Kevin's Digital Week 20: Middle Earths and Straw Hats

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 14 April 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

The Lord of the Rings
(Warner Brothers) 

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
(New Line)
Ralph Bakshi’s disappointing animated adaptation of the first two books of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978; using Bakshi’s rotoscoping technique—shooting with real actors and hand-drawing over them, frame by frame—the result was certainly an arresting, if awkward, visualization of Tolkien’s legendary Middle Earth. But Bakshi’s other limitations as a director forced his film into a no man’s land between unflagging inventiveness and clichéd spectacle. Crippled by indifferent voice actors and laggard pacing, Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings remains a brave failure. The worn-out print isn’t done any favors by Blu-ray’s exceptional clarity, as scratches and visual noise distract from the vibrant colors and action. The film needs a true restoration, but will probably never receive one.

Peter Jackson’s epically-scaled (three films, over nine hours) adaptation not only won a boatload of Oscars but also became the last word in the fantasy genre thanks to the very real brilliance with which the director and his stellar technicians conjured up a fantastically breathtaking Middle Earth. Superbly acted and containing an extraordinary array of live-action and computerized effects, Jackson’s trilogy has earned its status as a cult classic and as a riveting, absorbing drama in its own right. On Blu-ray, the uniqueness of Jackson’s vision comes out in spades, thanks to a superb hi-def transfer. 

The Bakshi Blu has one extra: a 30-minute featurette about Bakshi’s career, which glosses over his work on Rings when it should dive into the difficulties of bringing it to the screen—it was originally supposed to be two films, instead of abruptly terminating before the second book ends. Jackson’s trilogy gets an extra disc for each film, with numerous and illuminating extras about all facets of the production. This Trilogy set will do nicely until the inevitable extended-version set comes along. 

DVD of the Week

The Italian Straw Hat
(Flicker Alley)
Rene Clair, one of the pioneers of early French cinema (his A nous la liberte was an obvious inspiration for Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times), made this silent gem in 1927, transposing the action from 1851 to 1895, to the very beginning of motion pictures, which allows Clair the opportunity to make a delightful homage to those early, silly silent shorts. Frenetic farce, as Chaplin and Buster Keaton's silents have shown, rarely ages when done well, and Clair's fast-paced film deserves to be in that elite company. 

On DVD, The Italian Straw Hat shows its age, but the unavoidable blemishes are part of an 85-year-old movie's primitive charm; the print itself has a vividness remarkable for a film this old. Also included are a pair of music tracks—chamber orchestra and solo piano—which lets viewers enjoy Clair's classic in two different ways. The small but enticing set of extras includes La Tour / Eiffel Tower, a 1928 Clair short film, and Noce en Gouguette / Fun After the Wedding, a 1907 short by Ferdinand Zecca, an inspiration for the madcap chases in Clair’s film.

• < Prev
• Next >