Siskel & Ebert Review - Eyewitness, Tess, The Competition, The Dogs of War

In this episode, from 1981, Siskel and Ebert review: Eyewitness, Tess, The Competition and The Dogs of War.

[@citygirl5705]

I wish they had tapes of when we see them talking after the show.

[@lw3646]

Tess is brilliant. The book is one of my favourite novels ever.

[@steveprice2718]

Wow, I remember when this aired!!! I was about 16y/o at the time.

[@freemangriffin4953]

Tess was my pick for the Best Picture of 1980. It was actually a 1979 film that had a very staggered release (notice this episode is from 1981!). It's brilliant!

[@waverly2468]

I saw the movie after reading the book in college. The movie follows the plot fairly closely but doesn't quite get it right. You need to feel that poverty corrupts just like wealth but you don't get that from the movie. Another Thomas Hardy adaptation is "Jude" with Kate Winslet (1996) which covers part of "Jude the Obscure."

[@ackamack101]

As a movie, Tess is exquisite. I have always loved the music in it too. It's so tragic.

[@lw3646]

​@waverly2468 I listened to a really good radio play of it too recently. As well as poverty yes you have a kind of fate element to it too. If only they'd danced together when Angel first appears, if only the family horse wasn't killed, if only Tess hadn't gone into the woods with Alec, if only Tess didn't lose her father, all these events lead up to her final fate. For an author who is meant to have sympathised with the underdog the portrayal of her parents is really unflattering. Her mother is even worse than Steerforth's in David Coperfiled in her scheming and bad judgment. I thought the film was really spot on, especially with the way Angel is potrayed as so seemingly good yet flawed. The only thing I felt it glossed over was Alec's brief conversion to a sort of evangelical preacher. The story could easily become a misery fest with the wrong filmmaker but the 1980 version captured a lot of the imagination of the book. The Woodlanders is another fine book but I don't like all of Hardy, I really disliked Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge.

[@mykal.7424]

I was a kid when I saw Eyewitness and for some reason I've always liked it and watched it everytime it was on TV. I bought the laserdisc yrs and yrs ago and still watch it occasionally from time to time .

[@WilAdams]

I was a fan of both William Hurt (Body Heat saw to that) and Ms. Weaver (Alien had made me a fan) so when I saw they were going to be in a movie together I was there on opening night. After the film was over I couldn't help but think of this film as 'The Man Who Pretended to Know Too Much'. It was so BOOOOOORING. I can't even watch a rerun when it's on tv.

[@kmcleod31721]

Anyone care to guess why Tess was filmed in France instead of the UK?

[@waverly2468]

"The Competition" established a new standard for piano faking by the actors. On the commentary for "La La Land", Ryan Gosling was supposed to have done his own playing after intense practice for 2 hrs a day with a coach for 2 months.

[@Jackiedyk]

I love this

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Wow, I had no idea that James Woods was in Eyewitness. I need ti check this one out .

[@rabenmacht3396]

Really feel like they missed the point of "Dogs of War". The movie wasn't about the action.

[@youtuuba]

Both Siskel & Ebert made a classic film critic blunder of criticizing the movie making for something in the movie (which they don't like) that was was actually a significant part of the source book. The movie ended up very close to the way the book ended, at least so far the the general events and developments. In my view, the book was all about the inside story of real international mercenaries, what the men are like, what motivates them, how they organize and function. The movie did that part well. But the ending of the book frames the final armed conflict, which everything else before builds up to, in terms of how small details of the plan eventually are executed and how they pay off. The movie, out of necessity needing to trim details from the book that won't fit the running time, leaves out a lot of the planning of the small details, so when they are shown in the film they don't seem like much of a payoff. This was probably unavoidable, and I would criticize the movie on those terms; the book is just too dense with fascinating details and developments, so when condensed for the screen it just seems like a lot of cliched action, since the viewer does not realize the reason or import of each brief scene during the fight.

[@ricardocantoral7672]

I saw the film recently and it felt like a let down. Walken was good but the film was rather tepid.

[@Tolstoy111]

Tess of the DOOBER-ville!

[@reneedennis2011]

I like Tess, but I didn't like The Competition.

[@hamburgareable]

I agree with u, Renee. Dont get me wrong. I like classical music. For me, its an emotional genre. But its the ONLY reason im watching the picture. The story, come to think of it, is clichee-Oriented. The acting is subpar, boring as hell and it completely shows up in metronome ways. Flaw after flaw. Richard Dreyfuss is pretentious in that film. His character behaves like a jerk telling the girl hes in love that hes a liar. So therefore, I like Tess, Heavens Gate, Raging Bull, The Lone Ranger, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, American Gigolo and Dogs Of War far more. Those flicks are inventive and definitely outside the box.

[@danorthsidemang3834]

Shut up Renee