A Watchable Vanity Fair?

I've had some surprisingly good luck upgrading to these Mapetac blus recently, so I thought I'd roll the dice one more time.  This time it's for one of my absolute personal favorites: 1998's Vanity Fair.  Yes, it's the Andrew Davies version, but even most of his other work falls short of this epic miniseries, especially if you're expecting just another delicate comedy of manners about a 17th century woman who narrowly avoids marrying the wrong man instead of the right one.  Thackeray is quite a sharp turn from Jane Austen.  And speaking of sharp turns, well, we all know the reputation these Llamentol discs have; but when it's the only BD option, and the DVD is fairly borked, well... like I said, we're rolling the dice.

This is the best of all the Vanity Fairs.  It's a true marriage of society's elegance and grotesqueries in every aspect, from its photography to the brilliant soundtrack.  The more recent version has some strengths: adding Michael Palin as narrator lets them include some of Thackeray's non-dialogue text, but it tries way too hard to appeal to modern sensibilities.  It feels like it was made for high school students who couldn't be expected to wrap their heads around a different time period with alternate sensibilities and values so it takes all kind of silly liberties.  At my old job, people always used to ask me about the Reese Witherspoon Vanity Fair, and I would try to warn them against going that route.  It's alright, don't get me wrong.  The production values are admittedly higher, Reese isn't the problem and some of the supporting cast, like Jim Broadbent, are first class.  But chopping the story down to two hours is such an abridgement it loses so many great scenes and consequently cuts the wit and humanity out of those that remain.  It's the same problem all the 1930's versions had, though at least Mira Nair successfully recreated the period.

Actually, I used to be a pretty big proponent of the BBC's 1967 version, which certainly was at one time the definitive VF going, but now comparing the two, I see how much of the heart and subtext has been thrown away compared to the 90s version, almost as harshly as the Witherspoon despite being substantially longer.  Original Masterpiece Theater darling Susan Hampshire and the rest of the cast are all quite smart, and the drama does still build to a beguiling boil by the second half.  It's been a while since I've seen the 80's version (also a BBC miniseries, with Freddie Jones as Sir Pitt Crawley), but I remember feeling it was pretty stiff following this one, which was fairly tied for faithfulness to the novel, but possessed more of the spirit.

If you're looking for a quick way to judge Vanity Fair adaptations, the dictionary scene early on makes it easy.  A number of versions throw it away, quickly depicting the moment without conveying its delicious spirit or the necessary set-up.  Becky Sharp over-did it, adding a hokey little "let this speak volumes" speech to it.  The 2018 version shows us they're determined to botch the Amelia character, and thus the film's central relationship, by changing the scene so they both throw their dictionaries and scream "viva la Napoleon!"  The 90s version remains the only one to get it right.  Plus, the home video situation for this one is pretty dreary.  In the US, it's only ever been released on VHS... at least in the UK, there's a 2-disc DVD set from Acorn.

2004 Acorn DVD.

I assume this was shot on video, so there are no negatives to go back to.  But the interlacing is out of control; it's not intermittent frames like usual, but every frame.  And I gather that's some kind of edge enhancement making their collars flair out in the second shot - it certainly looks like it - but their are so many potential flaws in SD transfers of broadcasts from tape I can't say for sure.  It's murky, the colors are bleeding, really the only thing that seems to have gone right is that the 1.32 AR is probably about right, although as you can see, there's some unusual dead space along the top.  The audio has some background hiss but is reasonably clear.  There are no subtitles and the only extra is a nice behind-the-scenes photo gallery.

But we're not here for that Vanity Fair; we're here for THIS Vanity Fair.  So let us move on. A&E Home Video released the 90's Vanity Fair here on DVD in 2003 as a 2-disc set, in two amaray cases and a slipbox.  Looking at it now, it doesn't hold up (as we'll detail below), but the only blu-ray option is the infamous Llamentol disc released in Spain in 2013, and repackaged as a Mapetac in 2016.  I've bought the latter.

