on your point of view. I found my mind wandering at times, which is never a good sign. The beginning, with its scientific points about behavioural patterns and habits in animals, from single cell organisms up to us humans initially seemed interesting but later, as these referred to specific scenes by juxtaposing them within the film, just added to the rather jarring narrative. They weren't done in an obvious Woody Allen, high comedic manner, which might have helped. Though I personally felt them not too distracting, black and white snippets from earlier French classics popped up, to echo the thoughts or actions of the actors. I noticed several snippets from Marcel Carne's 1939 classic Le Jour se Leve, for instance. Also, lessening its grip on our attention is its length - just over two hours. And, as to who, or what is the American Uncle, well, it's in there, somewhere!
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good examination of French society circa 1980,
By
This review is from: My American Uncle ( Mon Oncle d'Amérique ) [ English subtitles ] [DVD] (DVD)
I'm not usually that big a fan of Resnais' films, but this dissection of middle class France circa 1980 is quite engaging. The movie intertwines three stories, loosely connected: the story of a civil servant, that of a middle manager in a textile firm (Gerard Depardieu, in the most interesting segment) and that of an actress (Nicole Garcia, the least interesting one). The stories are commented by biologist Henri Laborit, who elaborates on how we respond to external circumstances in modern society and at one point compares the reactions of the characters to the pressures of society to those of rats in a laboratory. (The constant references to actors in French classical cinema is less interesting, as cinephilia seems to be a particular French obsession). Laborit's theories might be outdated or naive, but they make a funny counterpoint to the action. I came out of the movie with the idea of modern capitalist society as a pressure cooker to those who want to play high in the game - nothing new, but it's well illustrated in the film. And to those of us old enough to remember the late seventies and early eighties, is fun to see back the clothes, the cars, etc., that people use back then on the screen.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews) 22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poor DVD quality aside, this release is WELL worth the price,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Mon Oncle D'Amerique [DVD] [1980] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
There are certain directors whose films can survive even the worst video transfers, and Resnais is one of them. Not that New Yorker Video should not be chastized for giving us yet another scandalously poor video and audio transfer of a classic film. Rather, one should not let the poor DVD quality deter one from buying this DVD, as Resnais' MON ONCLE d'AMERIQUE is masterful and argueably the director's greatest achievement. To be completely honest, in my humble opinion Resnais is the greatest living director. For what it is worth, I have seen everyone of his feature films, including everything in the 80s and 90s, and I find this picture to be the most compelling. Having carried out his most rigorous investigation of the time and memory of personal consciousness in "Je T'aime, Je T'aime," Resnais' work in the 70s undergoes a gradual shift in emphasis toward a time and memory belonging to community. At the risk of sounding overly reductive, one might locate the decisive moment of this shift in "Providence," in which the radically subjective, stream of consciousness narrative is completely undermined in the film's epilogue. In reflecting on Mon Oncle d'Amerique, I think it is paramount that one sees the film in the context of this decisive shift (which is not to say that Resnais simply abandons his earlier project). The film produces some of the most extraordinary images of time and memory reconfigured from the standpoint of community, and argueably marks the director's crowning achievement. One need look no further than the opening sequence in which a camera circles around a canvas comprised of still shots from scenes in the film, such that already at the film's outset the viewer is confronted with an image of the whole. Having laid out this context, I strongly disagree with the general presupposition, betrayed in Maltin's summary and many of the customer reviews below, that Resnais has somehow attempted here to illustrate the behavorial theories of Henri Laborit. Resnais himself (in the DVD notes) expressly rejects this reading, which is nowhere corraborated by the film itself. He explains that in the film he has tried to set the biologist's theories and the narrative side by side, such that the two elements can co-exist, without either one dominating the other. The unmistably ambivalent tone of the ending testifies to the success with which Resnais has executed this vision. The superb direction and screenplay are supported by an outstanding score and an excellent cast. I cannot recommend this DVD more highly. 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The erratic behavior of the human...,
By LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Mon Oncle D'Amerique [DVD] [1980] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
Resnais' penchant for film as cognitive experience first and foremost here comes to the fore, although emotion is certainly on display as well. The three main characters of the film--an actress turned fashion industry stylist (Nicole Garcia), a media executive (Roger Pierre), and a textile middle manager (Gerard Depardieu)--all undergo changes in their lives that intertwine with the theories of human behavior put forth by Professor Henri Laborit, a famed French psychologist and scientist, who plays himself in the film.
Bearing in mind that the film was made in 1980 and that psychological theory has advanced significantly since then--largely founded on one after another breakthroughs in neurobiology/neurophysiology--this is nevertheless an entertaining piece of cinema whose theme is really how we respond to external circumstances--specifically, those that could potentially be very stressful. For some people, a specific circumstance will be manageable; for others, it will be tremendously stressful. In this film, all three main characters respond to various experiences as very stressful ones, and consequently exhibit behaviors reflecting that: attempted suicide, psychosomatic illness, emotional outbursts. Laborit comments on the reason for this stress, which is primarily the inability to dominate (i.e., control) a situation. Regardless of new discoveries in neurophysiology, his statement is absolutely true, and Resnais fuses Laborit's voiceover discussion with interrelated events in the lives of the three main characters that illustrate the scientist's words. Once in a while, Resnais gives human characters the heads of white lab rats to wittily capture Laborit's points (not for long; just a few seconds or so). Yet in spite of this visual cleverness, the dexterity of the lead actors embodying the emotional intensity they experience given certain changes in circumstance is truly skillful. What's also interesting is that, early on, two of the three characters profess their love of past French film stars--in particular, Jean Marais and Jean Gabin. When each of these two (the Nicole Garcia character and the Gerard Depardieu character) are confronted with these changes in circumstance, Resnais cuts to a snippet of a scene from a film starring Marais (for Garcia) or Gabin (for Depardieu) in which the viewer can easily tell the emotion experienced by the older actor. This is, again, a clever cinematic device that adds to the film's richness. Rated one of the best films of the 1980s by numerous film critics, Mon Oncle D'Amerique is a substantial piece of work that bears a number of viewings. It's easy to see why the critics voted this way. Highly recommended. 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
New Yorker Does well by Resnais,
By "unhelpful" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Mon Oncle D'Amerique [DVD] [1980] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
Finally! An affordable New Yorker home release! One of Alain Resnais' more accessible - and funny - films, "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" is also one of his last to find an American distributor. The transfer is less than scintillating, with a picture earning maybe a 2 or a 3 (5 being the highest rating), and the sound getting a 2 or lower. But New Yorker has "enhanced" the subtitles, making them yellow and enormous. Since this is a talkative movie, the subtitles often threaten to subsume the entire picture. But until Criterion deigns to remaster it (with optional subtitles), this is the best we could ask for.
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