Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho (2015)
Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: The Limits of Control, Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho, Slaughterhouse-Five and Joan the Maid.
The Limits of Control (Arrow Academy)
The unnamed assassin (Isaac de Bankolé) is unblinking and unmoved by anything except paintings (he visits museums) and music (he listens). Writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control (2009) is an enigmatic composition in color, sound and silence. Cinematic and philosophical allusions abound in a film that’s more about perception than assassination. As one character says, “Reflection is more present than the thing being reflected.” The cast includes Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray and John Hurt.
Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho (MVD Visual)
Guitarist Robbie Basho didn’t fit with the folkies for his raga-like tunings; wasn’t comfortable with the hippies; when he went Native American the Natives weren’t impressed with his music; he ended in the New Age bin without finding an audience. Voice of the Eagle explores the life of a brilliant, spiritual, troubled musician who sought his own way. Pete Townshend and other interviewees describe him as a man out of time. His best recordings are transcendent.
Slaughterhouse-Five (Arrow Video)
Nowadays we’d diagnose Billy Pilgrim as having post-traumatic stress disorder. However, Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) endures the unique symptom of being unstuck in time and space, detouring backward as a World War II POW and forward to an alien planet. Director George Roy Hill brings easy sophistication to most scenes and segues in his 1972 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel. War’s absurdity is well represented within the science-fiction frame. Best recommendation: Vonnegut liked the film.
Joan the Maid (Cohen Film Collection)
Joan of Arc endures as a legendary subject for filmmakers—and not only in France but Hollywood and elsewhere. French New Wave director Jacques Rivette’s Joan the Maid (1994), released on a two-disc Blu-ray, is a sparsely written yet detailed chronicle, epic in scale yet focused on small moments. The beautiful cinematography is arranged in meaningful compositions as if in a sequence of paintings. Sandrine Bonnaire plays Joan like an earnest college student on a mission.