2003 A&E DVD top; 2016 Mapetac BD bottom.

Yes, once again this is the 2011 Llamentol disc, right down to the old label, housed inside the newer 2016 sleeve.  I was initially encouraged by the fact that this is a pressed disc (dual-layer even), not a BDR, like Middlemarch.  On the other hand, I was skeptical of the 16x9 aspect ratio; would this made for television series be widescreen?  In 1998, it's on the bubble.  But comparing the shots, no, this 1.74:1 is correct... or at least close to it.  The fullscreen DVD not only brusquely chops off the sides, and a sliver along the top and bottom, but I caught it doing some ghastly pan and scanning to try and preserve key characters who had been cropped out of shot.  So yeah, this is a big fix of the 1.32, though ideally, sure, we probably want it to be 1.78, or maybe even 1.85:1, without that weird left-hand pillarbox (return of the unusual dead space!).  In fact, we briefly get a glimpse of it.

For one shot early in the final episode, the edges flicker, the left-hand bar disappears and the resulting framing corrects itself to unmatted widescreen, and then snaps right back in the next shot.  During this brief glimpse, there's only very slight negative space along the overscan area, the most being about 7 pixels along the top, opening the shot to 1.79:1.  Oh well.  The 1.74 will do.  Especially when there are other improvements as well.  Most notably: the interlacing is gone!  It was really bad on the DVD, again not intermittent but every frame.  It's hard to say if the blu's HD is any natural improvement in terms of clarity or detail - the patterns on that soft, say - because the interlacing ruins the DVD's picture too much to judge.  But what that means, practically speaking, is that the BD's a huge improvement because we finally get a non-distorted look at the image.  Of course there's no pan & scanning here, and the colors are also cooler, seemingly to correct for an overly pink hue to the DVD, which I'd call another mild improvement, though I suspect a proper restoration could do an even better job of the colors.

Both discs feature the same decent but lossy stereo mix.  The blu also has a stereo Spanish dub.  The one thing the DVD had going for it was optional English subtitles, which the blu predictably replaces with Spanish ones.  So that's a small step backwards.  Neither release has any special features at all, though, so that's a draw.

It's the same story: a low-quality (and quite possibly unlicensed) blu as predicted; but it's all I was hoping for given my expectations.  I knew this wasn't going to look "blu-ray quality," but it did turn out to be a substantial upgrade.  Granted, that's not due to any great qualities of the blu's so much as the DVD having such poor ones, but I've finally got a watchable copy on my shelf that I can live with.  That's a win in my book, and I'm both happy and relieved.

Wives and Daughters, Unpressed

Okay, one last Spanish blu before we move on to other, pressing stuff.  You know, for now.  I'm not declaring a moratorium or anything.  But before we sail away, I wanted to look at one more of the newer Mapetac editions of a classic BBC miniseries.  So we go from Husbands and Wives to Wives and Daughters, another one of my personal favorites that was in desperate need of some help on home video.  And once again, Spain's the only country that answered the call.

Yes, this is another Andrew Davies adaptation.  Call me a fan boy if you must, but how can you watch something like (the original) House of Cards and not be?  And while he's had his misses alongside his hits, I think this is up there among his best work.  This time he's doing Elizabeth Gaskell's last, unfinished novel, Wives and Daughters, an Every-Day Story.  But this is no Sanditon, where Davies' imagination was left to run wild with nothing but the author's starting opening chapters to indicate the characters and direction of the story.  It's mostly all there.  Although, with that said, it's worth nothing that despite the fact that Gaskell's book was published completed by journalist Frederick Greenwood in the 1800s, Davies doesn't seem as beholden to Greenwood as he is to Gaskell.

Now, I hate to appeal to authority, but this series is swimming in BAFTAs.  The whole cast is strong, but surprisingly it's the men, particularly Traffik's Bill Paterson, and The Singing Detective himself, Michael Gambon, who steal the show.  But all the characters are layered and intriguing, on both the writing and performance level.  The production values are high, with various lush locations and authentic period imagery that the BBC, by this stage, had become quite expert in reproducing.  From countrysides to manors to old London and even Africa, this series doesn't attempt to compress the novel standard handful of drawing rooms.  But it also doesn't shy away from the minutia, including the literal insects Gaskell wrote of in her novel.

