Masked and Anonymous
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Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment / 2003 / 120 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: February 17, 2004 
Larry Charles, one of the head scribes behind "Seinfeld," seems at first glance to be an odd choice to helm Bob Dylan's return to the silver screen. (He hasn't been in an actual narrative film since Hearts of Fire in 1987.) But regardless of whether you find Masked and Anonymous to be nothing more than a self-obsessed vanity piece or an honest-to-goodness cult classic, one thing cannot be denied: this is a weird one. Almost universally maligned by critics and ignored by audiences, this bizarre half-concert movie, half-war picture(!) certainly never gives the viewer a chance to relax. Watching this cranky, oddly proud little thing on DVD is to literally sit through befuddlement: Penelope Cruz speaks strange platitudes while praying at some kind of Buddha-meets-Jesus-in-Drag shrine. Ed Harris shows up in blackface as the ghost of an old vaudevillian legend (or maybe not). And Angela Bassett even joins the party as a slinky, sexy young thing with an honest-to-goodness Coffy-era Pam Grier afro. Witnessing such cinematic sights, it is easy to understand why Masked and Anonymous is so hated. The film is a mishmash. While Roger Stoffers' cinematography is zany and striking in its you-are-there directness, and Pietro Scalia's zippy editing is nothing short of miraculous, the stories and characters that boomerang around Charles' elliptical and oddly fantastical narrative structure are just plain frustrating. To be fair, Masked and Anonymous is nothing short of a filmic equivalent of a great Dylan record. Die-hard aficionados (myself being one of them) might argue that classics like Blood on the Tracks or Desire aren't so much notable for their musical consistency as they are for their almost brutal juxtapositions of feeling and ambition. Blood on the Tracks is one of the greatest kiss-off songs that has ever been written about an amorous relationship gone sour ("Idiot Wind"), and one of the most tender and heartbreakingly ballads ever committed to vinyl ("If You See Her, Say Hello"). Listening to Blood on the Tracks is a vital, explosive experience that conjures the best of blues and folk music in the 1970s, yet it is also hardly an easy album to sit through. So perhaps Masked and Anonymous follows the same river. It is almost useless to try and critic Masked and Anonymous. If you love Dylan, you may get it, If you don't, you will probably hate it. So whatever Larry Charles has pulled off, he certainly has created one of the most polarizing pictures in recent memory. It is such a kooky little picture it is guaranteed to piss off far more people than it pleases. So whatever it is, just get out those old Dylan LPs and make a night of it.
Video: How Does The Disc Look? Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, Masked and Anonymous looks impressive here. Colors are especially pleasing - the greens and yellows are almost raucous - and free from any bleeding or noise. Although blacks can waver a bit (which is especially noticeable on cuts between exterior and interior sequences), contrast is excellent and detail ample. The picture often looks three-dimensional, and the print is razor sharp. As Dylan himself might say, "Right on." Audio: How Does The Disc Sound? Masked and Anonymous also gets a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track, but it is not quite as good as the transfer. The music sounds phenomenal - not only are the recordings here excellent, but when Dylan is mixed right, man does his band sound good. Frequency response is quite spacious and wide, which results in clean and clear dialogue and some nice atmosphere. Surround use is sporadic and as weird as the movie it supports - there are very few audio clues that let the audience in on just what is going on, and from where. But even if the sound design of the picture lacked much sense, the music was enough to keep me entranced. Also included are English and French subtitles and English Closed Captions.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? First up is a screen-specific audio commentary with director Larry Charles. It is both impressive in its detail and also quite blank. As a resident of Los Angeles myself, the simple act of learning how Masked and Anonymous' filmmakers went about creating a third-world political asylum out of the mid-Wilshire district was enough to keep me interested. But Charles often goes on for a whole minute or two not saying anything, so whether or not there is enough gold to be mined here for 120 minutes is best left up to you. The best part of this is the 15-minute featurette The Making of Masked and Anonymous. We don't get too much insight from Mr. Dylan himself, but to see Jessica Lange and Christian Slater giggle when asked what life on set was like (it sounds like they can't really defend the finished product any more than I can) makes it worth watching. It sure sounds like they had fun on the set, no matter what the outcome. Next up are five deleted scenes, all of which are moderately interesting ("Alternate Bar Confrontation," "Jack Fate Meets the Lady in Red," "Uncle Sweetheart and the Bad Boys of Shutterbugs," "Standing in the Doorway" and "Tom Friend's Past"). Last but not least are theatrical trailers for Masked and Anonymous, My Life Without Me, Owning Mahowny, and Laurel Canyon. DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC? There are no ROM extras on the disc. Parting Thoughts If you have even heard of Masked and Anonymous is probably an amazing feat. Most hated it, so perhaps this one is best left for Dylan completists. But if you are the curious kind (or just brave), give it a rent. It is a fine DVD, with a great transfer, spiffy 5.1 track and some intriguing supplements. For $24.95, it ain't too bad, babe. |
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