Six Degrees of Separation | | Cast : | Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Donald Sutherland | | Director : | Fred Schepisi | | Studio : | Mgm/Ua Studios | | Format : | Color, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | December 08, 1993 | | DVD Released Date : | June 08, 2004 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 20, 2005 | | Summary | Stockard Channing was robbed | Content
 | Robbed I tell you. She should have gotten the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of Ouisa Kittredge in this movie. Instead it went to Holly Hunter for the friggin Piano. Ooooooohhhh, Holly friggin Hunter playing a mute. What a stretch of acting. That's almost as good as Robert DeNiro playing an Italian-American Vietnam Vet with emotional problems, or Ed Harris playing a square-jawed, clean-cut Marine. Wow! What a stretch.
OK, enough ranting. This movie is great, it has everything. Stockard Channing as a woman who discovers a world beyond her own through the person of Paul, played by Will Smith in the only role where he isn't annoying and is trying to act (and succeeds, this movie will show you that Will Smith has talent, even if he doesn't choose to use it). Donald Sutherland is his usual excellent self and the movie also features such stalwarts as Ian McKellan, Bruce Davison, Richard Masur and features one of Heather Graham's first performances.
The movie is an excellent adaptation of John Guare's play and is I think one of the finer adaptations to film of a play. Also fantastic is the score by Jerry Goldsmith. A definite five star movie, pity that Stockard Channing didn't get a Best Actress Oscar for it. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 03, 2005 | | Summary | flirtingly farcical and often hilarious | Content
| Will Smith plays a psychologically brilliant but shameless, misguided hustler / con-man that takes in a social-climbing, star-sucking, superficial, ostentatious and over-mortgaged couple (cast and played perfectly by Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing) with an intricately constructed version of his own reality.
Smith's monologue in an opening scene of the movie clearly smacks of Andre Gregory in My Dinner With Andre - except on speed - and flawlessly performed.
There are so many delicious subtleties and incongruities. For example, in the same scene, Ian McKellen plays the man with the cash - and yellow teeth. Imagine the riche of New York City having an audience with someone with yellow (not piano-key) teeth in this image conscious society - but, on the other hand, he can provide the $2 million that they need to avoid bankruptcy.
As the film unfolded, I felt a growing sense of foreboding that the ending would betray the foundation laid by the rest of the film. On the contrary, it's very well done, without silliness or letdown.
This is a beautifully made film. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2004 | | Summary | The deep longing of the social classes | Content
| Puzzling offhanded moody film. (Critique for those who have seen it, primarily.)
I was struck by what seemed the underlying assertion: the deep if unconscious longing of the divided social classes in our country for each other. The deep longing to heal the rift of "separation" -- the wealthy and the disenfranchised -- that the whole class system perpetuates through how people behave, who they associate with, who is considered desirable.
The rich couple and especially Stockard Channing's character of Louisa is caught up in an affluent world of witty pretentious empty existence -- one they are exceedingly skilled at, and are able to milk to good profit. When they meet Paul (Will Smith's character), they are drawn to his directness, his charm -- he is skilled at being relaxed and conversant in their cultured world, yet he lacks the pretense of the elder members or the (satirically exaggerated) spoiled disaffection of the younger members, their children. They both relish telling the story - and their friends seem undyingly riveted by it -- and Loisa especially tastes of a richness, a directness, a spark to life that she does not have.
Will Smith's character of Paul also longs for a life he does not have, their Upper East Side life. For the wealth, certainly, but also for the very real values of education, ideas, and that spark of art that is separate from the worldly commercial side of art's buying and selling. The slap that Louisa joyously gives to the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel.
Both sides are profoundly hurt by the rift, the gulf, that exists almost never to be crossed between Paul's ghetto and the Kittridges' beautiful penthouse. There may be a "mere" six degrees of separation between them - but as Louisa meditates, how to broach them? How to find the people that came connect you?
(In "Six Degrees" it is interesting and telling that it is the gay member of the set that serves as the crossover person, the means by which Paul can make his more profound crossover. Somehow, those who are owning-class gay stand with a foot in both worlds - they have a large degree of entree into the worldly affluent classes, yet they are also outcasts.)
As a comment outside the movie, it's my opinion that the class system is kept inexorably in place so that the wealthy might never have human relationships as equals with those whose labor they exploit, so as to avoid the pangs of conscience about benefiting unjustly from their labor. (One of Gandhi's seven root causes of injustice is: Wealth Without Work. In a just world, every person reaps the product of her or his own work; while to be wealthy, one generally must have people working for you from whom you derive some percentage profit of their work.) But while this may sound radical, my further belief is that not only does this system hurt the poor, it also hurts the wealthy in profound ways. They get the wonderful apartments and private access to the Kandinsky, but their lives are empty and they don't see a way out, they must keep going to the obligatory mannered dinner parties at the price of a life that feels rich and alive with imagination.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 01, 2004 | | Summary | Amazing! | Content
| A wonderful movie with many hidden truths about life. All characters in the movie have done an excellent job in portraying the superficial lifestyles that is common in the West.
As the families in this movie get taken advantage off, by the young Paul Poitier, they begin to learn more about themselves. The reality of life we accept may not be the reality that we once hoped for. Ouisa, Paul's star student finally understands herself and how her life has been a complete lie, serving her husbands needs and neglecting her own. The pursuit of money is a driving principle in the Western culture and we often neglect other aspects in life that deserve more of our energy. Paul is the catalyst in showing Ouisa the truth about life and removing her social mask. A person of mystery who demonstrates that anything is possible in life.
Overall, an amazing movie that should be watched more than once to capture the brilliance it portrays. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 27, 2004 | | Summary | too-clever adaption of the play | Content
| You can read other reviews for the plot but in conclusion I found this adaptation of the play not to work as well as it could. While the individually performances by title cast are exceptionally strong, the unbalanced parody of the stereotypes diminishes the piece: The shallow, smug socialite is not shallow enough, the disaffected, spoilt child is too shrill, the poor prospective conman too composed - its as though the film cannot decide whether to be more farcical or more serious. Direction aside, the main themes of the story reach conclusion midway through from which point it begins to wander and in the end, the continuing relationship between the Kittredges and Paul, in particular Ouisa Kittredge's revelation about her perceived connection, feel too contrived.
In part a self-proclaimed social commentary, the film adaptation also overlooks the opportunity to properly contrast the existing class division's between Paul and the Kittredge party, concentrating instead on the pseudo intellectualizing conversations - which Paul adeptly mimics/takes on - of the Manhattan social elite (i.e. the clever part). Having said that, it was a worthy attempt and it certainly *is* worth watching: there is a lot to take away from the film which by the way also has some great cinematic pans of New York City. |
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