The Elephant Man, Thoroughly Resolved

The Elephant Man is a rather unusual film for Lynch, in that it's not rather unusual.  Elephant Man's the film he made after spending years trying to find funding for his own, post-Eraserhead script and couldn't get it. So he decided to film somebody else's, more conventional script.  And fortunately for him, it turned out to be a huge success, nominated for like eight Academy Awards, and let him go back to making his own, distinct films.  Oh, and Dune.

Update 4/16/17 - 9/14/21: I originally ended this post by writing, "it wouldn't surprise me to see it get announced any day now with a fresh 4k scan," and three years later, it happened. And not just a 4k scan on a 1080p blu (though we've gotten that, too), but a proper 4k Ultra HD release.

The Elephant Man starts out with one surreal, abstract sequence, with literal elephants and super-imposed imagery.  After that, it becomes a fairly traditional, but excellent, bio-pic.  He went to London and worked with Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Mrs. Brooks a.k.a. Anne Bancroft, And the Ship Sails On's Freddie Jones and of course John Gielgud.  It's beautifully shot by Tales From the Crypt's Freddie Francis and produced by Mel Brooks.  It's very stoic in one sense, but it has a real old Hollywood feel, too.  And not just because it's in black and white.  It's the austere performances, the dark locations, it's inevitable story.  It just feels timeless, important and flawless: in some ways, almost the exact opposite of Lynch's scrappy, wild excursions of self expression.  It's definitely not for anyone looking for quick, brain candy entertainment; but it's so bleak and honest that it still packs the same punch it did back in 1980.

Paramount gave this film a pretty respectable DVD debut back in 2001, anamorphic widescreen with some nice special features.  Really nothing to complain about.  But when Optimum put it out in the UK in 2008 with all new extras, well, you couldn't call yourself a Lynch fan if you weren't at least tempted to double-dip.  Well, I did.  But surprisingly, we still haven't seen it hit HD here in the states.  But Studio Canal has taken up the reigns and released it on blu in pretty much every other corner of the world.  I wound up going with their Hong Kong disc, which was a mistake, as you'll see later.  But in 2020, SC made up for that mistake by restoring the film in 4k and issuing it in a lavish 3-disc BD/ UHD set.

1) 2001 Paramount DVD; 2) 2008 Optimum DVD; 3) 2011 Studio Canal BD;
4) 2020 Studio Canal BD; 5) 2020 Studio Canal UHD.

Like I said, even the initial DVD was pretty great.  So until you get up close, these screenshots look pretty similar, at least the first few.  They're all pretty much identically framed at 2.35:1 and finely detailed.  None of them are interlaced, the colors are truly black & white (none of that weird green and purple haze that infects a lot of cheaper B&W DVDs).  They all seem to be using the same source master, but when you look at the close-up comparison below, you can see how the UK DVD does smarten up the image a bit more than the older Paramount disc, which is more compressed with splotchier dark edges.  And then the blu clarifies the finer points even more.  Panning from left to right, it's like the faces are coming into focus.

1) 2001 Paramount DVD; 2) 2008 Optimum DVD; 3) 2011 Studio Canal BD;
4) 2020 Studio Canal BD; 5) 2020 Studio Canal UHD.

And they only become more life-like when they hit the final two, where it becomes less about focus and more about depth.  The lights now longer look washed out, and even these small, background characters appear more photo realistic.  One could easily wonder if HDR means all that much when the film is entirely in grayscale, and hey, maybe a fresh scan could've yielded similar results with or without it.  But there's no denying that these results handily trump the old blu.  The range of shades puts even the new 1080p blu way ahead of everything that came before it, and then the resolution of the UHD really manages the grain to look just like the original film, and even manages to pull out a few subtle details that were lightly crushed out of the lower discs' shadows.  Oh, and it should also be noted that while the framing is still 2.35:1, it pulls out to reveal more along the edges, and is also panned slightly to the left.

Like all the Studio Canal blus, the HK disc only gives us the English in 5.1, which is less than ideal for purists (after all, there's no way the original audio was in 5.1 back in 1980); but it's a pretty straight-forward mix, so it's fine.  And it's a Dolby TrueHD track, so it's uncompressed, and the English and Chinese subtitles are optional/ removable.  But both the old DVDs featured the original stereo mix, so it's nice to see it back on the new 2020 release, in lossless DTS-HD, along with French and German dubs, plus English, French and German subtitles.

