THX 1138 - DVD review

We've seen the initials "THX" often enough, at the beginning of movies to indicate they've been mastered to high standards of performance and on playback equipment that meets those standards. It's just one more branch of the multizillion-dollar Lucas empire that includes movie production, sound production, special effects, you name it. "THX 1138" is where it all started.

"THX 1138," released in 1971, is the first full-length motion picture George Lucas ever made, following several short films and a couple of brief documentaries. "THX 1138," cowritten, edited, and directed by Lucas, was based on a student film he made a year or so earlier with the more cumbersome title, "Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB," which in turn was based on a short sketch. It was Francis Ford Coppola, seeing promise in the lad, who encouraged Lucas to expand his idea; and with the modest backing of Warner Bros. and executive produced by Coppola and his American Zoetrope company, Lucas did just that. The result, while hardly a world-beating movie, is worth a look, if only for its atmosphere and, well, its look.

One notices early on that any number of previous books and movies must have influenced the young filmmaker. Stanley Kubrick's "2001" is seen in the stark interiors, the sparse dialogue, and the almost purely visual style of "THX." Then, George Orwell's "1984," Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" are seen in Lucas's bleak vision of the future.

Lucas is quick to point out in his accompanying audio commentary, however, that he wasn't really trying to expound upon the future at all in "THX" but was creating a parable about the way people behaved in 1970, when the film was made. Of course, that's exactly what Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury were doing, too, parabolically observing their own societies. All of these writers were commenting on their own day, which provides us in the present with some interesting history lessons as well as sociological documents. None of these writers were trying to predict the future; they were criticizing their own present, now, ironically, our past. In any case, it's a credit to the genius of all of them that their observations about the way people behaved back then were so prescient and are as meaningful as ever today.

The problem with Lucas's story, though, is that after the first thirty minutes or so he rather runs out of story. His tale is set in some undefined future world where the government controls everybody's lives; where the equivalent of Big Brother watches people's every move; where a monetary value is placed on everyone and everything; and where not taking drugs is a crime. Their "normal" is our abnormal and vice versa. As I said, it's Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury.

Everyone is lettered and numbered, and the main character's designation is THX (pronounced "Thex") 1138. He's played by Robert Duvall, shaved bald like everyone in the film and like everyone dressed entirely in white. It's a cold, calculating, sterile world Lucas portrays, which is implied to represent the conformity, regimentation, and consumerism of the present age. Most people are automatons, says Lucas, going through life uncaring and unseeing, shopping 'til we drop but never getting anything in return. Sounds a little like what Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were saying about their society a hundred and fifty years ago, too.

"Be efficient. Work hard. Increase production. Prevent accidents. Buy. And be happy." These are the government's watchwords, along with other such gibberish. But the people hear the lies so often, they believe them. They live them. And their religion is based on huge photographs of a Christlike face to whom they are encouraged to confess their sins and the sins of others.

Because he'd obviously been influenced by "2001" and he recognized the value of minimalism, Lucas uses virtually no dialogue in his film and extremely sparse sets, white walls and concrete tunnels and hallways, for a totally antiseptic feel. In the first half of the film, THX falls in love with his roommate, LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie), something that would not normally happen if they took their medications like everyone else; but they don't. They want to live and breathe and feel. Unfortunately, it's illegal. Love and sex and emotions are forbidden. By the second half of the film, THX meets several more like-minded individuals, SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasence), a corrupt official who wants to be THX's roommate, and SRT (Don Pedro Calley), a hologram who wants to be human. After LUH's disappearance, they attempt to escape together to the outer world.

The concern I have with much of this, besides its having been done before, is that it's all rather slow and tedious. The pace seems to be at a standstill some of the time, which for "2001" was fine because the music and visuals were so spectacular; but here the moody music of Lalo Schifrin and the bare-bones set designs of Michael Haller are so laid back that after our first few minutes of delight, they're practically sleep inducing. The final chase sequence is just as tiring and just as somber as everything that goes before it, meaning that despite the racing cars used and the high speeds involved, it's never very exciting, nor did Lucas probably mean it to be.

Symbolism runs rampant in the film, and one can make of the symbols almost anything one chooses. But the symbolism is pretty much spent by the first half hour.

