DVD Releases

The past really is another country

One of the great challenges filmmakers face is how to depict the past convincingly. Not the recent past - props and costumes can handle that - but the past before there was film. At some unconscious level, the viewer knows there weren't cameras then, as there were, say, during the '50s or even World War I. (Westerns don't count; Hollywood largely invented the Wild West.) When a film does somehow seem to capture the spirit of the past viewers get a very powerful, if inchoate, sense of this happening. No filmmaker has addressed as extensively - or successfully - the cinematic challenge of plausibly recovering the past as Roberto Rossellini did. Rossellini remains best known for such pathbreaking neorealist works of the 1940s as "Open City" and "Paisan." Yet in the 1960s and '70s he did a number of films that amounted to historical re-creations. "History," Rossellini argued, "through teaching visually, can evolve on its own ground rather than evaporate into dates and names." "The Taking of Power by Louis XIV" (1966) may or may not succeed as pedagogy, but it's arresting, utterly distinctive filmmaking. So, too, are "The Age of the Medici" (1973), "Blaise Pascal" (1972), and "Cartesius" (1974), about the philosopher Rene Descartes, which make up "Rossellini's History Films: Renaissance and Enlightenment." They are textbooks of seeing as well as history.

Extras: "Louis," multimedia essay, production interviews (Criterion, $29.95); "History Films," none (Eclipse, $59.95)

DOCUMENTARY

MAKE 'EM LAUGH: THE FUNNY BUSINESS OF AMERICA (2009)

This six-hour PBS documentary series starts airing Wednesday. It's as if the membership of the Friars Club had hijacked "American Masters" _ not necessarily a bad thing. Smart and comprehensive, if almost wholly uncritical, "Make 'Em Laugh" combines contemporary talking-head interviews with archival footage. Subjects past and present run the gamut from A (Bud Abbott, Woody Allen, Judd Apatow) to Z ("SNL" writer Alan Zweibel). As Teddy Roosevelt might have said had he ever done Vegas, "Speak loudly and carry a big shtick."

Extras: additional interviews (Rhino, $34.95)

ROMANTIC COMEDY

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL DELUXE EDITION (1994)

Every once in a while an actor will have a role that's a complete sweet spot in time. Think of Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall" or Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman." As the latter title suggests, the quality of the movie is effectively irrelevant. What matters is the alchemy of performer and role. "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is arch and mannered and rather ersatz. But Hugh Grant sweeps all before him. Things have never been the same for him since. Here the charm has yet to curdle, the boyishness yet to cloy, and a great career that wasn't beckons.

Extras: director's commentary, making-of featurettes, deleted scenes (MGM, $14.98)

SPORTS

NFL GREATEST GAMES: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS GREATEST GAMES (2009)

The single biggest difference between professional baseball and professional football isn't pacing or popularity or even the amount of physical contact. It's how each sport relates to its past. Baseball has always gloried in tradition and fetishized its history. Football barely recognizes it. A case in point is this 10-disc set. In light of the Pats' stellar record in this century (not to mention the franchise's oft-ignominious past), it makes perfect sense that the lion's share of the set would be devoted to recent triumphs. But nothing before 2001? The Pats did make it to two Super Bowls, you know, before Tom Brady came along.

Extras: none (Warner Home Video, $49.98)

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (2008)

This large-screen adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel is perfectly fine, even if it has some funny ideas about Catholicism and radically telescopes the relationship between Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) and Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell). But it does nothing to lessen the memory of the epic 1981 miniseries. Ben Whishaw is Sebastian. Extras: deleted scenes, making-of featurette, director's commentary (Miramax, $29.99)

FUNNY FACE PARAMOUNT CENTENNIAL EDITION (1957) and BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S PARAMOUNT CENTENNIAL EDITION (1961)

Audrey Hepburn in all her gamine glory, plus Fred Astaire and "Moon River," respectively. Extras: featurettes, original trailers, photo galleries (Paramount, $24.99, each)

PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE (2008) Think of the poet-singer as Hepburn in a ferocious parallel universe. (They also both look great in black.) Director Steven Sebring's documentary was 11 years in the making. Extras: deleted scenes, interview with Smith's son (Vivendi, $24.98)

IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST (2007) Director Daniel Anker takes an eye-opening look at how the movie industry has viewed the Holocaust over the decades. Extras: none (Koch Lorber, $24.98)

MANNIX: THE SECOND SEASON (1968-69) This was a big year for the CBS detective series, which ran from 1967-75. Joe Mannix went solo, leaving behind his previous employer, private security agency Intertect (such names back then!), and hiring soon-to-be-indispensable gal Friday Gail Fisher. Extras: none (Paramount, $49.99, already available) Titles are in stores Tuesday unless otherwise specified.