Zachary Winestine's - States of Control - DVD Zachary Winestine States of Control DVD Zachary Winestine States of Control DVD

Directed by Zachary Winestine
USA 1997

The alienated protagonist of Zack Winestine's independent feature ''States of Control'' is a woman who lives surrounded by metaphors, and looks suspiciously like a metaphor herself.

Lisa (Jennifer van Dyck) is a frustrated writer working as an administrator in a Lower Manhattan experimental theater. (Yes, life does often feel like a performance: an empty, meaningless representation of an ever deferred reality). She is married to an impotent artist. (Masculinity is indeed in crisis in these gender-twisting times. And what potency does art really possess in the post-post-modernist era?)

The film, which was made in 1997 and has since been waiting for its time to come, is technically very assured. Mr. Winestine is a former cinematographer whose filmography includes work as a camera assistant on Stanley Kubrick's ''The Shining,'' and his eye for composition is steady and solid. There is none of the herky-jerkiness of the currently official indie film style. The symphonic score by Richard Termini is impressive and adds all kinds of cosmic significance to Mr. Winestine's frequent, unmotivated cuts to clouds scudding across a blue sky.

After forcing herself to stay awake for 51 hours, Lisa sets out on a purely nihilistic -- or, at least, very vaguely motivated -- political mission, which leads to her ultimate separation from society. ''States of Control'' may be about Lisa's attempts to throw off the shackles of bourgeois ideology, but it offers no real sense of freedom and spontaneity of its own. In the end, Lisa's revolt seems as predictably programmatic, and as widely abstracted from observable human behavior, as the movie that contains her.

Excerpt from Dave Kehr's review at the NY Times located HERE.

Poster

Theatrical Release: April 6th, 1997

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Pathfinder - Region 0 - NTSC

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Pathfinder Home Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC
Runtime	1:23:42
Video	1.75:1 Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.55 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Subtitles	None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Pathfinder Home Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Aspect Ratio 1.75:1 Edition Details: • Trailer • Short: On Some Consequences of the Passage of Guy Debord • Photo Gallery • Biography • Filmmaker Interview • Music Tracks DVD Release Date: April 11th, 2006 Keep Case Chapters: 12

Comments:

The DVD transfer has some issues - it is widescreen, at a strange ratio of 1.75 (so most probably cropped from 1.85), it is not 16X9 enhanced, it is not progressive (from an HD source) and hence has 'combing' in all horizontal pans, it has slim black border around the perimeter of the frame limiting horizontal resolution and there are no optional subtitles. So basically, it is only viewable on CRT (cathode ray tubes) ie. tube televisions. But I can fully appreciate and understand the production limitations due to its frugal indie roots. Actually, it doesn't look fatally poor - the colors seem a bit manipulated with overly red skin tones but detail is at an acceptable level. Some decent work has gone into the supplements with a 6 minute short, a text scroll-thru interview with the director , 9 audio tracks from the splendid score, a photo gallery, trailer and biographies. It is also nice to see the price at such a reasonable value. Certainly I think this may be worth a spin, solely on the basis of the film, which is highly interpretational and hence contains some interesting elements for post-discussion.

Gary W. Tooze

DVD Menus