One surprise I have to address is that I popped the blu-ray in and it's six episodes.  Everywhere else I'm familiar with - from how it originally aired on Masterpiece Theater, to the DVD, to the way it's currently indexed on Amazon Prime - it was four episodes.  I got a little optimistic at first: was this another case where the US version was cut down and I'd found an original, full-length UK version, like Northanger Abbey, and I was going to be discovering a fuller, richer version than I'd known before?  But nah, it turns out it's more of an I, Claudius situation, where the episode breaks were just altered to make the series fit a more conventional TV broadcast schedule (turning the original, 70-odd minute episodes into 50-some ones, i.e. an hour with time for commercials).  Well, I tallied the total run times and they both clock in at just over 300 minutes.  This Spanish version does run a couple minutes longer, but that makes sense as it has two extra sets of opening and closing credits.  So neither version appears to have any extra or absent footage.

Wives and Daughters debuted on DVD in 2001 from BBC Warner, later repackaged in 2015.  There are other DVDs around the world, but if you're in the market for a blu-ray, Spain is your only option.  And like Middlemarch, this is another case of it coming first from Llamentol in 2013, and then being reissued by Mapetac in 2016.  Given Llamentol's infamous reputation, I took a shot on the Mapetac.

After my previous four posts exploring Spanish blus, you might've thought I was slowly disproving the preponderance of BDRs instead of properly pressed discs over there.  Well, I just found a BDR.  In fact, I daresay all these Mapetacs are just reissues of the same Llamentol discs.  Remember, Mapetac's Middlemarch BD actually had a Llamentol label?  This one doesn't name Llamentol or Mapetac on its label, but dollars to doughnuts, it's the exact same one you'd get if you ordered the 2013 release.  Oh well, let's at least see if this BDR is any good.

2001 US BBC Warner DVD, 2016 ES Mapetac BDR.

Okay, looking at these screenshots, it ain't pretty.  It looks like an SD upscale.  I'd almost conclude that there's no reason to upgrade, except... the DVD is a nightmare!  It's an extra low res non-anamorphic image with serious interlacing problems.  And look at that AR: 1.53:1?  The back of the 2015 DVD box calls "14:9 letterbox," which is a new one on me.  Surely that can't be the OAR. [Or maybe it can... see the comments.]  Compare it to Mapetac's 1.78:1.  It has exactly the same vertical matting but reveals substantially more on the sides.  Side by side, the DVD really looks boxed in and truncated.  And while yes, this is a BDR, at least it's, dual-layered and 1080i, which is appropriate for a broadcast master.

I honestly don't know if this series was shot on digital... 1999's right on the borderline where it could go either way, and the camera in the behind-the-scenes doc doesn't look to have film mags.  So maybe this is about as HD as it gets?  Or maybe a new restoration would work wonders.  Straight edges often look jagged due to low resolution, blacks seem crushed and the color range feels limited, but again, those are symptoms of late 90s digital films just as much as they are of problematic BD transfers, so it's hard to say.  But for our purposes, where these are our options anyway, I'd say we don't gain any additional detail or clarity, but the blu does clear up the interlacing problem.  That plus the aspect ratio and the anamorphic issue makes this a substantial improvement, even if it does still look like crap.

Audio-wise, both discs are lossy.  Surprise, surprise.  But I was pleased to see that the Mapetac blu included optional English subtitles (as does the BBC Warner DVD), in addition to the expected, and also lossy, Spanish dub and subtitles.

But here's the only category the DVD actually wins in: special features.  The Mapetac blu has nothing, not even a commercial.  But BBC Warner has a whole third disc dedicated to nothing but extras.  Specifically, two.  There's a 20+ minute behind-the-scenes documentary, with on-set cast interviews and a look at how they created the period.  And then there's a 50 minute Omnibus documentary about Elizabeth Gaskell overall.  Both include optional English subtitles as well.  This is good stuff (I would've preferred more on the making of part), and it's a shame to lose it.

So if you're upgrading, I recommend hanging onto your DVD as well.  And sure, you might scoff at the idea of upgrading to a BDR that looks this grungy, but it really is a far superior way to watch this excellent series.  Honestly, I never thought I was about to luck into a gorgeous, high end special edition.  I was just hoping for a fix to the interlacing and non-anamorphic issues, and I got it.  The improved framing was a pleasant surprise on top of that.  As long as you go in knowing what to expect - and what not to expect - it's a worthwhile acquisition.

