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Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 05/07/2008 - 11:12

"THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE." (2003-2006. NOT RATED. BBC WARNER. $99.98. SEVEN DISCS.)This is a fantastic seven-DVD set, featuring 21 individual shows, each devoting 48 minutes to the history, context and artistic importance of a famous work of art. I find these shows enjoyable and enlightening. For example, maybe everybody knows this, but I didn't: In Munch's "The Scream," the bug-eyed little guy who's holding his face isn't screaming; it's the entire world around him. Nature is screaming. The world is screaming. (We've all had days like that, haven't we?) And Munch worked on the idea for a year before he realized that, to convey that feeling -- which he had felt -- he needed to paint himself on that walkway not as he looked, but as he felt inside. Thus, we get the famous image that has been popular with the public (though not, initially, with critics) since it was first exhibited. And did you know that Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," which looks like it was painted during a couple of frenzied nights, was actually meticulously planned, with hundreds and hundreds of sketches made? And on and on. The series is a fount of information. It's relaxing, fascinating and full of interesting bits that you can lay on your friends. It's a BBC show, so it's pitched to a respectable level of intelligence, and the talking heads -- including Germaine Greer and Camille Paglia -- have real things to say.-- Mick LaSalle"BLAST OF SILENCE." (1961. NOT RATED. CRITERION COLLECTION. $29.95.)An early example of an American independent film, this was written and directed by Allen Baron, who decided to star in it after he lost Peter Falk to another movie. Baron plays a hit man who comes into New York from Cleveland to do a job. He accidentally runs into an old friend who invites him to a party, so we get to see the hit man unwillingly reconnected to a period of his life in which he was still a human being. Baron is not the most expressive actor, but he conveys the inner life of a character who has gone irretrievably beyond the existential edge. His stray moments of recognizable emotion aren't portrayed as evidence of a redeemable soul, but more as the last twitches of a dead thing. The beautifully executed narration by Lionel Stander is an important part of the film's effect. It provides a running description of the inner life of the character, a man who is comfortable only when he's alone and it's quiet, who has rendered himself unfit for normal discourse. The film is set during the Christmas season, which serves to further show his isolation. Bleak, dark and strangely arresting throughout, "Blast of Silence" is not quite a can't-miss proposition, but one comes away from it feeling as if one has seen a minor classic of some kind. Yes, minor -- but still a classic.-- Mick LaSalle"THE COLOR OF LIES." (1999. NOT RATED. THE KIMSTIM COLLECTION. $24.95.)This moody Claude Chabrol film, a significant box-office hit in France, stars two of the best French actresses -- Sandrine Bonnaire, as the wife of a man suspected of raping and murdering a teen-age girl; and Italian-born Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as the police investigator on the case. Tedeschi, usually shy and self-effacing, is hardly the tough-cop type, but she makes this work to her advantage, presenting the cop's shyness as just another form of slyness. When interrogating suspects, she has a bizarre way of laughing in an embarrassed way as she asks the most probing questions. It's a rich characterization. Bonnaire, as always, is everything she should be and more, completely up to the role's emotional demands. There's an amazing scene in which the wife comes home, feeling guilty about having had a liaison with another man, and finds that her husband, a painter, has spent the entire night filling a big canvas with a depiction of her adultery. The scene is rife with contradictions and ambiguity: Basically, conflicting emotional exchanges are taking place between husband and wife, and Bonnaire and co-star Jacques Gamblin are right there, moment by moment, second by second, full, rich and present. This is a good, not great, movie, but this is great, not good, acting.-- Mick LaSalle"HIYA, KIDS!! A '50S SATURDAY MORNING." (1950S. NOT RATED. SHOUT FACTORY. $34.99. FOUR DISCS.)As a straight-up nostalgia wallow for baby boomers, this four-disc set is hard to beat. These shows date from a time when TV was still struggling to establish its place in the American household -- it would soon come to rule the roost -- and these programs show why kids back then were entranced. Consider "Sky King," one of several programs here with a Western theme (the others are "Annie Oakley," "The Cisco Kid," "Andy's Gang" and "The Roy Rogers Show.") Sky (Kirby Grant) was a dapper Arizona rancher and small-plane pilot who would sort out all kinds of problems on a weekly basis, often with the aid of his niece, Penny (Gloria Winters). A number of other shows involved puppets or marionettes ("Kukla, Fran and Ollie," "Howdy Doody," "Time for Beany," "The Paul Winchell Show"), and some were just out-and-out weird ("The Pinky Lee Show," which inspired Pee-wee Herman, and "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle"). Tops on my list is "Ding Dong School," with good old Miss Frances (Frances R. Horwich), who rang a hand bell at the beginning of each show to get the attention of her preschool audience, then led it in down-home activities such as making bunnies out of handkerchiefs or blowing bubbles from a bowl of soapy water. In her soothing and kindly manner, you can see the seeds of "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood." (It is a bit jarring, however, when she unexpectedly segues into a commercial for a popular cereal brand -- by today's standards, some of these programs blurred the line between ads and content.) So put on your jammies, get cozy on the couch and enjoy.-- Walter Addiego(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)