Henry Fool

Comic Epic with Heart, Soul and Bruises
Hartley's Masterpiece: An epic, dark comedy with heart and soul and bruises.

If Hal Hartley were never to make another film, he could easily go down as having created a genuine American Masterpiece with "Henry Fool." Hartley takes this material and stamps it with heart and soul and distance. It's like staring at a palette of beautiful colors - then stepping back to realize it's a bruise. Henry is never less than this astonishing.

As Henry,Thomas Jay Ryan gives what is easily the best film debut I've seen in many years. None of the wimpy whispery-voiced drivel that passes for acting these days (from even some of our best screen actors) his performance practically pops off of the screen like a fart at a funeral. The rest of the cast - James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, Kevin Corrigan, et al. - are on the same inspired level, but it's obvious why the film is named after Henry. I cannot wait to see this man in more.

Obviously...

Film is Briiliant, Both DVD Versions an Abortion
Warning: neither DVD version of this film -- the original 2003 version from Sony, or the 2012 "Choice Collection" on-demand DVD-R -- is a widescreen presentation of the original film, which was in 1.66:1 aspect ratio. THEY ARE BOTH A MATTED (VERTICALLY TRIMMED) VERSION OF THE PAN-AND-SCAN VHS VERSION, WHICH MEANS THEY ARE 60% OF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE. The image you're seeing was generated by taking the "reformatted for your TV" VHS version, which chopped off the sides of the original theatrical image, and *further chopping* it to fit the widescreen format by eliminating the top and bottom of the VHS image. I froze the image of James Urbaniak sitting during the credits sequence on VHS and the new DVD, and toggled between them: in the VHS he fills exactly 2/3 of the screen, vertically, which is clearly the way Hal Hartley framed it. In the DVD, he fills a claustrophobic 86% of the image.

The Sony version correctly identifies the aspect ratio as 1.78:1, which was a tip-off that...

An Overlooked Masterpiece
It's a shame that "Henry Fool" remains relatively overlooked and underrated. In large part because it's such a departure from his earlier films, Hal Hartley purists couldn't stomach the epic scale and thematic shift of the film, and audiences who would likely appreciate the movie never even saw it. In my opinion though, Henry Fool is a true masterpiece of American cinema and one of the best films of the 1990s. If you look at films like "Trust", "Simple Men" and "Amateur" as early, developmental works in Hal Hartley's maturation as a filmmaker, and then see "Flirt" as his attempt to identify himself more as a "director" than a "writer", then "Henry Fool" is the fruit of that labor - not only is it precisely, minimalistically and efficiently directed, but it's far and away his best writing yet. His favorite themes are expanded and blown up within a mythic frame, and his casting here of stage actors (especially the hefty presence of Thomas Jay Ryan) separates the film from Hartley's...

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