#7
Post
by Tommaso » Sun Feb 20, 2022 6:52 pm
Have just watched the MoC release. I can't compare it to the Olive disc, but let me say that I was very pleased with the image quality. While there are some rather negligible print imperfections, I thought it looked very filmlike with great clarity and very convincing reproduction of some of the grainier shots (of which there are quite a few). No issues with the darker areas for me; I thought that greyscale and detail looked really convincing for a film of this age. Audio was fine for me as a non-native speaker, too (unlike with some other older American films, I never felt tempted to switch on the subs, as practically everything was clearly understandable, even considering Stepin Fetchit's accent).
But most of all this is a really fine package in terms of extras. I only sampled the audio commentary which seems to be very informative, and, as usual, the Tag Gallagher video piece draws your attention to some details otherwise easily overlooked, but I was also impressed by the booklet. Unlike many other MoC booklets which have a lot of photographs and only short texts, this one comes with almost no pics but with three rather expansive contributions in a small font. I didn't read the Judge Priest short story (which doesn't seem to be that short after all), but the James Oliver essay does a fine job examining the film and its somewhat problematic depictions of race and addressing them convincingly in the historic context. The Rosenbaum piece is somewhat anecdotic and makes some far-fetched comparisons to films like "Gertrud" or even Tati's "Playtime" which seem somewhat stream-of-consciousness, but I nevertheless found it a good read as well.
So, a release that does full justice to one of Ford's finest and most personal films in my view.