Lilith
by Robert Rossen
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DVD details
Actor: Anne Meacham, Jean Seberg, Kim Hunter, Peter Fonda, Warren BeattyDirector: Robert Rossen
Brand: BEATTY,WARREN
Cinematographer: Eugen Sch?fftan
Producer: Robert Rossen
Writer: Robert Rossen
Editor: Aram Avakian
Writer: J.R. Salamanca
Writer: Robert Alan Aurthur
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Japanese (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-24
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures
DVD Reviews of Lilith
DVD Review: John Keats and his fairy woman, come to life
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a remarkable synergy that occurs if one reads the book and also watches this movie. No matter how enchanting the author found the original Lilith (and of course there was one), it is hard to believe any living female could capture the essence of Lilith Arthur better than Jean Seberg. Miss Seberg was made for this role. I can not imagine a single Hollywood actress in the 45 years since this movie was made, who could come anywhere close to capturing the allure, the mystery, the marvelous femaleness of Lilith than Jean Seberg at the height of her powers. Warren Beatty is a stiff (but how do you portray sensitivity?), and Peter Fonda, Kim Hunter, Gene Hackman and Jessica Walter are all good. But Jean Seberg makes this movie. Her sheer presence is luminescent throughout the movie. How could any young man, presented with this un-ignorable force who is Jean Seberg, possibly not succumb to her magnificent, yet dangerous, allure?
The book fills in the details in a most amazing way. I had no idea that literature (and J. R. Salamanca is a literate author of the highest order) could portray human feeling in such a powerful way. In fact, when I first read this book at age 18, it was a revelation to me that anyone could experience life in such a sensitive and romantic way. I still am blown away by this book, 33 years after I read it (seeing the movie the night before, I had to find the book one January day in 1976). I remember in detail driving from La Jolla into San Diego and finding a copy of the hardback in a big, beautiful bookstore in downtown San Diego. For the next 2 days, life was suspended for me as I carefully reveled in this book with the image of Jean Seberg still in my mind as I read it.
The movie ends in a very fine, albeit incomplete, way. The book is more satisfying, yet even it left me wondering about the story. What was left out? Can this really be fiction? How could anyone imagine such events? Having since read interviews with Mr. Salamanca, I believe there is even more truth in this story than I ever could have believed. If you want to be seduced by the allure of romance in an absolutely realistic way, read the book and see this movie. Especially men. Despite the known weakness for gothic romances that some women are prey too, only men can be entranced by the opposite sex in this particular way. This movie, and the book the movie was based on, define male romantic longing in the most poignant and powerful way imaginable. And we must all get up and live our lives tomorrow. But we can never quite be the same again.
DVD Review: Therapy Gone Wild
Summary: 3 Stars
When this film originally opened in the Fall of 1964 most of the prominent film critics of that time: Bosley Crowther, Arthur Knight, Stanley Kauffman gave unfavorable reviews. Although they cited excellent production values they found the storyline to be muddled and lacking cohesion. Since Robert Rossen directed, produced and wrote the screenplay for this film, it would seem that he would have had great control over the pacing, mood and clarity for presenting this story. But instead, the film seems oddly disjointed as if the scenes were spliced together without a sense of the overall plot direction. And that was my problem with the film, it seemed aimless and when you are trying to show the fine lines between sanity and mental madness you would need more than rainstorms, spider webs and brooding people to prove your point. In that sense, the film was heavy on "atmospherics", but very weak on rationale explanation.
Depite these problems, there are moments when the film is visually stunning and it certainly is a strange and moody piece of work that held my interest. In conclusion, I don't think this is a great film, but if you are looking for a unique and offbeat movie, then Lilith might be for you.
DVD Review: "Eighteenth Nervous Breakdown and Only One to Go"
Summary: 5 Stars
I am going to break away from the pack and call this one a five star movie. It is a slow movie, unless you are constantly analyzing the actors, and why they did this or that, or played it this way or that way, which is the way I viewed it. I found the performances riveting and could not take my eyes or mind off the Peter Fonda character--such great acting as a pale, insecure, asylum inmate. Warren Beatty does not have a huge body of work--has restricted himself--so you take a greater interest in the parts he plays and why he plays them. He is always good. This movie about asylum innmates and the medical staff is fascinating. Made in the sixties, it is a great groundbreaker for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Awakenings." The added ingredient would be romantic obsession. If you have never seen "Lilith" you may find it interesting in a retro-Sixties way.DVD Review: A Mid-60s Melodrama
Summary: 4 Stars
"Lilith" is worth a viewing on two levels. First, it was an early platform for a number of talented actors who later became stars. The protagonist is a young Warren Beatty, playing a World War II veteran returning to his home town to work as an occupational therapist at a private mental hospital. There he becomes entranced by a psychotic patient, Lilith, played by the lovely Jean Seberg. Another patient, also fascinated by Lilith, is the young Peter Fonda, while Gene Hackman, in an early role, plays a local hick who married Beatty's girlfriend while he was away at war. All these actors do a creditable job.
The other fascinating aspect of the film is its portrayal of mental illness. Anyone who has spent time with the mentally ill will groan at director Robert Rossen's hackneyed portrayal of the patients at the hospital, who portray every cliche in the book. Rossen manages to introduce some kinkiness by showing Lilith as a bit of a nymphomanic, with little discretion in the objects of her affection. But the film also projects what were some common views of mental illness in the 1950s and 60s, well before pharmaceuticals became the standard treatment.
The film is based on a novel by J.R. Salamanca, who had worked at Chestnut Lodge, a private mental hospital in Rockville, Maryland. Chestnut Lodge appears to have been a font of literary inspiration, because it was also the setting for the novel "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." In both Salamanca's book and Rossen's film, the name of the institution is changed to Poplar Lodge, but nevertheless portions of the film were shot in Rockville. The real Chestnut Lodge closed in the 1990s, a victim of changing trends in treatment and insurance reimbursement. There is no record that it ever had a patient named Lilith.
DVD Review: This DVD could have been great if it had an audio commentary
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie is 5 star; the DVD is only 3 star.
I first saw this movie 14 years ago and to this day it has left its mark. The music is so eerie and the way it was filmed so strongly enhanced the emotional and psychological feel of the film.
This DVD could have been just amazing, but it is completely bare, not a single extra to be had. If only it had an audio commentary or a good retrospective documentary on the making of the film.
Seems like a missed opportunity to me since this DVD was just put out in 2004. Such a shame.
Description of Lilith
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 4-APR-2006
Media Type: DVD
Few actresses are adored by the camera as much as Jean Seberg is in the brooding, 1964 psychodrama Lilith. The legendary American and European star (Godard's Breathless), playing Lilith Arthur, fixes one's attention on her every nuance in Robert Rossen's tale of a beautiful, sexual omnivore and psychotic patient at a New England mental hospital. Withdrawn into her small world of dolls and fantasies, Lilith responds to the attention of a laconic, Korean War veteran, Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty), who is trying to find himself by working as an occupational therapist. Burdened by a murky, guilt-ridden past (involving his mentally ill mother), Vincent gradually falls into an unnervingly passionate affair with Lilith--much less a romance than a shared journey toward mutual implosion. Rossen's severe, sincere, stark black-and-white drama is sometimes lost in a muddle of undefined character motivations, but it's quite a ride toward the film's last-minute epiphany. Watch for Gene Hackman in a small role. --Tom Keogh
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