The Remains Of the Day In Full Bloom

You may've guessed what my second Twilight Time post would be, since I named this film in my Twilight Time #1 post.  Sony double-featured the two films on DVD in 2010, though they don't have much to do with each other apart from starring Emma Thompson and having come out only a couple years apart (The Remains Of the Day in 1993, then Sense and Sensibility in 1995).  But they were also two must have blus from Twilight Time, so here we are.

Update 6/23/19 - 3/26/23: Sorry, this update's been a little delayed... I've had to go through two defective copies to arrive at a fully functioning disc.  But looking around online, no one else has been reporting problems, so I assume it's just been my bad luck.  Anyway, I have it in hand now: Sony's 4k Ultra HD of Remains, released last month and looking stunning.

The Remains Of the Day is the second of two back-to-back films where Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are at possible romantic odds with each other, directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismael Merchant, and written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.  The other, of course, being Howards End.  Certainly, there's a lot to distinguish the two, but since neither title particularly sets its film apart (one is abstractly vague and the other's just the name of the house), my short-hand for differentiating them is that this is the one with Christopher Reeves.  That's somebody you don't come across in a lot of English films.  So just commit that little "Remains Of the Day = Christopher Reeves" formula to memory, and you'll never confuse the two again.

But let's get serious about Remains Of the Day, because it deserves it.  Based on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, this film takes place in two timelines, before and after the second world war.  In the latter, head butler Hopkins has to come to grips with the fact that he devoted his life and everything he believed in to the lord of his house, who turned out to be an infamous Nazi sympathizer.  Mike Nichols was originally set to direct, and he stayed on to produce after he had to drop out, giving the film to the Merchant/ Ivory team as the material was obviously in their wheelhouse.  The whole cast is superb (yes, even Reeves), including pitch perfect supporting performances by Peter Vaughan, James Fox and Hugh Grant.

The Remains Of the Day has had a pretty simple life on home video.  It was released on DVD by Sony in 2001 as a pretty attractive special edition.  There was that double-feature disc with Sense in 2010, but otherwise that one DVD has been the whole story until 2013, when Sony released it on blu in the UK and other foreign regions.  Two years later, and Twilight Time brought it home to the US with their edition in 2015.  And now in 2023, Sony has upgraded it to a proper 4k Ultra HD disc in the US and several other regions.

1) 2001 Sony DVD; 2) 2015 Twilight Time BD; 3) 2023 Sony UHD.

Okay, I left the negative space around the first set of shots so you can see how the old DVD is slightly window-boxed.  Back in 2001, I guess that all would've fallen into overscan area anyway, but it does change the aspect ratio from 2.33:1 on the DVD to an even wider 2.39:1 now on the blu.  Curiously, even with those vertical bars and narrower ratio, the DVD manages to have slightly more info along the sides.  That's because the DVD is slightly squished, which the BD corrects.  Colors remain almost the same, although there is a bit of a red overcast that the blu-ray clears up (look at the sky behind Hugh in the first shots).  And while the DVD was anamorphic, non-interlaced and generally quite good for such an older disc, the blu is still a big win with crisp detail and finely rendered grain.  The DVD also shows some serious artifacting along its edges, which the blu happily removes.  All in all, Twilight Time gave us an even greater improvement than I was expecting to find in this comparison.

Now, Sony's announcement for their UHD described it as being "previously restored in 4k," and indeed it seems to utilize the same scan going back to 2013, certainly still 2.39:1 and almost identically framed to the 2015 BD seen here.  But this master has a new Dolby Vision/ HDR grade, approved by Mr. Ivory, and of course we're finally getting it in full 4k resolution (this is a 3-layer disc with over 76 GB dedicated to just the main feature itself).  And yes, the grain looks much more smooth and natural.  By comparison, it appears chaotic and digital on the BD.  That was a world above the DVD, but it doesn't look like TT gave it the kind of top quality encode Sony would have.  And that combined with the full res disc really enhances the naturalism of the image when you examine it up close, and even when you don't, small detail that gets blown out to pixelation or contrast is retained on the new UHD.  And the colors really pop now.  If there's any potential criticism of the new release it's that maybe they've gone a bit overboard, the grass from the windows behind characters indoors, for instance, is positively radiating green.  But it sure looks beautiful.  The blacks are deep, the whites are bright and all the colors look truer than ever before, and quite strong at that.