So why was the Hong Kong blu a mistake?  I'm not that mad at the 5.1.  And it's Region A, so it's nothing to do with that.  The problem is in the special features.  It's barebones, while the SC discs in literally every other country - France, Japan, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Australia, Germany, The UK - have a nice special features package.  But not, for some reason, the HK disc.

Even the old DVDs managed to provide a nice selection of extras.  The Paramount DVD has a really good, half-hour 'making of' featurette that interviews Brooks, Hurt, and several other key players.  It's pretty straight-forward, but quite good.  Then there's a brief but fascinating look at the effects of the elephant man make-up, which was taken from an actual cast of the original, real elephant man from a British museum.  That's followed by a "narrated photo gallery," where effects artist Christoper Tucker gives us a deeper look at the film's effects work.  Also included is the trailer an a nice insert with some cool artwork.

The UK DVD doesn't have any of that stuff, but what it comes up with is just as good, if not better.  First, there's a very professional, informative featurette about the real historical figure this film biographies.  But even more importantly is a very comprehensive, sit-down interview with David Lynch, the key player missing from the Paramount doc.  It's a really great, informative interview that goes through the whole process.  Finally, they have another, quite good interview with John Hurt; but it is fairly redundant if you've seen the Paramount stuff.  Oh, and the trailer's on here, too.

Now, the Hong Kong blu doesn't have jack, not even the trailer.  And while I don't own any of the other Studio Canal blus, I can tell you what's on them because I research this stuff.  A little too late in my case, but I researched it.  😆  Anyway, they have all of the Optimum extras, plus two additional interviews with Lynch (one of which is just focused on his paintings at an exhibit they happened to meet him at).  And the new SC has all of that, plus even more.  They reach back and secure all of the old Paramount stuff except for the narrated photo gallery, and secure us two new features.  One is a surprisingly compelling interview with the set photographer.  He might be a little low on the totem pole, but he's an interesting guy and has some good stories.  The other is a festival Q&A with the producer, which is good on its own terms, but he doesn't say anything that we haven't already heard on the other extras.  They also add a brief, un-narrated stills gallery.  The first pressing included a 36-page booklet and 5 art cards, and there's an alternate steelbook edition that drops the BD (but keeps the bonus disc).

So if you're looking for a fun time, The Elephant Man may not be your bag.  But if you just like moving, high quality films, this is definitely one.  And having just gone through the 4k experience, I have to Lynch's distinctive use of sound and imagery casts itself you in a richer, deeper way, making it feel more as one with the rest of his body of work.  SC's new release is unquestionably the way to go, with greatly restored picture, the original mix back and lossless, and the largest collection of extras yet.  If you've been meaning to revisit The Elephant Man, now's the time.  And you might want to hang onto your old Paramount DVDs as an extra little bonus for that brief talk with Tucker, but if it's not already on your shelf, it's nothing to worry about missing out on.  This set is all you could ask for.

Me and You and Everyone We Know... Plus Their Short Films, Too

Alright, after the heart-rending nihilism of Time Of the Wolf, it's time for a complete change of pace. So I'm looking at the feature film debut of Miranda July, 2005's Me and You and Everyone We Know. I suppose, at it's core, it's a rom-com. A man and a woman, both struggling to find their niche in the world, eventually discover each other. But it's also got a sort of Altman-ish structure, where the film follows a diverse collection of characters whose stories wind up interconnecting at unexpected intervals. More importantly, though, it's a much more inventive, sensitive, smart film on top of all that.

Update 3/23/15 - 4/30/20: Woot!  We finally have a blu-ray now - and it's in the Criterion Collection?  Nice!

I can see this movie striking people as being too precious at a cursory, superficial glance. Like a Northern Exposure-y series of set pieces saying: isn't it cute how eccentric everybody is. But as quirky as it is, it's not oddness for oddness's sake. And this film's may not be totally innocent of that, but most of the absurdities here are built from a relatable truth, like the agent who insists Miranda mail her tape to the the address they're at, rather than just accepting the tape in person. "But I'm so close," she says to crossed arms. So she devises an impromptu moment, where she's riding down in the same elevator as the agent, and compels him to pick it up. But he still insists on handing it back to her, for her to take it home with her and mail it back to them. It's relatable, it's often clever. It's just good writing.