The Depressing Trials of Importing Middlemarch

1994's Middlemarch, the BBC mini-series adaptation of George Eliot's novel by the reliably excellent Andrew Davies, was originally available on DVD only in the UK. I imported it as soon as it was released. Some years later, however, it did make its way on DVD here in the USA, both sold separately and later packaged as part of The George Eliot Collection boxed set. Interestingly, the two releases are rather different. And frustratingly, it's hard to say which is preferable since neither seem to get things quite right.

Update 11/10/15 - 1/30/21: As part of my recent exploration of Spanish blu-rays, I've finally cracked and put in an order with AmazonES.  But I didn't get that 2013 Llamentol BD-R that was so harshly criticized below.  There's a newer edition from Mapetac, which didn't exist when I first wrote this article.  So I rolled the dice, hoping it has at least slightly more to recommend it.

Update 11/12/22: I've picked up the Llamentol disc to confirm what I already suspected: it's the exact same disc as the Mapetac, just with new an updated cover and label.  Boring, huh?  Well, to spice things up, I actually sprung for Llamentol's whole George Elliot Collection, so now we've got full DVD/ Blu-ray comparisons for Daniel Deronda and Adam Bede, too!  So it's a really big update for Update Week!

Middlemarch is the tale of a fictional English town during the tumultuous early 1800s. It's a complex, interwoven story with many characters and plots, but the two characters you could probably point to as most central are Dorathea and Dr. Lydgate, young idealists who make terrible marriage choices and struggle for purpose as their life's ambitions are repeatedly thwarted. It's not really a romance, though affairs of the heart certainly factor prominently. But it's still more Dickens than Austen or Bronte, tackling the human condition at large. Andrew Davies and a classic novel are an unbeatable combination (except maybe for that weird, modernized Othello he wrote), so you know this series is firing on all cylinders. It's got a wonderful supporting cast, including Robert Hardy, Colin's brother Jonathan Firth, Rufus Sewell and Elizabeth Spriggs. It was nominated for 8 BAFTAs and won 3, including Best Original Music, which will come into play in the extras. It's a great story, and the BBC has done an excellent job capturing it.

2001 UK DVD from BBC/ 2 Entertain on top;
2005 US DVD from Warner Home Video bottom.

Unfortunately, the BBC didn't do such a great job bringing it to home video. Although to be fair, their first attempt wasn't too terrible for an old DVD of a television drama. Their UK disc is oddly framed at 1.50:1, which makes it somewhat letterboxed, but it's still 4:3 non-anamorphic. And by 2001, all the quality discs were already anamorphic. So it was good news when the newer US disc WAS anamorphic. And they also fixed the aspect ratio, kind of. Well, they at least made it different. The US DVD is 1.78:1, which adds some information to the sides, but chops some off the top and bottom. I'm not really sure what the original aspect was, unfortunately; but I think it's a safe bet that a 1994 TV show wasn't formatting for widescreen TVs yet; so 1.78:1 is probably incorrect. I've never heard of anything being 1.50, though; and the US disc shows us the UK disc is missing picture from the sides... so I daresay they're both wrong.

Speaking of wrong, look at that first US comparison shot: it's interlaced! Yuck. Yeah, the US disc has got it bad, making all horizontal movement look particularly jerky. And this is a problem the UK disc does not have. It only entered into the equation when the US ported it over, so I guess they did the PAL/ NTSC conversion on the cheap. The US disc is also softer and paler than the UK disc, which wasn't exactly an impressively vibrant and clear image to begin with.  Both DVDs have optional English subtitles.

I can't really say either disc gets anything wrong in the extras department, but again, both of our options are quite different. The original UK DVD had two main extras (apart from some commercials/ bonus trailers): a 29+ minute 'making of' documentary and 30 minutes of the score, edited and compiled in 5.1 (the rest of the DVD is in standard stereo). The documentary is quite good, starting off showing how the BBC practically invades a small town and turns it into a period location which the locals have to live their day to day lives in while the series is shooting. It then goes on to interview the cast and crew, covering all aspects of the production from filming to scoring.

The US disc doesn't have either of these, but instead has its own 40 minute documentary, which is actually quite different. While a few key people, like Davies, are interviewed in both; they cover almost entirely different ground. This one takes a broader look focusing more on the original novel, telling you about Eliot, and the recent success of the series. It doesn't really tackle any of the subjects from the UK documentary, making it difficult to choose between them. They're both quite good, so most fans will want both. However, I don't know about you, but the prospect of buying two very flawed releases and still not having a particularly high-end viewing prospect doesn't sound to enticing to me.