There was one minor disappointment with Twilight Time in the audio department as well.  The original DVD gave us the choice beween the original stereo mix and a new 5.1, plus French, Portuguese and Spanish dubs with English, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai subtitle options.  Twilight Time unsurprisingly drops the foreign language options, but they also dropped the original stereo track.  So we just got the 5.1 (though now in lossless DTS-HD) and English subs.

Sony went all out on their new UHD, though, bringing back the stereo mix, now in lossless DTS-HD, retaining the 5.1 DTS-HD and introducing a new Dolby Atmos track.  All that truly matters is that stereo mix, but you can't be mad at more options, and techies will like the new, cutting edge track.  They've also added seven foreign language dubs, and nineteen subtitle options, including both standard English and HoH.  So whatever you wanted, you've got it here now.

Sony's original DVD was pretty nice with the special features, too.  It features a lively audio commentary with Ivory, Merchant and Thompson, which strikes a nice balance between the seriously informative and anecdotal.  There are several deleted scenes, also with optional commentary, and three substantial featurettes that add up to roughly 75 minutes of 'making of' content, including interviews with all the stars, writers and major players, and some B-roll glimpses behind-the-scenes.  We're definitely talking more than your standard promotional quickie.  You also got the trailer and an insert with chapter stops.

Thankfully, Twilight Time retains all of that.  They don't add much more, but that's alright considering how much we already got.  The 2013 foreign blus seem to have dropped the commentary, but it's back here.  And they do add their signature isolated score track, of course.  Plus they throw in a second, international trailer and an 8-page booklet with notes by Julie Kirgo.  But basically, all the good stuff comes from the DVD.

And the UHD stays virtually the same, too.  All the DVD stuff is here, including the commentary, but we lose TT's isolated score track and the booklet.  Their international trailer got to stay, however, and it now comes in a sleek, stylish slipcover.

So this is an easy recommendation.  A great presentation of a great film.  The Twilight Time release was nice for its time, but this is down-right definitive, with its new HDR 4k presentation and the original stereo track, lossless for the first time.  This is a real "put this in your system to impress your friends" disc, and a film that truly deserves it.

Hey, How About Howards End?

Alrighty, well I did Remains Of the Day, so I might as well do the other one!  Not that Howard's End and Remains are particularly similar once you get past the repeat personnel.  James Ivory, Ismael Merchant, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins all collaborated on this the year before.  But this one's based on a novel by E.M. Forster and has nothing to do with Nazis.  Actually, it might have more in common with Sense & Sensibility, as we've got Thompson playing a sterner, wiser older sister at ideological odds with a more romantic and naive younger sister, this time played by Helena Bonham Carter.  Anyway, I've been itching to cover this one since it came out as an import-only UHD last year.

This time our protagonists are not in service.  Vanessa Redgrave is a romantic, upper class lady who makes a fast friendship with the middle class Thompson.  When she passes on, she leaves her estate, the titular Howards End, to Thompson and her family.  But Redgrave's own family, headed by Hopkins, cannot accept this and secretly manage to keep the property for themselves.  Carter, meanwhile, takes pity on a decidedly lower class London couple and struggles to support them.  Things seem complicated enough, but get much more so when Thompson and Hopkins fall in love and marry, unaware of the lies that bind them.

This is Merchant/ Ivory at their best.  The plot may be a bit predictable (even from my very brief description above, you can probably guess who ultimately ends up with Howards End), but it takes some unexpected turns along and delivers some powerful drama along the way.  It won three Oscars and was nominated for six more, including best picture.  And while I'm not one to place a lot of stock in the Academy Awards (I mean, they named Crash best picture of 2006!), it's hard not to find what they saw in this picture.  Sure, the excellent period production values and lush costumes, but the performances and writing are peak cinema.