There are also moments of underage characters exploring their sexuality which will have many viewers facing an art film where they wanted breezy entertainment. There are bits that never quite make it off the ground, and undercooked lines of dialogue like "email wouldn't even exist if it weren't for AIDS." But there are pieces, like the goldfish segment, which is so strong, it could be a perfect, wonderful short film all on its own. There's a segment where the leads are forced to share a moment when they're gluing something together that has to be held the pieces together for 1 to 2 minutes. It's just the little kind of thing that, as a writer, makes me think, I wish I came up with that! And it's got a pretty compelling soundtrack to boot.

Well, so, this is another case where I've got the Region 1 and Region 2 versions to compare, and for the same reasons as Time: they've got unique sets of extras. But in terms of PQ, as of this week, I think we can assume both of them are a little dated, thanks to the brand new blu-ray edition from Criterion.  But you know what they say about assuming, so let's have a proper comparison.

1) 2005 MGM US DVD; 2) 2006 Optimum UK DVD; 3) 2020 US Criterion BD.

The DVD transfers are both excellent and practically identical. Same framing, same colors, no interlacing or ghosting. The cases say 1.85:1, but it's just a little more open, very slightly letterboxed to 1.82:1 on both discs. There's really nothing to complain about or even distinguish between the two discs. There's no blu-ray available of this title, but this movie looks pretty great - top notch for standard definition.

1) 2006 Optimum UK DVD; 2) 2020 US Criterion BD.

There's a blu-ray now!  And, well... it's not a fancy new transfer.  This seems to be the same master MGM used for the DVD fifteen years ago, but considering this film was apparently shot on HDCam, as opposed to film, it's not like there's a negative to go back and re-scan.  Instead of film grain, there's patchwork macro-blocking that may or may not be native to the raw footage... it's the same thing you see on a lot of old blus, so maybe the film would've benefited from going back to the original tapes and re-compressing them with modern software, or maybe not.  We'll never know.  Anyway, this is the first HD release of the film, and dated master or not, it's still heaps clearer and sharper than the old DVDs.  So while it possibly could or couldn't look even better with extensive restoration work, it certainly looks better than anything that's come before; a very welcome upgrade. Plus, one difference: they opened the mattes a bit to 1.78:1, revealing slightly more along the top and bottom of the frame.

The Optimum disc lets you choose between Stereo 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1, while the MGM and Criterion discs just have the 5.1 track.  Considering this is a 2005 film, though, I think it's safe to assume that the 5.1 mix is the original track, so I'm A-OK with that.  Plus, the blu naturally bumps it up to lossless DTS-HD.  Both the MGM and Criterion (but not the Optimum) have optional English subtitles.

 

But here's where things get really interesting... the extras.  On the MGM DVD, there's six deleted scenes, and they're good. They're a bit long, so I can see how they'd mess up the pacing, and consequently why they'd be cut. But they're worth preserving and seeing as deleted scenes. Well, except one, which is just a shorter edit of another deleted scene that's already on disc. That seems excessive; but the rest are all fun and on par with the material that made it into the film. If you're a fan of the film, you'd want to see these, too. There's not much else on it, though. There's a bunch (eight!) of bonus trailers, but not even the trailer for the film itself.

Optimum's DVD, on the other hand, has a good deal more stuff, but disappointingly, is missing the deleted scenes. It's got a nice, in-depth 28 minute interview with July, where she tells the entire story of the film from its inception to changes made in script rewrites and on the set. Then there's 20 minutes of cast and crew interviews, including July again, which are good but a little more promotional and superficial (as in EPK stuff). Finally there's seven minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, again like Time Of the Wolf; but this time they're speaking English and we can hear what they're saying, which makes the footage more engaging. Finally, there's also a couple (four) bonus trailers and, this time, the actual Me and You and Everyone We Know trailer. Overall, this is fuller, richer special edition; but it's puzzling, and a bit frustrating, that they didn't include the deleted scenes.

But Criterion's is an even richer and fuller special edition.  First of all, it has the deleted scenes.  Well, the five.  That sixth alternate cut of the same scene has been dropped, which is just as well.  And it has the trailer.  And it has a whole bunch of new, exclusive stuff.  First of all, there's a substantial, nearly hour-long retrospective conversation with July and Lena Dunham.  And there's a fun short film July made about a film festival she attended.  Then there's a collection of scenes that July wrote and produced for a sort of pre-vis version of the film, made at the Sundance Director's Lab.  Like an early short version of the film, except it's just loose scenes rather than a complete film.  And those scenes also have optional commentary by July.  Criterion also offers a pretty chunky 44-page full color booklet with notes by Sara Magenheimer and Lauren Groff.  ...And that's just the stuff directly pertaining to Me and You.