You might stop me now to say: but wait! I see online that there is a third option: a Spanish blu-ray. Sold separately or as part of their 3-disc George Eliot Collection.  Yes, I have spent a lot of time researching it online. The 2013 release is from Llamentol, a most infamous blu-ray label, known for often releasing their discs on BD-R (which is to say home-made blank blu-ray discs).  I've researched it, and apparently it is quite poor.  Here, wait, allow me to quote a couple 1-star user reviews:

"Another disappointment,No digital restoration,no remastering to high definition.Shown in 4:3 format which looks terrible on a Modern widescreen tv.Not recommended,stick with the dvd." - from AmazonES

"[T]he picture is dire - massive amounts of shimmer and grain - it doesn't even come up a DVD standard (which I had and that was only passable too). There's flicks, wobbles and specks of dirt on the print (it's barely video standard). Worse - it seems to be defaulted to 4/3 which is TV Aspect so it looks like one of those old movies centered in your screen... I can't stress enough how bad the picture is - really awful... I'd say this is one BLU RAY to avoid." - from AmazonUK

"I am terribly disappointed in this blu ray version. It is grainy. Where is the excellent resolution of blu ray? The dvd is so much better! This so-called blu ray is going to Goodwill. Please don't buy this. Get the dvd instead!!!" - from our Amazon

So there you go, users from around the world warn us away from that blu-ray; and no, there are no positive contrary opinions. The blu also doesn't have any of the extras from either of the past DVDs. But lo, a new challenger enters the ring!  Oh, and I picked up that Llamentol disc, too, so we can see the difference for ourselves.

2013 ES BD from Llamentol on top;
2016 ES BD from Mapetac Distribution bottom.

Well, if there were any difference.  They're actually quite identical.  But, well, I have two main points to make about the BD transfer(s). They're pretty awful for blu-rays, and they're the best editions on the market.  Allow me to elaborate.  At 1.30:1, they're surely the most accurate aspect ratio of the show to date (though 1.33 would be even more precise).  They retain all the vertical information of the UK DVD, that the US cropped, but are the tightest of the three along the sides.  Still, they're probably about how it was intended.  They're super soft and noisy for BD, to the point where I could hardly call them BD quality.  They also lean a tad green.  But I do have to admit, they are ever so slightly sharper and clearer than the DVDs.

And here's where they really stand out: the blus have neither the non-anamorphic problem of the UK DVD or the interlacing of the US DVD, making them the clear winner(s).  In other words, they're essentially DVD quality... but the other DVDs are deeply flawed.  So they're the definitive version going, and I don't see this series getting a nice remaster any lifetime soon.

Of course the audio is lossy and the only subtitles are Spanish (at least they're entirely optional).  There's also a Spanish dub included.  And unlike the DVDs with their unique featurettes, the BDs are barebones.  They are pressed dual-layered discs, however.  Not BD-R.  It turns out Llamentol and Mapetac are sister companies, and I've come across several Mapetac updates of Llamentol releases, which have also proven to be identical on the inside.  Oh well, I guess they tricked me into trying the Mapetac, but I can't say I went in there with any higher expectations.  At least they resolve the disasters of the previous DVD editions - a rickety but definite step in the right direction.  It's hard to feel excited for an upgrade that looks this ratty, but it's still the best we've got.

Plus, I didn't just double-dip on the Spanish blus.  I used it as an excuse to spring for the entire George Eliot Collection, upgrading my DVDs (released by 2 Entertain and Warner Bros here in the states) of Daniel Deronda and Adam Bede at the same time.  Assuming they're upgrades at all, which as we've seen, is a shaky assumption.  The fact that the outer slipcover for the collection is just a sheet of paper tightly wrapped around the three amary cases doesn't inspire much confidence either.  But these two American DVDs are interlaced, too, just like the US Middlemarch.  So if Llamentol just manages to fix that, I'll be happy; and any improvement they pull off above or beyond that will just be a happy surprise.