Howards End debuted on DVD way back in 1999 from Columbia Tri-Star.  It was a strong presentation (as their releases typically were), but quite barebones.  This was rectified in 2004, when Home Vision reissued this film as part of their Merchant Ivory Collection, with a nice collection of extras.  In 2009, Criterion brought it to blu, albeit with the same selection of special features.  I skipped that edition, but pounced in 2018, when Concorde released an all new, 4k restoration of Howards End as a proper 4K Ultra HD (and BD in the combo pack), with an all new crop of extras to boot.  That 4k restoration was released it in the US, too, by Cohen Media Group, but it was BD only, and apparently had issues with its aspect ratio and black levels to boot.  So importing Concorde was a no-brainer.

1) 1999 Columbia Tri-Star DVD; 2) 2004 Home Vision DVD;
3) 2018 Concorde BD; 4) 2018 Concorde UHD.

Even the oldest 90s DVD is anamorphic widescreen, non-interlaced and really quite respectable.  It does have a slight pillarbox matte along the left-hand side, framing it to a slightly off 2.31:1, though it actually shows a sliver more information on that side than any other release.  The Home Vision DVD is still 2.31:1, but now fills the full horizontal frame and pushes in just slightly tighter.  Then Concorde pushes in a little tighter to finally meet the proper 2.39:1 framing.  What you probably first notice, though, looking at these comparisons is the shift in colors.  The DVDs have a red push to them, particularly the Home Vision disc, which is decidedly too orange where even the skin tones get weird.   The Concorde transfer gives it a more natural, cooler tone.  And between the two Concordes, the UHD has a more attractive, bolder tone than the BD, which is essentially the same timing but paler.

1) 1999 Columbia Tri-Star DVD; 2) 2004 Home Vision DVD;
3) 2018 Concorde BD; 4) 2018 Concorde UHD.

And to see the benefits of the increased resolution, just look at the flower from the first set of shots come to photo realistic life from left to right.  Grain is naturally captured even on the Blu, but you see how much more naturalism there still is to be mined from the image.

One minor bummer is that only the first 1999 DVD includes the original stereo mix (plus a French dub and English and French subs).  From the Home Vision DVD on (and yes, the Criterion, too), the stereo track is replaced with a new 5.1, which is quite good, but not the original audio.  Home Vision also has English subtitles, and Concorde bumps the 5.1 up to DTS-HD on both discs, and also includes German 2.0 and 5.1 tracks and optional English subtitles.

"Wiedershehen in" means "Meet again in"

There is one language-related point I have to make about the Concorde release, though.  Their disc is completely English friendly (you can play the film with the English audio and no subs, and all of the special features are in English, too), even the credits are in English (it's "A Merchant/ Ivory Film" not, "un filme de") but the film itself has language-specific title cards.  So "four months later," is written on screen in German.  Usually most films take on that expense, and only subtitle the film's cards.  So it's classy that they went to the trouble to make foreign cards for foreign markets.  But it does make it a little weird for English-speaking audiences to suddenly be confronted with a bit of German.  There are only a handful of title cards, indicating the title and dates on-screen, so English audiences will be able to figure it out.  But I could see US viewers being annoyed by it, so I wanted to be sure to point it out.

Now, over the years, Howards End's gotten some sweet extras.  The 1999 DVD was barebones apart from the trailer, but The Merchant Ivory Collection DVD introduced some great stuff.  Primarily, they created two 45-50 minute documentaries.  One on the making of the film, which interviews pretty much all the cast and crew, and the second about the Merchant/ Ivory/ Jhabvala trio and their long history in film.  Then there's a nice interview with the production designer, and two brief, vintage promo featurettes, one about the film and one about Merchant/ Ivory.  The Criterion release kept all of that, and also added a new, on-camera interview with Merchant.

But instead of licensing all of that, Concorde chucked all those extras out and came up with their own stuff.  First up is an audio commentary with two film critics.  It's generally pretty good, well paced and informative, but one of the two critics has basically watched all of the previous extras and is repeating all of the trivia and anecdotes from them.  In a way, that's good, because if we're losing those extras, at least we still get all of that info.  But it's painfully redundant if you already have one of the older editions, and also, several of the anecdotes, particularly the humorous ones, don't really work as well being told second-hand as they did when the actual cast and crew were sharing their moments in the documentary.  But okay, I'll take it.  Then, there are three new interviews with James Ivory.  One is a straight-forward one with a critic, one is a Q&A with an audience filmed at a screening, and one is a brief conversation with Vanessa Redgrave.  All good content, but some stuff stuff does get repeated over and over.  They also add a second trailer (so, two total) and a couple of bonus trailers, plus reversible artwork so you can hide the big ratings logo.