1) 2005 VDB US DVD; 2) 2020 Criterion US BD.

There's also a bunch of Miranda July side projects.  There's a short documentary about a short-lived charity-themed art project she organized in the UK.  And there's an interview with her about her Joanie 4 Jackie project, where she curated short films by other female filmmakers.  And four of said shorts (The Slow Escape being a wonderful stand-out).  If that's starting to feel a little too removed for your tastes, they've also included two of July's own short films, as previously seen in her Videoworks DVD collection (for more info about these flicks, see that page).

These were presumably shot on video tape and SD digital, so Criterion's blu isn't much of an upgrade.  For 1998's The Amateurist, you can see they cropped the video noise bar at the bottom and brought down the gamma a smidgen, but it's a very minor distinction.  But 1999's Nest of Tens got cropped considerably, from 1.32:1 to 1.47:1, shaving off a decent bit of vertical picture information.  They've also gone and de-interlaced this one, which is a nice little fix (The Amateurist wasn't interlaced in the first place).

The one bummer is that Criterion didn't port over the Optimum extras.  Admittedly, with the hour+ of July talking about this film they did include, the Optimum interview got rendered a little redundant.  But that disc is the only way to hear from the other cast members, who neither MGM or Criterion sought out, not to mention the bonus behind-the-scenes footage.  But don't get the wrong impression; I'm quite happy overall.  We're finally getting this film in HD, which we've been waiting and waiting for, with a bunch of new treats and the deleted scenes.  The specs in the original announcement left them out, so that was a nice surprise.  But if you're a huge fan, I'd still suggest importing a copy of the UK DVD as an addendum for their special features, too.  I mean, as of this writing, AmazonUK is selling them for thirty cents, so it's not too extravagant an additional expense.
))<>((

Valentino, Goodbye, But Way Up In the Sky (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

It's a good time to be a Ken Russell fan. New blu-rays are coming out left and right. Crimes of Passion from Arrow, many of his BBC docs over in the UK, Women In Love just came out in a finally anamorphic special edition blu (I know.  Blu-rays aren't technically anamorphic, but you know what I mean).  It's hard to keep up with them all. But one I just had to cover, if for the extras alone, was BFI's new dual format special edition release of Valentino.

1977's Valentino is another biopic, this time of silent film star and one of cinema's first sex symbols, Rudolph Valentino, played interestingly enough by Rudolf Nureyev, the famous ballet dancer known for defecting from Russia to become a worldwide star... but not known for, you know, being an actor. Valentino was a bit of a flop, theatrically, and did some damage to Russell's career.  And in different interviews, you hear him go from describing it as his best screenplay ever, to his least favorite film, to it rising again in his estimations (as I think it has for many critics and audiences in general).  Still, I think I see why it got flack - I myself wouldn't recommend it to many people who weren't already established Russell fans.

There's a weird, unreality to it.  And I don't just mean the usual flair for kitsch and exaggeration Russell displays in a lot of his work.  This time, it's more about the performances.  I actually think Nureyev is quite good as Valentino, and didn't deserve the derision he sometimes got; but it just seems like an awful lot of the dialogue was loosely ADR'd.  So when you've got the modern actors putting on broad period dialects with this added layer of disassociation, where it doesn't always sound like their voices are coming out of their mouths.  It gives the whole film a fake or cheap/ amateur feeling - like a local theater company production - which it really doesn't deserve, considering how lavishly and carefully it was otherwise produced (just look at the images in these screenshots!).  You have to be open and patient with the film to form any kind of connection with the characters because of this barrier, and that's just too much to ask of general audiences.

But if you are willing to meet the film halfway, it's pretty great. Russell's kitschy visual style is perfect for bringing this romantic vision of Valentino's rise to Hollywood stardom to life. It's got a great cast, including Seymour Cassel, Michelle Phillips, Carol Kane, and keep your eyes open for a young John Ratzenberger. And it's a smartly written story, riding the line between the truth and the legend, with a nice satirical touch. It opens with an authentic, vintage song dedicated to Valentino called "There's a New Star In Heaven Tonight," but later in the film we hear another song about him, which I'd always assumed to have been equally authentic until I heard on the audio commentary that it was written by Ken Russell for the film. And now that people are finally getting to see it in widescreen, as opposed to its VHS and early DVD life, we can see that it looks great.