So let's start with 1992's Adam Bede, just because it comes first chronologically.  It's pretty good, but I probably wouldn't have gone so far as to add it to my collection if it wasn't part of the set.  It's a TV movie, not a miniseries like the other two on this page, so maybe part of the problem is that it's been a bit abridged/ simplified?  I can't say for sure, because I've never read the book; but taken on its own, the greatest fault is just that feels simple and predictable.  Adam is a good poor guy who works for a bad rich guy, and they both fall in love with Patsy Kensit.  She's the bad girl.  Susannah Harker's the goodly pious girl.  You can guess how it all ends up.  Though I have to say, they do give some decent shading to the characters (i.e. Adam isn't that good), and there are plenty of plot twists involving secret pregnancies and interfering parents.  It's certainly an enjoyable watch with a great cast (also keep an eye out for Robert Stephens, Paul Brookes, Freddie Jones and Upstairs Downstairs' Jean Marsh), but you don't get the effect of a great literary work.  It may be too much novel for 100 minutes.

2007 US 2 Entertain DVD on top; 2013 ES Llamentol BD bottom.

Both discs are fullscreen, with the BD's 1.33:1 correcting the DVD's slightly pinched 1.31:1, which as made-for-TV movies from 1992 is surely exactly as it should be.  The colors are a bit faded and rather sickly looking, and this was clearly shot on film, so if the BBC ever cared to do a restoration, it would probably be revelatory.  But the good news: no interlacing!  As we should expect by now, the Dolby Digital stereo audio is lossy even on the blu.  The DVD had English subtitles, which the Spanish blu disappointingly but unsurprisingly substitutes with Spanish subs and an also lossy Spanish dub.  There are no extras for this movie on either release.

Next up is 2002's Daniel Deronda.  This one isn't on par with Middlemarch either, but it's more fun.  It's a miniseries, that's actually edited differently between the US and Spanish releases.  The US DVD is actually the way it was originally broadcast overseas: in three episodes, the first being movie-length, and the next two being the traditional "it would be an hour with commercials."  The Spanish blu re-edits it to four episodes of the same length, as it aired in other parts of the world.  Now, this doesn't just mean episode breaks in different places and an extra set of credits.  A bunch of scenes have been moved around, presumably to make each episode still feel like it's ending on a bit of a climax or cliff hanger rather than an arbitrary stopping point.  But nothing seems to have been added or subtracted to either version, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.  The DVD does boast "20 minutes not seen on American television," but after careful comparison, both discs appear to have everything.  Also, both discs are NTSC and the total run times are only about two minutes apart, which logos and the fourth set of credits would account for.  Still, it does mean liberties were taken with the original editing choices, so purists be warned.

The production values are flashier, and despite being substantially longer, Andrew Davies' scripting keeps the pace flowing with more energy than Bede.  It's great to see Jodhi May again after her excellent starring role in The Turn of the Screw.  The dramatic relationship between the risk taking Gwendolin and the dastardly Hugh Bonneville (and his toady, David Bamber) is delicious.  On the other hand, all the stuff about the titular Daniel discovering his lost heritage is preachy, if not downright hokey, and some of the plot twists feel a little obvious.  But I feel like Davies' recognizes this, and does his able best to keep all the plates spinning at an engrossing rate.  More great supporting players including Topsy-Turvy's Allan Corduner, Edward Fox, and Barbara Hershey all keep you thoroughly engrossed.  This one did win a bunch of BAFTAs, and will definitely please even the audiences who found Bede stuffy.  But it does get a little eye roll-y at points.

2003 US Warner Bros DVD on top; 2013 ES Llamentol BD bottom.

Both discs are anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1, but Llamentol reveals a smidgen more information along the edges.  Otherwise, it looks pretty much like another upconvert, with essentially the same SD master.  But yes, once again, the BD fixes the DVD's interlacing problem, which is all I wanted.  Once again, the Dolby Digital stereo audio is lossy even on the blu.  The DVD had English subtitles, which yes, the Spanish blu substitutes with Spanish subs and an also lossy Spanish dub.  Neither disc has any extras, except for a little photo gallery on the DVD.

So all of these Llamentol BDs are underwhelming.  But they're all also the best way to watch these excellent programs.  So I recommend them, as long as you keep your expectations in check.  But it sure would be nice if the BBC went back to the original negatives and restored the heck out of all excellent shows.  Sigh...