So, overall, Criterion still has the best set of extras, but not by a particularly wide margin.  Meanwhile, the Concorde UHD, with the obvious advantage of being a higher level format in general, offers the best presentation of the film.  I'd say the ideal way to go is the Concorde (unless that small handful of title cards really bother you) and then just copping the DVD version of the Criterion extras, if you're a big enough fan.  Many people will probably find just the Concorde extras alone are good enough, but it is great to hear from the other cast and crew members.  Me, I've got the Concorde and just holding onto my Home Vision DVD was close enough (I only miss out on one Merchant interview, and he's already interviewed in most of those older docs and featurettes).  It's another build-your-own ideal special edition scenario, but you can wind up with a pretty awesome one.

Do You Need a New Room with a View?

How picky are you? That question may be the determining factor as to whether you'll be inclined to upgrade to Criterion's new blu-ray release of James Ivory's A Room With a View. It is the best edition to date, at least strictly in terms of the film itself (you'll see what I mean). So if you're adding the film to your collection for the first time, well, even then you'll have a decision to make. But is it worth replacing a previous edition? A comparison would appear to be in order.

Update 8/13/19: Just randomly happened to get my hands on a different DVD copy of the film, so I'm adding it to the mix.  It's a Region 5 DVD from UTV World Movies and Shemaroo World Cinema.  That should be interesting.

Update 8/16/24: It's Update Week 2024!  So is there anything I can add to this page?  Why yes.  I neglected to include the Criterion DVD, just the BD.  So let's fix that now.

1985's A Room With a View is one of several E.M. Forster adaptations from Merchant Ivory.  In fact, it's their first; but it's no less exquisitely composed and scored as the rest. It also has one of my favorite casts: a young Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands run just a little wild under the influences of Italy and under the auspices of Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliot and Judi Dench. It's a beatific, smart and surprisingly briskly paced production of a deceptively simple story.

In fact, if I had to come up with a criticism, it's that the story is perhaps a little too simple. She loves him, but societal conventions keep them apart and whoops! She winds up getting engaged to Daniel Day Lewis. Guess how it ends. Not that a film needs to be unpredictable. Is there ever any doubt that Frodo's going to melt that ring in the volcano even before Gandalf slips it to him? The joy is in the getting there, but there aren't even very many complications barring their inevitable outcome. That's what drove me to seek out Andrew Davies' 2007 adaptation for Masterpiece Theater, hoping for a slightly richer, more developed plot as Masterpiece Theater tends to deliver; but that turned out to be disappointingly inferior. In fact, this original film is surprisingly thorough in carrying over most everything from the novel except for some period political speeches by Elliot's character. It's just a simple story, and I don't imagine we'll ever see it told better on film than we do here.

So, I've got four editions for today's comparisons: Warner Bros' lavish 2-disc special edition DVD from 2004, a random 2009 Indian DVD from UTV World Movies and Shemaroo World Cinema, and of course Criterion's latest DVD and blu. There is an even older US disc, from Image, which you can definitely go ahead and chuck though, as it's feature-less and non-anamorphic. And there's one more release, from 2007 that I haven't got, but which will play an important role in our discussion nonetheless. So let's get begin.

1) 2004 Warner Bros DVD; 2) 2009 UTV DVD;
3) 2015 Criterion DVD; 4) 2015 Criterion BD.

To start with, let's just say UTV seems to have taken a cue from Image: despite coming years after Warner's superior edition,. theirs is unanamorphic and barebones.  It seems to be using the same master as Warners, with the same framing, colors, etc.  But being 4:3 widescreen means it's even lower resolution than the the 2004 DVD.  So, we can pretty much write that one off and focus on comparing Warner's standard definition to Criterion's high definition, and obviously clarity is on the BD's side. Criterion has given us a fresh 4k scan from the original camera negative. But Warner Bros' transfer was already pretty strong, and I'm not sure we're getting very much additional detail here. Of course, the DVD is considerably more compressed and smudgier when you get in real close (i.e. the Wincarnis poster in the first set of shots). Really, quality-wise, Warner's DVD's greatest short-coming is being interlaced, which is a disappointment to be sure.  Even UTV's DVD isn't interlaced.

