Sense & Sensibility is Jane Austen's first novel with surprisingly clear themes - one sister represents the sense (pragmatism) and the other the sensibility (romanticism). You don't exactly need an advanced degree in literature. But it's still such a rich, layered and funny story, and Thompson expertly compresses the novel to feature length without compromising any of the wit or heart, while Lee presents us with sweeping vistas and gorgeous locales. The cast is perfectly charming and marvelous, from leads Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and of course Thompson herself, to the brilliantly selected supporting players like Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie, Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs. I could go on and on about the merits about this film, but I don't think I need to. 1995's Sense & Sensibility is pretty widely recognized as classic desert island material. You know, for a while a thought my DVD would be good enough, but no, this requires a proper upgrade.
Sense and Sensibility debuted on DVD all the way back in 1999 with an anamorphic special edition which held up well throughout all of the SD days. As such, the DVD was reissued multiple times over the years, once packaged with a paperback copy of the novel, once with a hokey Sense and Sensibility-branded diary and pen, and once as a double-feature with Remains Of the Day. But it was always the same DVD. It's the HD era now, though, so we needed a blu-ray. And this was just the kind of high-profile title you could count on Twilight Time to license from Sony. And so in 2015, thankfully, instead of their standard barebones editions, they came through with a proper special edition.
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1999 Columbia Tri-Star DVD top; 2015 Twilight Time BD bottom. |
Columbia actually gave us a choice between the original Dolby stereo mix and a newly created 5.1, not to mention Portuguese and Spanish dubs. It also had English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai subtitles. Twilight Time has kept both audio tracks, and bumped them up to DTS-HD in the process, but cut the subtitles down to just English.
So one reason I held onto the DVD for so long was because it is nicely furnished with extras. We get two audio commentaries: one with Thompson and producer Lindsay Doran, and the other with Lee and producer James Schamus - and they're both very good. Not enough discs let us hear from the screenwriters, and it's all the more rewarding when said screenwriter is Emma Thompson. We also get two brief but amusing deleted scenes, Thompson's clever acceptance speech at The Golden Globes, the trailer, a four-page insert with notes by an uncredited author and some bonus trailers.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Twilight Time not only carried over all the old DVD extras, which they definitely don't always do (*cough, cough* As Good As It Gets *cough). But I was even more delighted when I realized that they were also including several vintage but previously unreleased featurettes. There are five in total, and grant us interviews with many of the cast and crew, and some tantalizing glimpses behind-the-scenes. There's also Twilight Time's ever reliable isolated score track, an additional international trailer and an 8-page booklet with notes by Julie Kirgo.
Hey! While I'm here, why don't we take a quick look at all the other versions of Sense & Sensibility out there. Yes, I know... this is why my "plan to cover"s are outpacing my "covered"s, but let's do it anyway. All told, there are four direct adaptations of Sense & Sensibility, not including this ridiculous thing and the modernized Kollywood adaptation. Memorably, there is one for each decade. We've just been over the 90's one, so here are the other three.
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2009 2 Entertain/ Warner Bros/ BBC DVD. |
The BBC's DVD is appropriately full-frame (it was a 70's television production, after all), at 1.31:1. It's also interlaced, though that may be less of a PAL to NTSC conversion thing than just a baked-in trait of a vintage TV tape master. But less forgivable is the strong edge enhancement, which would've been the sort of thing you could get away with more easily in the smaller screen days of standard definition, but really looks poor on modern televisions. The disc is completely barebones, though it does offer optional English subtitles.
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2004 Warner Bros/ BBC DVD. |
Curiously, this release is a flipper disc with a blank side. It's fullscreen, too, as it should be, at 1.32:1, but it's also interlaced and a bit hazy, though at least not as tampered with as the 70's version. I assume this was shot on tape, too, so there are no film elements to go back to, meaning this is probably about as good as it possibly could look. Showing this off on your big-screen TV definitely won't impress your neighbors, but Warner describes this as "lovingly remastered" and I believe them. Optional English subtitles are included, but nothing else. This one's available separately, but if you're a fan, I'd recommend getting it as part of the 6-disc Jane Austen Collection, which includes a strong 70s-80s BBC adaptation of each of Austen's novels.
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2008 2 Entertain/ WGBH/ BBC DVD. |
Still, it's good enough that you may well want to pick this up. And if you do, well, it definitely looks more modern with its widescreen 1.78:1 framing and clearly high def source. But of course it's been brought down to a standard def DVD, and an unfortunately interlaced one at that And a film this new really has no excuse to be interlaced, so it doesn't get the pass I'm giving to the previous to editions. Apart from that, though, it looks nice enough. The colors are vivid, and it doesn't feel like we're many generations removed from the source film. Oh, and yes, English subtitles are an option here, too.
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Miss Austen Regrets |
This 2-disc set is available separately or in an attractively boxed Collector's Set box that pairs it with the 2007 adaptation of Persuasion. There is also a Japanese 2-disc blu-ray release, which hopefully(!) clears up the interlacing issue and sharpens up some of the fine detail, but it's hard to find any concrete information about it online, and from what I gather is missing all of the special features, apart from the Davies/ Pivcevic interview and the photo gallery.
So the 90's version has been given an essential blu-ray release by Twilight Time. It's a classic film with a terrific transfer and first class treatment all around. It also has more special features than any other version, as older discs lacked the featurettes and Sony's foreign blu-rays are missing the commentaries and basically everything except said featurettes. Twilight Time's the only one that's got it all, which makes it an easy recommendation. And as for the other Sense & Sensibilities? Well, I'd start with the one from the 80's, then possibly add the 2000's and 1970's versions, in that order, depending how Austen-mad you are. Oh, and actually you could squeeze that Kollywood version in there ahead of the 70's version, too. It's pretty neat and the musical numbers are beautifully filmed. The Kino DVD has English subs.
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