Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Rhinoceros Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 2, 2019

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

That original German version of Franz Kafka’s disturbing tale The Metamorphosis has led to a certain amount of controversy with regard to various English language translations. Virtually every English language version of Kafka's unsettling story begin more or less the same, namely:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into —

but it's what comes after that "into" that has caused occasional issues, since Ungeziefer has been rather widely interpreted in different English language versions to mean a number of different things, including "insect", "cockroach" and "vermin". There’s a rather interesting summary that those interested can read here to see how various translators have decided to deal with the problematic word. Perhaps Franz Kafka could have saved translators all that angst by having Gregor Samsa turn into a Nashorn, since that would seem to definitively mean "rhinoceros", though then he might have been impinging on territory that would ultimately be staked out by Eugene Ionesco, albeit admittedly decades after Kafka’s own tale of a troubling transformation appeared. Now of course all of this is obviously said in jest, not the least reason being that Ionesco was on record himself as stating how profoundly influenced by Kafka's writing he was, and there's an obvious linkage between ideas found in both The Metamorphosis and Rhinoceros, even if the media by which those concepts are being relayed are obviously manifestly different.

And that very change in media is one of the major problems afflicting this adaptation Rhinoceros, though perhaps surprisingly, it’s not the major one. Reading about a man transforming into — well, whatever he transforms into — obviously necessarily engages the imagination, and so the reader is left to conjure up whatever “reality” will sustain the reading process. Watching a play or movie dealing with a transformation of this general type is (not to pun too horribly) a different beast altogether, though in that regard, it’s important to note that Ionesco doesn’t really traffic in big “special effects” in the original play, often alluding to rather than overtly depicting a whole society morphing into rhinoceroses, one by one. But that very allusive quality is a hard sell for an “up close and personal” medium like film, and in fact in an interview included on this disc as a supplement director Tom O’Horgan kind of hilariously details the fact that well into the shoot he realized he “needed” a real rhinoceros, which did indeed lead to one of the giant, primordial animals being delivered to the set, where it evidently terrorized the cast and crew. Perhaps wisely, footage of the live rhinoceros did not make it into the final cut of the film.

So, a film about people changing into rhinoceroses has not one rhinoceros in sight (other than a kind of cheeky and rather effective moment during the opening credits, as documented in screenshot 18), and yet, the real issue here is how weirdly O’Horgan and screenwriter Julian Barry have decided to tweak the original. The setting has been changed to America, a perhaps understandable variance, and the character names Americanized as well, with Jean becoming John (Zero Mostel, recreating the role that won him a Tony for the original Broadway staging) and Bérenger becoming Stanley (Gene Wilder). The play’s political subtext, which is unmistakable, has also been “updated” to include then au courant references to Richard Nixon and the like, not necessarily to any discernable benefit. But O’Horgan, mostly a stage director known for his hyperbolism in such outings as the original Broadway versions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, may have seemed like an appropriate choice to helm this obviously over the top piece, but in fact O’Horgan’s tendencies toward excess actually work against the film, making it seem even more chaotic and disconnected than Ionesco’s original version typically is.

Ionesco's ultra arch dialogue probably doesn’t “translate” especially well in any case, but some of the supposed slapstick elements either Barry or O’Horgan chose to add to this edition are often unfunny and poorly staged. Mostel seems to be rechanneling Max Bialystock of The Producers, albeit with a tinge of some more animalistic aspects. And Gene Wilder’s neurotic Everyman is frankly not all that different from Leo Bloom when you get right down to it. The supporting cast includes a weird (or perhaps weirder than usual) turn by Karen Black as Stanley’s office mate and presumed love interest Daisy. It’s all very frenetic and frequently forced feeling, in this case “transforming” a modern classic in Theater of the Absurd into something pretty proletarian.

Rhinoceros Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rhinoceros is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Classics, an imprint of Kino Lorber, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. When this transfer is firing on all cylinders, it approaches what in my estimation is "4.0 territory", but this is another American Film Theatre offering that shows fairly wide variances in many aspects, including palette warmth, overall densities, clarity and grain structure. When things look good here, they look very good indeed (see screenshot 2), but there are quite a few moments here that are afflicted with pretty wan colors and at times an unmistakably "dupey" appearance (see screenshot 16, which does come from a longer sequence which admittedly involves an optical at the end, but there are several interstitial edits between this moment and the optical). Several moments that involve some kind of optical (like the opening credits) have pretty significant fading down the right side of the frame for some reason. In the best moments, detail levels are commendable and the palette nicely vivid. A parsing of some of the screenshots included with this review will hopefully show some of the fairly wide variances on display.

Rhinoceros Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rhinoceros features a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 mono track. Though I have to say I'm not particularly convinced his contributions help the film, Galt MacDermot of Hair fame (and, to some of us, Via Galactica and Dude fame) contributed the rock and funk score, and it sounds full bodied throughout the presentation. Dialogue is also rendered cleanly and clearly without any problems whatsoever.

Rhinoceros Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This release repeats some of the supplements found on other Kino Blu-ray versions of the American Film Theatre series.

• Interview with director Tom O'Horgan (480i; 23:45) is a really engaging piece from 2002. I'd always imagined O'Horgan to be basically a wild eyed lunatic based on his stage creations, but he's rather soft spoken and consistently interesting here. He gets into some of the challenges of the shoot, including the legendary temperament of Zero Mostel.


• Interview with Edie Landau (1080i; 26:16) is an extremely engaging sit down with Ely Landau's widow, with both general background information on their producing careers as well as some fun anecdotes about American Film Theatre's relatively brief existence.


• Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera (1080i; 6:30) is a perhaps unintentionally funny promotional piece that Landau evidently filmed to show subscribers at the end of the first season. Let's just say that it's obvious what a showman Landau was from even this brief piece.


• AFT Trailers

  Butley (1080i; 2:58)

  
  

  A Delicate Balance (1080i; 3:25)

  
  

  Galileo (1080i; 3:30)

  
  

  The Homecoming (1080i; 2:36)

  
  

  The Iceman Cometh (1080i; 2:38)

  
  

  Jacques Brel is Alive and Well. . . (1080i; 3:26)

  
  

  Lost in the Stars (1080i; 2:10)

  
  

  Luther (1080i; 2:31)

  
  

  The Maids (1080i; 3:06)

  
  

  The Man in the Glass Booth (1080i; 2:44)

  
  

  Rhinoceros (1080i; 1:55)

  
  

  Three Sisters (1080i; 2:43)

Rhinoceros Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In doing some background research on both the play and this film adaptation for purposes of writing this review, I discovered that scenarist Julian Barry returned to this property and actually helped to musicalize it. (You can read about it here.) That might have been a more suitable property for O'Horgan to have tackled than this manic but still listless adaptation. Fans of Mostel, Wilder and/or Black may find this of passing interest, but probably as more of a curio than anything. Video is variable, but watchable, and audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.