This week on the pod we’re talking about the Werner Herzog picture Grizzly Man. It’s an amazing collage of interviews, archive material and found footage, but interestingly there is a bonus feature on the DVD about the making of the film’s soundtrack which probably sheds as much light on one of the primary themes of the film as anything that appears in the main event. Herzog subtly manipulates and directs the musicians in much the same way that he does the actors, his process clearly visible on camera.
It made me realise how much I miss the bonus features that used to be the norm at the height of the DVD revolution. This was one of the selling points of these silver discs when they were first introduced. At the time it wasn’t clear if the improved picture quality of DVD over VHS cassette was going to be enough to convince consumers to switch to the new format, so the notion of bonus features like alternative soundtracks and director’s commentaries, ‘making of’ documentaries and deleted scenes were all crammed onto the disc and advertised with stickers and banners.
Some of these add-ons amounted almost to a film-school-in-a-box. The DVD for Christopher Nolan’s debut ‘Following’ had a feature that let you follow along with the shooting script, gave you the option to rewatch the scenes of the film in chronological instead of narrative order, and had a director’s commentary that was 50 percent of a complete course on low budget film making. Robert Rodriguez’s commentary for ‘El Mariachi’ filled in the other 50 percent.
Where are the directors’ commentaries now? I have no evidence, but I suspect they’ve died because of a mix of budget constraints and filmmakers’ reluctance to draw back the curtain. Any extras that still exist have become promotional shorts on YouTube or music videos. Online streaming would be the obvious home for these bonuses, but perhaps there simply isn’t the demand.
Instead maybe DVD will become the new vinyl in a few years, when nostalgia for the golden age of directors’ commentaries becomes a cool hipster thing. Just in case, I won’t clear out all those old DVDs in the attic just yet. Might be sitting on (under) a goldmine…