More interesting is that most of the film's material reads like black comedy, dark satire, yet Lucas shows no trace of humor in the proceedings. It's all done in deadly earnest, which may, in fact, increase the fun. It's hard to tell if Lucas is joking when he has robotic policemen running aimlessly into solid walls or people filing mindlessly into elevators that go nowhere. I assume it is, as I say, black humor.

Maybe if Lucas had lightened up just a bit, the narrative would have unfolded more naturally and with more clarity and insight. As it is, "THX 1138" is a still a good attempt at something bolder than it really is and shows what can be done on a limited budget. Of course, having Francis Ford Coppola, sound editor Walter Murch, composer Lalo Schifrin, and the Warner Bros. studio behind you helps, too.

Video:
Both the video and the audio of the film have been digitally restored and remastered, not unexpectedly to THX specifications, with several new, digitally added shots to bring it up to speed. There is no indication on the packaging about what exactly is new to the Director's Cut, but the timing remains the same as ever, eighty-eight minutes. I assume a few of the backgrounds have been altered and improved; and the fact that the film's rating has been changed from its previous GP to R because of sexuality and nudity tells us something.

The widescreen dimensions measure an enhanced, anamorphic ratio of 2.40:1, and its high bit rate provides plenty of rich, solid colors when they are needed. Most of the time, however, the picture is content to display large areas of pure white, which sometimes reveal a small amount of grain, most of it undoubtedly inherent to the original print. The overall image quality is slightly soft, with only average object delineation, but it's quite good, nevertheless, and a vast improvement over what I had remembered.

Audio:
The audio is a bit more problematic. A Dolby Digital 5.1 remix certainly helps, but I can't say the sound was state-of-the-art back in 1970. The new sonics provide a good, believable front-channel stereo spread, some strong dynamics when they are needed, and the occasional noise thrown into the surround speakers. Composer Schifrin's atmospheric score and Murch's sound montages come off well, but there is also a degree of harshness to the affair, a metallic quality to voices, especially, which I suppose actually suits the climate of the picture when you think about it.

Extras:
There is really quite a lot in the way of extras on the discs. The first disc includes the widescreen presentation of the movie with its Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles; and twenty-four scene selections. Then there's an audio commentary by co-writer/director George Lucas and co-writer/sound designer Walter Murch, which should be heard by anyone interested in film or filmmaking. "Theatre Of Noise" is an isolated music and sound-effects only track. And, lastly, there is a feature called "Master Sessions with Walter Murch," which is comprised of brief, scene-specific video clips wherein Murch tells us about the sound design at particular points in the film. These clips, thirteen in number, can be viewed during the film by clicking on little icons that appear on screen, or they can be viewed individually from an index menu.

The second disc includes two excellent documentaries, plus various other goodies. The main documentary is newly made and lasts over an hour. It's called "A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope," and as the name implies it tells us about the filmmakers who gathered around Francis Ford Coppola during the early Zoetrope era. Next is another newly made documentary, "Artifact from the Future: The Making of THX 1138," more specific to the "THX" film and lasting over half an hour. After that is Lucas's original fifteen-minute student film, "Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB," which Lucas made at USC and which inspired the later movie. No, it's not as good a film as the later, more-polished product, but in some ways it works better at a quarter of an hour than the later one at nearly an hour and a half. After that, there is an eight-minute vintage promotional, "Bald Classic Production: The Making of THX 1138," where we see a young Coppola interviewing an even younger Lucas, with shots from the movie to illustrate their points. Finally, there are five original and rerelease theatrical trailers to bring things to a close.

The two discs are housed in a three-paneled cardboard-and-plastic foldout container, which also contains a short essay by George Lucas and a list of the two discs' contents. A cardboard slipcase with a remarkably striking lobby-card picture on the cover completes the package.

Parting Thoughts:
I like what Lucas tried to do in "THX 1138," even if the movie is overly long for its subject matter and rather hammers home its points too obviously. On an unassuming budget, Lucas created a cold, weird, frightening world that is all too reminiscent of the way many people still carry on today. I believe if the director had turned his criticisms of society into more pointed black humor, as Kubrick did in "Dr. Strangelove," Lucas's movie might have attained even greater success. But who can argue with a guy who's gone on to become a legend and whose first feature film is a bona fide cult classic? Not I. At least, not much.