Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 28, 2021

Hey, maybe there is hope for anyone who has ever considered themselves to have either been brought up in or perhaps even actually helped to create themselves a dysfunctional family. For those scarred by everything from sibling rivalry to parental discord to — well, just about anything involving their relatives — Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America may in its own shocking, provocative and at times disturbingly graphic way give you a sense that whatever "issues" you've been dealing with are penny ante stuff. Now it needs to be stated up front that none of the three shorts aggregated (for limited festival screenings) into Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America is exactly what might be called an "enjoyable" watch, but that's part of the unsettling power of Douglas Buck's work. Anyone who has suffered from sexual abuse in particular will probably find the first film most especially "triggering" (as is said these days), but in fact all three of the shorts included here are uniquely emotionally savage, and need to be approached with a certain amount of caution, at least for those easily affected not just by on screen imagery, but subtext galore.

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America is comprised of Cutting Moments, Home and Prologue, the latter coming last in just one indication of how subliminally subversive Buck's approach can be. The first two shorts are at least tangentially linked, since they both feature Gary Betsworth as an obviously disturbed man. In Cutting Moments Betsworth's character is a husband and father who is molesting his own young son Joey (Jared Barsky), to the obvious shock of his wife (played by Nicca Ray). Her attempts to "divert" her husband's sexual attention to her lead to horrifying consequences for both her and her husband, and by default, their young son. As soon as Joey is seen placing his two male action figures in what might be termed positions of a "different" kind of action, the viewer is probably automatically going to recoil in horror, which was obviously the intention.

Home offers Betsworth again, and while it seems that he's not playing exactly the same character as he did in Cutting Moments, watching the two shorts one after the other as they're presented in Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America probably tends to link the two efforts inextricably. In that regard, then, it's at least arguable that some will see Home as an attempt to provide a "backstory" of sorts for the character Betsworth played in Cutting Moments. He's once again a husband and father roiled by memories of his own abusive upbringing, in what might be seen as an attempt to explain if not condone the behaviors seen not just in Home, but also Cutting Moments.

If both Cutting Moments and Home are at least momentarily graphic, Prologue, while not containing the same levels of on screen gore, may in fact be the most emotionally devastating of the three shorts included in Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America, which is frankly saying something. A young woman (Sally Conway) who has survived some kind of horrific attack that has left her both disfigured and paralyzed is dealing with repressed memories of the event that led to her condition, which is ultimately folded into the story of a distraught elderly woman with a missing child who discovers her husband has a rather shocking secret. There is some extremely powerful but actually kind of amazingly discreet material here, with Buck able to convey basically decades of dysfunction in brief, sometimes alarming, vignettes.

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The back cover of this release states this is "now scanned in 2K from the original negative for the first time ever". The results are still probably decidedly on the lo-fi side, with a gritty appearance and sometimes marginal detail levels, especially in some wide shots. Close-ups, however, resonate much more strongly, with at times quite commendable fine detail levels. The palette is a little wan looking over all, though some primaries, notably some reds which are prevalent due to both clothing and, well, blood and guts in the first two shorts, are at least occasionally surprisingly vivid. There are some minor issues like noticeable wobble in some of the credits, but I noticed no compression anomalies.

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America features a decent DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. None of the shorts has what I'd term an ambitious sound design, but some elements, like the moody score(s) by Edward Dzubak and David Kristian resonate quite strongly. Some outdoor material, notably in the third segment, offers at least intermittent ambient environmental effects. It looked to me like some these might have been at least occasionally post looped, but on the whole dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available.

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are quite a few supplements on this disc, but because of a somewhat labyrinthine menu structure, you might need to dig around a little to find all of them.

• Commentaries for Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America (as released theatrically in Paris and New York City in 2004) can be found under the Feature Film Menu (see screenshot 20 for the Main Menu of this disc):

  Director Douglas Buck (recorded May 2019)

  
  

  Maitland McDonagh (recorded February 2020)

• The Shorts (also accessible via the Main Menu, as seen in screenshot 20, offers each of the three films separately, with commentaries. These are just slightly different from the versions in the feature film in terms of how credits are presented. Choosing each film from this menu offers access to the commentary for that film. The main soundtracks for the shorts are all in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.

  Cutting Moments (1080p; 26:22)

  Audio Commentary with Actors Nicca Ray and Gary Betsworth (Recorded May 2019)

  Home (1080p; 28:50)

  Audio Commentary with Actor Gary Betsworth (Recorded May 2019)

  Prologue (1080p; 51:38)

  Audio Commentary with Actors Sally Conway, William Stone Mahoney, David Thronton, Larry Fessenden, Beth Glover and Painter Jesse McCloskey (Recorded May 2019)

• After All (480p; 17:29) is an early short from 1994 by Buck which comes with several pages of text introduction, including comments from Buck, that require stepping through to finally get to a Play option.


• Cutting Moments Interviews (480p; 47:57) also includes an interview with Douglas Buck.


• That's Dark Podcast on Cutting Moments leads to yet another submenu with these options:

  Cutting Moments I (Aired September 30, 2018) (480p; 1:10:37)

  
  

  Cutting Moments II (Aired September 30, 2018) (480p; 1:03:26)

  
  

  Douglas Buck Interview (Aired June 11, 2019) (480p; 2:03:52)

• Prologue Deleted Scene (480p; 1:25) plays with a timecode.


• Behind the Scenes of Prologue (480p; 16:06)


• Stills Gallery offers another exciting submenu with these choices:

  Cutting Moments (1080p; 3:34)

  
  

  Home (1080p; 3:05)

  
  

  Prologue (1080p; 3:05)

• Family Portraits Trailer (1080p; 1:43)

Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's hard to come right out and actually recommend Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America, since it's such an unabashedly unsettling viewing experience. But Buck really has a unique talent that is strongly on display in all three shorts collected here, and for those with a stomach for both the on screen gore as well as the copious subtext, this may well be an unforgettable viewing experience, for better or worse. Technical merits are generally solid and the supplementary package outstanding, for those who are considering a purchase.