Commentary Tracks

A few words about special features

I used to be a voracious consumer of DVD special features. My love for movies goes back to when I was a small child, with vivid memories of E.T. on VHS, plenty of Disney movies and more. But it was around the turn of the millennium, when we first got a DVD player, that my love became fully cemented. I remember the behind-the-scenes features on the Shrek DVD, giving a glimpse into what was then state-of-the-art animation technology. I remember watching the features multiple times over, fascinated by how the movie was made. It was there, in the exposure to the actual craft of moviemaking, that my cinephilia grew into a lifelong pursuit.

When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring first hit DVD in its theatrical form, the studio had already announced that it would be followed by an extended edition loaded with special features. I don’t exactly recall the circumstances, but at one point my dad must have seen the Fellowship theatrical DVD, and knowing I loved the movie, offered to buy it for me. I told him, “No, please don’t, I’m waiting for the extended edition.” Thinking I was just trying to be nice and save him some money, my dad bought it for me anyway. He really was surprised, after bringing the DVD home, to discover that I really had been serious, that there was an extended edition on the way and I was waiting for that. The extended edition of Fellowship was released just a couple days before my birthday in 2002, so the timing was perfect. Those four discs, housed in a cardboard case resembling an old book, are still among my most prized possessions, even as I’ve seen upgraded to Blu-ray.

I devoured everything in that DVD set. The movie, of course. But also the extensive “Appendices,” with their hours and hours of footage detailed every aspect of the staggering, groundbreaking production. Those features blew my brain wide open, showing me the incredible possibilities of movies at every level, from the most simple, practical work, to boundary-pushing digital effects. And then there were the four separate commentary tracks. One featured Peter Jackson and his co-writers, the next had the production design team, costume designer and more, another had the producers and effects people, and the last brought the stars of the film together. I listened to each one over the course of a few weeks. I could not get enough.

There are many commentary tracks I love. Famous ones by Michael Bay and David Fincher. Kevin Smith DVDs always had incredibly fun and informative commentaries. The commentary tracks on my Simpsons DVDs had been listened to multiple times over. But of late, despite my Blu-ray collection growing to ridiculous size, I’ve had less of an appetite for special features, and haven’t been seeking out commentary tracks so much. It probably doesn’t help that on most boutique labels, the tracks often done by experts about the movie rather than people involved in the production. I love listening to historians and critics talk about movies, and in some ways they can actually be more informative and detailed. But when I listen to a commentary track, what I really want to hear is the people who made the movie reflecting on the process, because in a way, process is everything. Unfortunately, as physical media market has declined, studios mostly given up on producing good special features, and commentary tracks are ever more rare. They do still get made, though.

Last week, I discovered a trend over at Warner Bros., of producing commentary tracks exclusive to iTunes and other digital platforms. I have no idea why they wouldn’t want those on the Blu-ray, but I suppose there’s some kind of money exchange involved. Either way, I was delighted to learn that Greta Gerwig recorded a commentary track for Barbie, a movie I liked, but had problems with. Listening to Greta Gerwig talk about the movie as it played was something of a revelation. I still have problems with the movie and its confused ideas about feminism in such a corporatized context, but the commentary helped me appreciate so much more the things about the movie that work, and often work stupendously.

One thing that’s clear hearing Gerwig talk about it is how much every single detail of the movie was thought through, from the writing, to the performances, costuming, production design, visual effects. All of it so meticulous, which I of course already assumed, but to hear every detail described as it appeared on screen was just wonderful. Among the many insights gleaned, my favourite was just how much the actors themselves contributed, not only in their performances, but in costume choices and use of props. It was apparently Kingsley Ben-Adir’s idea to have his Ken always carrying a few too many random props in his hands, a detail I remember finding hilarious even the first time I saw the movie. It’s easy, I think, to imagine that everything spills out from the director’s mind onto the screen, but filmmaking is truly a collaborative medium.

I followed the Barbie commentary up by listening to Rian Johnson’s tracks on Knives Out and Glass Onion. Again, so many incredible details, but my favourite among them was the explanation for the genesis of Ed Norton’s Tom-Cruise-in-Magnolia costume in the flashbacks in Glass Onion. Johnson’s a movie buff, and I had always assumed he picked that costume simply as a hilarious reference. In fact, I figured it must have been in the script, the gag being so perfect. But no! According to Johnson, it was Norton who surprised the director by arriving on set with that look. He’d decided on it with the costume designer, inspired by Johnson’s edict that his very moronic billionaire character Miles Bron had simply never had a single original idea in his life. In other scenes, Miles dresses to look like Steve Jobs. Details like that make me excited about movie.

I’ve got a few other commentary tracks on tap. Next will be Matt Reeves talking about The Batman, a movie I think is actually quite poor overall, but whose craft I find fascinating. Here and there I’ve had mild aspirations toward moviemaking, but in truth I don’t think I have the right creative impulses and talents for that. Still, I find myself endlessly fascinated by the craft of movies, by how ideas are turned into reality. Maybe more than any other medium of art, film asks the audience to submit to unreality, knowing full well everything you’re seeing is, on some level, constructed. Understanding that construction is, in some crucial way, to understand the art itself, even more than the mere impact of the images and sounds on screen. After years of mostly ignoring the special features on my Blu-rays, I find myself suddenly inspired to pore through them, to grow my love of cinema once again by taking a peek under the hood.