But now we come to the new 4k scan. Criterion has done some additional clean-up, removing sporadic flecks, steadying a few loose frames, and tweaking the colors a bit. Those purple flowers pop a little more in that second set of shots, right? But it's hardly night and day. No, the biggest distinction is the aspect ratio. You may've noticed the Criterion screenshots are a little taller than the Warner Bros. Well, when Warner Bros made their transfer, they opened up the old letterboxing of the Image release from 1.85:1 to 1.78.  But Criterion takes it even further, pillarboxing it to 1.66:1. And that does result in a tad more vertical information, even though it loses a sliver on the sides. According to Criterion's booklet, the 1.66 is the director's preferred aspect ratio, so that's a genuine improvement.

Criterion's blu has lossless DTS-HD audio and optional English subtitles. Their DVD's the same, naturally, except the audio is lossy.  Warner Bros has a 5.1 mix plus Spanish and French options, both in dubbed audio and additional subtitle tracks. UTV (surprisingly) has no foreign language or subtitle options, and just has the same 5.1 mix as Warner's DVD.

But if you're wavering on the fence here, wait, because we haven't even gotten to the biggest distinction between the two releases: the extras. The Warner Bros releases (three years after their 2004 DVD, they released a 2007 blu-ray, which is identical in this regard) feature a good deal of stuff, none of which, sadly, is on the Criterion edition. Let's start big: an audio commentary by both Ivory and Merchant, along with  Simon Callow (who played the Reverend Beebe) and the director of photography, Tony Pierce-Roberts. No commentary on the Criterion release at all; it's only here.

And that's just disc 1. On the second DVD of the Warners version, we get a half hour documentary on the author from 1970 called E.M. Forster Remembered, interviews with Callow and Lewis, a featurette on the Merchant/ Ivory production team and a vintage television news report on the film that talks to Merchant, Carter, Elliot and others. There's also a slideshow, though interestingly, no trailer. But none of that is on the Criterion disc. The DVDs are also packaged in a very attractive slip case with an eight-page booklet.

Not that the Criterion is barebones, far from it. UTV is, though - they don't even have a trailer.  But Criterion's created some excellent new features. Or, at least two. They've got a pair of roughly 30 minute featurettes (one's longer, one's shorter) called Thought and Passion and The Eternal Yes. The first talks to Ivory, Roberts and costume designer John Bright, and the second talks to Carter, Callow and Sands. These are actually better produced than the Warner Bros stuff, which apart from the commentary, is mostly sourced from television. And it's great to finally hear from Sands. Criterion also has a vintage television news segment of its own, and they do have the trailer. Their release also has a booklet with notes. It's just a shame they didn't or couldn't license Warner Bros' extras to create a strong, definitive package.

So if it sounds like I'm making a case for the Warner Bros over the Criterion, no. If you're in the store with one copy in each hand, even assuming it's Warner's blu-ray rather than the DVDs, I'd recommend the Criterion. They've got the fresh 4k transfer and, hmm... it's really a tough call on the extras. Criterion's featurettes beat Warner's featurettes, but WB has the commentary. Definitely keep the older version if you've got it, because their extras are exclusive and somewhat extensive. Unless you're a high enough roller to buy both for the full set of special features, though, the extras situation is going to be frustrating no matter how you choose. So that tips the scale in favor of the Criterion.

But if you already own the Warner Bros blu, is it worth upgrading to the Criterion? Like I said, it depends how picky you are. Are you really that fussed about the difference between the 1.78 and 1.66 aspect ratios? Because that's really the key difference. Yes, the 4k scan is superior, too; but the previous master wasn't exactly a disaster that needed to be replaced. As the DVDExotica guy, I compare screenshots all day, and one is a clear winner. But being honest, I know that if I watched the Criterion blu-ray with my family, then swapped to the Warner Bros blu for the commentary, none of them would pick up on the fact that I switched discs on them. So I'll label this a low priority upgrade. There's much worse stuff to upgrade ahead of A Room With a View, and the extras won't feel like such a compromise.