So yes, this film spent many years only being available on a crappy UK-only fullscreen DVD from MGM.  Finally, in 2010, it got an updated master from an HD scan of the 35mm inter positive, which MGM released as an MOD here in the USA. Over in the UK, though, Optimum gave the updated version a proper, pressed disc, and that was the definitive release for a long time.  But finally in 2016, that 2010 HD master has gotten released on an actual, HD disc release in both the USA (from Kino) and UK (from BFI).  And for the first time ever, Valentino's also getting the special edition treatment.

Optimum's 2010 DVD top; BFI's 2016 DVD mid; BFI's 2016 blu-ray bottom.

Yeah, you can really tell the 2016 is using the same master as the 2010 disc; BFI's DVD is a very close match to the Optimum DVD. This is not a new scan; we're just finally getting it on blu.  But that said, it really does benefit from the increased resolution.  This film is full of detail that looks almost out of focus on the DVDs compared to the blu. And the framing is almost identical, except you can see the Optimum crops the top a tiny sliver more, giving it a 1.86:1 ratio, as opposed to BFI's 1.85.  But it's so slight you'd never notice it outside of a direct comparison like this.

In the audio department, the DVD gives you a nice stereo mix, but that's it. BFI's blu gives you the original mono track as well as the stereo mix. And both are naturally lossless LPCM tracks on the blu.  Neither release has subtitles, and if you're wondering, the Kino release doesn't either.  Sorry, hearing impaired fans!

Extras are where BFI's new release really shines.  The Optimum disc only had the fullscreen trailer.  But BFI's release?  Where to begin?  I guess Tim Lucas's excellent audio commentary would be a good place to start.  If you're familiar with his past commentaries (most famously on Mario Bava's early DVDs), you know he comes prepared with a lot of research that really pays off. Almost as good is a rich, substantial interview with character actor Dudley Sutton.  He only has a tiny part in this film (he was also in The Devils), but he's got plenty of great, funny stories anyway.  actress Lynn Seymour, who wasn't in Valentino but starred opposite the real Valentino, gives a brief but nice, audio-only remembrance of the silent film star as well.

Then you get into the vintage stuff, including a very interesting television interview with Rudolf Nureyev.  As for Russell himself, there's an 89-minute audio only interview which they play as a second audio commentary over the film.  He only briefly mentions Valentino, but for Russell fans, there's a lot about his other work, including Gothic, which he had just filmed at the time.  Then BFI goes definitive, giving you lots of extra odds and ends from their vaults, including 9 minutes of original newsreel footage of Valentino's funeral in HD, some of which was used in the film's opening credits.  And they give you the opening and closing credit footage with the titles printed over them.  And there's a stills gallery, two widescreen trailers and 6 TV spots (one missing sound). It also comes with an 18-page booklet, including notes by Paul Sutton, author of Talking About Ken Russell.

And even though I don't have the recent Kino release for a proper comparison, I'd be derelict if I didn't talk about it, because it has some exclusive extras, and unless you're region locked, you're surely wondering which version to get.  Well, I looked into it and confidently chose this one.  It has Tim Lucas's audio commentary, 3 minutes of Valentino's funeral in SD, two trailers and a stills gallery.  It doesn't have anything else from the BFI material above.  But it does have two exclusives: a Trailers From Hell version of the film's trailer and a vintage television program on silent films with footage of the real Valentino's work.  Personally, I'd say the BFI's package leaves Kino's in the dust (though I am a Trailers From Hell fan), and not only would I recommend BFI's blu over Kino's, I wouldn't even say Kino's exclusives are worth double-dipping for if you're a serious fan.  If you're region A locked, though, at least you get something, and the commentary is there.  Oh, also Kino's disc doesn't have the stereo mix, just the mono.  So there's that.

So this might not be one of Russell's greatest films, but I think it's much better that its unfair reputation as one of his worst (I mean, come on, did you ever watch Dog Boys?), with cinematography that really ought to be seen in a proper widescreen presentation. And BFI really came through for this film, even more than it maybe deserved.  A strong recommendation for BFI's release if you're even somewhat into this film, although if you're DVD-only and not the type to watch extras, I suppose you could do just as well getting the Optimum disc on the cheap instead, since it's basically the same transfer.  Just avoid the 2003 disc.