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Tales of Ordinary Madness [DVD] [1981] [US Import]
 
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Tales of Ordinary Madness [DVD] [1981] [US Import]

DVD ~ Ben Gazzara
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Tales of Ordinary Madness [DVD] [1981] [US Import]
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Tales of Ordinary Madness [DVD] [1981] [US Import] 3.8 out of 5 stars (6)
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Product details

  • Actors: Ben Gazzara, Ornella Muti, Susan Tyrrell, Tanya Lopert, Roy Brocksmith
  • Directors: Marco Ferreri
  • Writers: Marco Ferreri, Anne Dutter, Anthony Foutz, Charles Bukowski, Georges Dutter
  • Producers: Jacqueline Ferreri
  • Format: Anamorphic, Colour, DVD-Video, Widescreen, PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: All Regions
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
  • Studio: Image Entertainment
  • DVD Release Date: 23 Feb 1999
  • Run Time: 101 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: 6305269122
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 159,937 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Style is the answer to everything," intones skid row poet Charles Serking, played by the suitably grizzled and worn Ben Gazarra, to his somnambulistic audience. Serking is, of course, a not-at-all veiled stand-in for beat legend Charles Bukowksi, whose autobiographical short stories were the basis for Tales of Ordinary Madness. But Serking, in many ways, comes off more like a gin-soaked fantasy of a skid row Hemingway whose sports of choice are alcohol, women, and sex. Behind the salt-and-pepper beard and rummy eyes lies an actor too poised to allow himself to fully sink into the alcoholic sloppiness that Mickey Rourke so easily brought to the screen in the less pretentious and more concise Barfly, which Bukowski himself scripted. But if Italian-born director Marco Ferreri stumbles over the self-conscious dialogue, he's right at home capturing the seedy atmosphere of dim, run-down apartments and underlit bars in the real Hollywood Serking calls home. When Serking's fling with the stunning, self-mutilating Italian hooker Cass (Ornella Muti, who puts her oversized safety pin to some rather startling uses) becomes too emotional, he takes the anonymous safety of the streets--crashing in a flophouse, passing around a bottle with a listless knot of derelicts. Serking melds right in with the littered streets and lost souls, a real man of the people. Suddenly you see it: he's got style. --Sean Axmaker

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ferreri does it again!, 1 April 2007
This review is from: Tales of Ordinary Madness / Touche pas a la femme blanche [DVD] (DVD)
Marco Ferreri, the Italian director, is as overlooked as they get, despite having worked with some of the greats and making some of the best films of all time. This DVD release actually has two films on it: Tales of Ordinary Madness and 'Touche Pas La Femme Blanche'. I actually bought the DVD for the latter film, as it is so hard to come buy at any reasonable price. Both films are wonderful. Tales of Ordinary Madness follows a man essentially through different sexual experiences he has with different women. It is dry and rather bleak, but exceptionally good. If you have a real interest in films, then watch this one. 'Touche Pas La Femme Blanche' is almost a parody. It tells the story of The Americans fighting the Native Indians, but is set in the middle of modern day (for when the film was made) Paris, and only the main characters are wearing period costume. They are fighting the Indians in the Middle of Paris, in a quarry. The acting is superb, the direcion to die for. It is funny, and makes many actions that took place seem ridiculous. By changing the setting et al. Ferreri is highlighting many of the key issues. A very clever film. Good DVD. Tales of Ordinary Madness is in English, 'Touche Pas La Femme Blanche' is in French with English subs
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint hearted., 8 May 2008
This review is from: Tales of Ordinary Madness / Touche pas a la femme blanche [DVD] (DVD)
Gazzara is magnificent as the drunken transgressive poet who shifts from one sordid sexual encounter to another. This character's idea of time out is to hit the streets and hang out with the disadvantaged and vulnerable casualties of the American dream! Although the subject matter is bleak and at times shocking, Ferreri presents an underworld that is not loaded with misplaced bourgoise sympathy or victim mentality. The people that inhabit these shady places are damaged and brutalised by their suroundings and personal circumstances but they are able to seek moments of poetic enlightenment. For example the beach hotel, staffed by unpretentious warm, caring staff, becomes an oasis of peace and tranquilty. Nevertheless the poet is an alchoholic and the consequences of his escapist addiction leads to some very dark encounters albeit mercifully interlaced with some very black humour!


For me 'don't touch the white women' was as interesting as the main feature and an excellent bonus. Shot in a massive hole in the centre of Paris (which became a rather dull shopping mall) Ferreri juxtoposes General Custer's rascist, genocidal attitude to the indiginous people of America with the implied atrocity of the Vietnam War. Often funny and certainly surreal (American cavalry riding through the streets of 1970s Paris) Ferreri's message is clear: don't trust the white man!!!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Buk hated this, 6 May 2009
By J. Severidt "jornfin" (Rovaniemi, Finland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Tales of Ordinary Madness / Touche pas a la femme blanche [DVD] (DVD)
What you get out of this, depends on what you are looking for.
I was looking for Buk, and I didn't find him. Not a trace. Bukowski himself hated this movie. He was invited to the first screening in the US, and left embarrassed. I can see why. This is no "ordinary madness" at all, it is "artistic madness" all the way.

As an art movie, it is entertaining, though. So if, unlike me, you do not come to this with no background of admiration for the Dirty Old Man, but, say, a Ben Gazzara's or Ferreri's you probably will enjoy this. It does offer something apart from the ordinary (...).
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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The soul of a souless world.
This is a difficult watch at some points. The second scene suggests that the main character has slept with a 12 year old girl. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. G. A. Robinson

4.0 out of 5 stars method actor with guts
I take issue with Axmaker's review saying that Mickey Rourke pulls Bukowski off better than Ben Gazzara and Marco Ferreri do. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mr. T. Wilson

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional filmmaking
This is the third Bukowski adaptation I've seen (via 'Factotum' and 'Barfly') and in many ways it is certainly the most interesting. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Ian Armer

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