The DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter June 2023
All noise on the Western Front
The Oscar-winning Netflix 2022 German adaptation of the World War I classic, All Quiet on the Western Front, has been released on Blu-ray by Netflix and Capelight (UPC#030306226392, $30) with an exceptional audio track—actually, it has seventeen exceptional audio tracks, but we’ll get to that in a bit. The intuitive way to mix a war film is to make the explosions as loud and earth-shaking as possible, but this film, directed by Edward Berger, smoothes everything out so that nothing is shear, nothing will leave smoke coming out of your speakers, and nothing relents. The noises are always there, haunting the characters when not assaulting them directly. The Oscar-winning musical score, by Volker Bertelmann, has a strange, two-level design, with a traditional orchestral presence often giving way to a modernist electronic buzz that quickly becomes associated with death. The film’s sounds are warm, soft and intricately constructed, and the BD directs each noise to its appropriate position in the sound field. The audio delivery has plenty of power, but it also has beauty, like a perfect blossom in the middle of a battlefield.
Running 147 minutes, the film is mercifully brief in establishing the naïve, gung-ho students eager to sign up and fight as the war approaches its final year, and after presenting their first exposure to reality and winnowing substantially the number of central characters, the narrative advances to the war’s final months, as those who are left, while compelled to follow orders, are hoping to hang on long enough to survive. It can be felt, at least upon an initial viewing, that the final act is drawn out, but that is necessary in order to convey how truly hopeless war can be. Although it is set a century ago, one cannot help but identify immediately with war now, because while the technology may have advanced, the devastation and horror created by destruction and the essential fragility of the human shell remain the same.
In addition to its Foreign Language win, the film also won an Oscar for James Friend’s cinematography, and it, too, is as lovely and as graphic as the film’s sound. Letterboxed with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1, the image is exquisite in its chromatic detail, and darker areas of the screen are carefully defined. One way to make a war film is to make it look like it was shot on the fly, in order to convey the immediacy of the terrors of battle, but in creating a film as compositionally formalized as All Quiet on the Western Front, Berger seeks and achieves a greater message about the randomness and futility of existence and the price that is always paid by some for the follies of others.
While we preferred the original German Dolby Atmos track, there is also a carefully recorded English DTS track, as well as nine other alternate European language tracks in 5.1-channel Dolby Digital. There are also six different audio tracks that describe the action, including one in English (“A thick fog obscures the landscape ahead. A large object appears through the fog. Behind them, the sun hangs low in the hazy sky. The object comes nearer, revealing a French tank. More tanks emerge from the fog.”), and eighteen subtitling tracks, including English. Along with four trailers, there is an excellent 18-minute production featurette seeming to touch upon everything that went into conceiving and executing the film.
Berger also supplies a superb commentary track, in English, going over his experiences making the film, what he wanted to accomplish and how elaborate his effort had to be. From his work with Bertelmann and Friend, to the intricacies of costume designer Lisy Christl’s needs to sustain precise levels of mud on the clothing, he goes over every aspect of the film’s creation. He explains in careful, technical detail how the star, Felix Kammerer, was able to modulate his performance while shooting his scenes out of chronological order, and he describes the orchestral coordination that is required for every practical and special effect. “He stuffs this guy’s mouth with earth. Obviously, he couldn’t. All these little details that you have to work out. You can’t put real earth in this guy’s mouth, so there was a little box with clay, sort of edible, basically, hidden in the earth and Felix had to grab exactly that to stuff in his mouth. So all these details take a long, long time to work out and to shoot. There’s a blood pump underneath this guy’s uniform that is hidden in the crater, and that’s complicated, too, to shoot.”
All noise on the home front
We reviewed the Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray release of Wim Wenders’ awe-striking 1987 Wings of Desire, a depiction of angels walking around Berlin before the Wall fell, in Mar 10. That BD platter is included with a 4K platter on Criterion’s new 4K Blu-ray release (UPC#71551528-2918, $50), but the 4K platter has a brand new transfer that was taken from a 2017 restoration. With additional logos and the opening text explaining what went into the restoration, the 4K platter runs 130 minutes, while the standard BD platter runs 127 minutes. Solveig Dommartin’s bright cherry red dress near the end of the standard BD becomes a slightly less attention-riveting orange-red on the 4K presentation, but the texture of the fabric is so much better detailed on the 4K version that it looks more realistic and more accurate, even if it isn’t as immediately crowd pleasing. The film is mostly in black and white, with a few color inserts, until the end, when the color takes command. There is mostly a logical reason for this, but it is best left to be discovered. The black-and-white sequences are much sharper and cleaner on the 4K presentation, and overall, the film’s image is substantially improved. On any film, that would be an advantage, but on Wings of Desire, it has an even greater impact. Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander portray angels walking among the populace. The film is a mesmerizing rumination upon the interior, exterior and spiritual third state of each of us, and since its ideas depend upon fantasy to be conveyed, the improvement the 4K presentation provides to the film’s careful cinematography enhances not only a viewer’s concentration, but acceptance of what is being presented. The film was already spellbinding, but the 4K presentation enhances its profound effects exponentially.
The 5.1-channel DTS audio was already outstanding and while its detail is a little clearer, there is no significant improvement. The film’s sound mix is amazing—this is the only movie in the world, except maybe Ghostbusters, where the separation and directional effects in the library scene are as pulse-quickening as those in the subway scene—and is an intricate component in the film’s array of amazements. The audio is mostly in German, but there is quite a bit of English, too (Peter Falk has an amusing supporting part), and French (Dommartin’s language). Optional English subtitles on the 4K platter translate the German and French dialog, but not other languages that pop up in its stream-of-consciousness miasma, even when such passages are given a brief emphasis in the sound mix. The commentary that appeared on the standard BD platter featuring Wenders, Falk and producer Mark Rance has been carried over. The picture is letterboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1.
The standard BD platter also has the commentary, along with a trailer, a still frame collection of production designs, a 43-minute retrospective documentary, 39 minutes of deleted footage, a 9-minute behind-the-scenes piece, two profiles of cinematographer Henri Alekan that total 37 minutes, and a 30-minute profile of supporting actor Curt Bois.
The importance of noise
Even very recently, when a woman accuses a prominent public figure who once employed her of sexual harassment, the question immediately arises, ‘Why didn’t she just quit?’ If more people had seen the excellent 2022 Universal feature about how the New York Times first broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s shenanigans, She Said, a Universal release (UPC#1913-29238448, $20), they wouldn’t be asking that question. One of the points that is made very clear in the film is that the problem is so systemic, the personality and even the motivation of the individual woman who finds herself compromised or abused by her employer is irrelevant.
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