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Billy Liar: Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection // Unrated // July 10, 2001
List Price: $39.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Reality is a frequent annoyance for Billy Fisher, constantly interrupting his fantasies and day-dreaming. Young Billy sponges off his not-particularly-wealthy parents, squandering the pittance he earns as a mortician's clerk with the two fiancées he juggles. His family is fully aware of how prone to exaggeration Billy can be, paying little attention to his claims of a lucrative scriptwriting gig in London for a television celebrity. Billy reacts to adversity by fantasizing about mowing down those who inconvenience him in a hail of gunfire, often before sinking into the kingdom of Ambrosia, an imaginary world where he reins supreme, loved by all. His daydreams and lies lead to a total lack of respect from his family, the love of two very different women that he strings along with a single ring and the promise of marriage, and possible jail time when he pockets postage money for a few hundred promotional calendars. His consciously-constructed hallucinations have painted Billy into a cramped corner, though a third lady love, the free-spirited Liz (Julie Christie), may offer an opportunity for Billy to leave his interminable small-town life behind. It proves to be a tougher decision than one might think.
John Schleshinger's Billy Liar, which garnered extensive critical acclaim and numerous awards shortly after its release in 1963, is an incredible film with timeless themes, scarcely feeling dated at all. On paper, Billy would seem to be a pretty loathesome fellow, but Tom Courtenay infuses the character with such untempered passion that despite consistently fouling up his life and seemingly everyone else's, he's still a sort of hero. The acting is uniformly solid, and it's a refreshing change to to watch a film that breaks from the feature-length music video style of filmmaking so prevalent nowadays. Billy Liar somehow manages to remain engaging without resorting to thousands of quick cuts or painful "let's look back at the past 85 minutes!" montages as a character makes a critical decision towards the end. Billy Liar is an expertly crafted, fully accessible, and entirely relevant film, deserving of the Criterion treatment and very much worth a purchase.
Video: Billy Liar is perhaps the most impressive transfer of a black-and-white film I've had the pleasure of viewing to date on DVD. The 2.35:1 image comes rather close to approaching flawlessness, belying the film's nearly forty years of age. Some very light grain, scarcely warranting a mention, is present in a handful of scenes, and some very minor nicks and specks appear from time to time. Whatever method was used to clean up Billy Liar didn't come at the expense of clarity. The crisp image offers an incredible amount of detail, not marred by the softness or heavy edge enhancement that often follows shoddy digital spiffing-up. Denys Coop's BAFTA-nominated cinematography is stunningly reproduced, certainly a pleasant change for those who have only been exposed to pan-and-scan versions of the film. Some cropped clips of the film turn up in the "Hollywood UK" excerpt, and the difference in quality is night and day. This DVD release of Billy Liar looks absolutely incredible, easily the finest effort from Criterion I've seen.
Audio: The original mono soundtrack for Billy Liar is presented on this disc. The audio is in reasonably good shape, lacking the anemic, lifeless quality of far too many other mono tracks. The rather robust monaural audio isn't marred by hiss, though a minor flicker of distortion infrequently rears its head.
Supplements: The most notable supplement is a newly recorded commentary track with director John Schlesinger and stars Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, who had their comments taped individually and piecemealed together to form a single track. Schlesigner and Courtenay dominate the commentary, offering a seemingly endless number of technical notes, production anecdotes, and the occasional joke or two.
These three turn up again in a fifteen minute segment from an episode of "Hollywood UK: British Cinema In The Sixties", which takes a detailed look at both Billy Liar and Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving. A four minute anamorphic trailer rounds out the extras.
Conclusion: Billy Liar is an extremely entertaining film that holds up remarkably well, and a very respectable DVD presentation from Criterion makes this disc a solid addition to any film library. Widely available online in the $30 range, Billy Liar is highly recommended.
John Schleshinger's Billy Liar, which garnered extensive critical acclaim and numerous awards shortly after its release in 1963, is an incredible film with timeless themes, scarcely feeling dated at all. On paper, Billy would seem to be a pretty loathesome fellow, but Tom Courtenay infuses the character with such untempered passion that despite consistently fouling up his life and seemingly everyone else's, he's still a sort of hero. The acting is uniformly solid, and it's a refreshing change to to watch a film that breaks from the feature-length music video style of filmmaking so prevalent nowadays. Billy Liar somehow manages to remain engaging without resorting to thousands of quick cuts or painful "let's look back at the past 85 minutes!" montages as a character makes a critical decision towards the end. Billy Liar is an expertly crafted, fully accessible, and entirely relevant film, deserving of the Criterion treatment and very much worth a purchase.
Video: Billy Liar is perhaps the most impressive transfer of a black-and-white film I've had the pleasure of viewing to date on DVD. The 2.35:1 image comes rather close to approaching flawlessness, belying the film's nearly forty years of age. Some very light grain, scarcely warranting a mention, is present in a handful of scenes, and some very minor nicks and specks appear from time to time. Whatever method was used to clean up Billy Liar didn't come at the expense of clarity. The crisp image offers an incredible amount of detail, not marred by the softness or heavy edge enhancement that often follows shoddy digital spiffing-up. Denys Coop's BAFTA-nominated cinematography is stunningly reproduced, certainly a pleasant change for those who have only been exposed to pan-and-scan versions of the film. Some cropped clips of the film turn up in the "Hollywood UK" excerpt, and the difference in quality is night and day. This DVD release of Billy Liar looks absolutely incredible, easily the finest effort from Criterion I've seen.
Audio: The original mono soundtrack for Billy Liar is presented on this disc. The audio is in reasonably good shape, lacking the anemic, lifeless quality of far too many other mono tracks. The rather robust monaural audio isn't marred by hiss, though a minor flicker of distortion infrequently rears its head.
Supplements: The most notable supplement is a newly recorded commentary track with director John Schlesinger and stars Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, who had their comments taped individually and piecemealed together to form a single track. Schlesigner and Courtenay dominate the commentary, offering a seemingly endless number of technical notes, production anecdotes, and the occasional joke or two.
These three turn up again in a fifteen minute segment from an episode of "Hollywood UK: British Cinema In The Sixties", which takes a detailed look at both Billy Liar and Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving. A four minute anamorphic trailer rounds out the extras.
Conclusion: Billy Liar is an extremely entertaining film that holds up remarkably well, and a very respectable DVD presentation from Criterion makes this disc a solid addition to any film library. Widely available online in the $30 range, Billy Liar is highly recommended.
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