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DVD SAVANT

The Last Days of Disco
Savant Blu-ray Review


The Last Days of Disco
Blu-ray
Criterion 485
1998 / Color / 1:78 anamorphic widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date July 24, 2012 / 39.95
Starring Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals, Matthew Ross.
Cinematography John Thomas
Film Editor Andrew Hafitz, Jay Pires
Original Music Mark Suozzo
Produced, Written and Directed by Whit Stillman

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Criterion has promoted Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco to Blu-ray, a move that will delight his fans -- this handsomely produced time capsule with the nostalgic disco soundtrack looks even better in the high-definition format. A superior comedy, Disco finishes Stillman's celebrated trilogy begun with Metropolitan and Barcelona. The focus is a group of Ivy League grads from mostly privileged backgrounds struggling to stay employed in New York while enjoying a vibrant nightlife in the disco scene. It is "very early in the 1980s" and commercialized disco is dying a humiliating public death; at one point the film is interrupted by a video clip showing a cache of disco records being destroyed as halftime entertainment at a big football game. But this crowd of late baby boomers has little to do with media images of John Travolta and Donna Summer; it sees the club scene as an indispensable hub for social networking.

More than a dozen distinctive characters populate writer-director Stillman's show. Alice and Charlotte (Chloë Sevigny & Kate Beckinsale) are a major study in themselves. The attractive, ambitious women have entry-level publishing jobs. To afford a laughably impractical railroad apartment they must accept money from home plus take in a third roomer. By night they're fashionable frequenters of a glitzy disco club, part of the preferred clientele list granted entrance at the doorway. The girls are very different in personality. Alice is unassertive but a good observer of people. Charlotte expresses her insecurity through heartless criticism. She sees nothing wrong with telling fellow publishing employee Dan Powers (Matthew Ross) to his face that he's a "meatball" with "low socioeconomic prospects". Charlotte's backhanded compliments to Alice are in reality a litany of hurtful slights: "Maybe in physical terms I'm a little cuter than you, but you should be much more popular than I am." Charlotte is totally untrustworthy and has no conscience; she's aggressive even when confessing wrongdoing.

The gullible Alice falls for the too-good-to-be-true environmental lawyer Tom Platt (Robert Sean Leonard), who neglects to tell her that he's engaged and then faults Alice for being too loose. But Tom's an amateur next to club employee Des McGrath (Stillman fixture Chris Eigeman), a total heel. Des breaks off with his conquests by claiming that he's suddenly discovered that he's gay. He tries to be loyal to his disco friends, however, and risks trouble with his boss to sneak a pal into the club. Jimmy (Mackenzie Astin) is in advertising, a profession that the club scene considers terminally uncool. Jimmy panics when told that he's been blacklisted: "That's like something out of the Nazis!"

Elegant plot construction concerns Whit Stillman less than capturing the essence of a certain time and place. Not all of the men are selfish swine, but nobody is perfect. Jimmy is too worried about securing club access for his ad clients to give Charlotte his full attention. Des sets his sights on Alice, intrigued by cruel gossip that she's an experienced lover. Des has competition in Josh (Matt Keeslar), an assistant D.A. whose openness and sincerity appeals to Alice. Des jealously spills the beans about a nervous breakdown Josh had back in college, which of course cues Charlotte to declare Josh damaged goods and bad boyfriend material. But Charlotte's own love life is in total disarray. She almost has a nervous breakdown when she thinks she's become pregnant.

The Last Days of Disco abounds with hilarious details about singles life in the big city, where fancy cooking means dumping a can of Campbell's soup into a skillet of pre-cooked shrimp. A cocaine abuser takes offense when a friend calls him an addict: "I'm not an addict. I'm a habitual user." At one point or another everybody is unemployed. Even Alice's hard-earned book deal goes up in smoke for no fault of her own. The Last Days of Disco is pre- AIDS yet highly conscious of STDs. One very honest scene shows one of the young ladies picking up her antibiotics at the drugstore, and suffering the pharmacist's silent judgment.

Stillman's dialogue always seems natural, yet it's obviously stylized: nobody uses profanity. The perfectly measured lines carry shrewd observations and pointed witticisms of the kind one would expect in a stage play. Josh is convinced that the decline of disco is only temporary. Tom Platt believes that the emergence of environmentalism can be sourced to a 1950s reissue of Bambi. Des proposes a judgmental reading of the "Tramp" character in Lady and the Tramp -- the dog is an unrepentant tail-chaser and always will be. Alice is more impressed by Josh's thoughtful interpretation of The Tortoise and the Hare. He's the first boy she's met who seems to have values beyond success at any cost. Too heartfelt to be a satire, The Last Days of Disco embraces its characters. Stillman's generosity extends even to the sneering club doorman Van (Burr Steers), who by the end of the show is just another refugee from a "scene" whose day is done.


Criterion's Blu-ray of The Last Days of Disco is a splendid presentation of Whit Stillman's most accessible comedy. Image and sound were flawless on the 2009 DVD, leaving this Blu-ray edition to embellish the image with greater clarity and range of contrast. John Thomas' glowing cinematography keeps all eyes on Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale, whether in their club dresses or carrying paperwork at the office. Whit Stillman, Sevigny and Chris Eigeman are present for a pleasant commentary, discussing chaotic casting decisions and filming in the heat of August. They describe the chaos on the dazzling club set, a decommissioned movie palace in New Jersey. The trio also offers comments for a series of deleted scenes, most of which take place in Des McGrath's apartment. Stillman reads a chapter of his book The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards and provides sentimental footnotes for a selection of production stills. An original featurette and trailer show the film to be a tough sell to 1998 audiences. The disc insert liner notes are by David Schickler. The French poster artwork used for the cover doesn't convey the beauty of the two lead actresses.

Whit Stillman's earlier Metropolitan, a nearly anthropological study of New York's debutante society is witty but slightly cold around the edges. Stillman gets deeper into his characters in The Last Days of Disco, and we feel his affection for them. It's a much more satisfying experience.


On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Last Days of Disco Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Audio: Excellent
Subtitles: English
Supplements: Commentary, deleted scenes, trailer, featurette, book reading.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: July 19, 2012

Republished by permission of Turner Classic Movies.




DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2012 Glenn Erickson

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