American Cinematographer - March 2007 - 12

Bugsy (1991)

Daviau's

Extended Cut
1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Sony Home Entertainment,

approaches Bugsy's house and Daviau
lights her so that we can see the outline
of her legs through her glamorous dress,
it's easy to see why the womanizing

$24.96

mobster would melt for her.

There have been many movies
about the American dream and even
about gangsters, but Bugsy is one
of the best films ever made on either
more

subject. Using James Toback's richly
layered screenplay as their foundation,
director Barry Levinson and cinematog¬
rapher Allen Daviau, ASC crafted a film
that is poignant, brutal, and devilishly
funny. It also features some of Warren
Beatty's best work as an actor - in
sociopathic dreamer Bugsy Siegel, he
finds the perfect character to poke fun
at his own obsessions.

Bugsy follows legendary gang¬
ster Ben "Bugsy" Siegel from the point
at which he arrived in Hollywood to his
brutal murder, and focuses primarily on
two aspects of his life: his role in build¬
ing Las Vegas, and his infatuation with
starlet Virginia Hill (Annette Bening).
It's impossible to miss the parallels with
Beatty's own life. Like Beatty, Siegel
was a noted ladies' man and perfec¬
tionist; when Siegel keeps overspend¬
ing and overreaching in order to realize
his ambitious dream of transforming
Las Vegas into a tourist Mecca, one can
imagine the producer/director of Beds
taking the same risks for his own
passion project.
Beatty's personal connection
with Siegel, which he tactfully evades
in the making-of documentary on this
DVD, gives his performance a complex¬
ity that's matched by the tonal range of
Daviau's lighting. Daviau was nomi¬
nated for

an

Oscar for his work

on

Bugsy and deservedly won an ASC
Award for it. His photography in Bugsy
is awe-inspiring in its complexity, as he
gives the material a glamorous classi¬
cal sheen without sentimentalizing it.
The movie is simultaneously romantic
and harsh, just like the complicated
antihero at its center. The relationship
between Siegel and Hill is extremely
sexy, and this is due in large part to
12 March 2007

inventiveness.

When

Hill

is

simply titled "Cinematography," and
explains how he lit two of
the film's most famous and impressive
scenes. His insights, as well as those of
his collaborators, go far beyond the
standard format of many making-of
featurettes to provide a genuinely infor¬
mative seminar on filmmaking, and
in it Daviau

Bugsy is filled with other eroti¬
cally charged moments, the best being a
virtuoso set piece in which the camera
follows Siegel and Hill as they flirt and
spar behind a movie screen that shows

supply additional context. The docu¬
mentary is supplemented by two brief,

much of their interaction in silhouette.

deleted

Daviau also creates

extended cut, as well as an

an

effective tension

between the

ugly behavior of Bugsy's
opulent surround¬
ings - the film doesn't shy away from
Siegel's thuggish actions, yet the whole
story has a champagne-drenched glam¬
our that challenges the audience to
characters and their

consider its attitudes toward violence
and power.
Daviau's

critic Richard Schickel is

scenes

on

hand to

not featured

in the

amusing
longer version of the screen test Siegel
shoots when he arrives in Hollywood.
All of this adds up to a must-own
DVD for fans of gangster movies, old

Hollywood, and Daviau's artistry. As
Schickel notes, Bugsy plays even better
now than it did when it was released.
Given the accolades the film received

stunning images are
impeccably presented in this DVD's
anamorphic transfer, and the 5.1 sound
mix is spectacular. Ennio Morricone's
lush score is perfectly balanced with
crisp, clear dialogue and powerful, deep
effects
the film is as sonically varied
as it is visually dense. This new
"extended cut" emphasizes what was
always one of Bugsy's greatest
strengths: its balance of epic sweep and
penetrating personal interactions. The

back in 1991, this is a

high compliment.
Jim Hemphill

-

Superman II: The Richard

additional 15 minutes that have been

Donner Cut (1980/2006)

added into the film make

Bugsy a richer,
darker American classic, which is really

2.35:1

saying something.

Warner Home Video, $24.98

Daviau and several
crew

members

are

key cast and

interviewed

on

"The

Road to Damascus: The Reinvention of

Bugsy Siegel," an excellent 90-minute
documentary on the making of the film.
The core of the documentary is an
extended conversation between Beatty,
Levinson and Toback in which they
discuss visual design, performance, and
content. Director Charles Kiselyak inter¬
sperses comments by other collabora¬
tors with this

conversation,

so

when the

filmmakers discuss costumes, we hear
from costume designer Albert Wolsky,
and when

they discuss the characteriza¬
are interviews with Bening,
Ben Kingsley and Elliott Gould.

tions, there

One section of the

(16x9 Enhanced)
Dolby Digital 5.1

documentary

In early 1977, Richard Donner
accepted the offer to direct an ambi¬
tious, big-screen adventure featuring
DC Comics' legendary hero Superman.
Donner brought in creative consultant
Tom Mankiewicz to help him prepare
Mario Puzo's sprawling screenplay as
two separate films that would be
released in 1978 and 1980. The two

collaborators, along with producers
Pierre Spengler, Alexander Salkind and

Ilya Salkind, hammered out a long
shooting schedule to complete principal
photography on both films simultane¬
ously. In addition to making some now¬
legendary casting choices, such as
Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, and an
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