|
All
we are is just a... 'nother brick in the wall
I'm sorry,
they just don't make 'em like this anymore! Watching this
film again after so many years just brought back a flood of
memories of growing up in the early 80's, at the tail end
of what I consider a golden age of moviemaking, the 1970s.
Though we've heard it said a thousand times before, but if
a movie like this were proposed today, it just wouldn't get
made, or would star Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines...
It is probably
rather sad that today the "concept album" per se
is considered a rock relic, a dinosaur best not disturbed
from its slumber. Okay, sure, for every 70's masterpiece like
Pink Floyd's The Wall, we did get stuck with a Styx "Mr.
Roboto" thing. But, when the concept works, like I think
it does here, the results can be starting, thought-provoking
stuff. A surreal, no, make that hyperreal, experience of sight,
sound, music and animation, Pink Floyd The Wall is an alchemy
of different artists and personalities that somehow all came
together at the right place and in the right way. Though on
the surface it may to border on being a bad mix of slapdash
of random images and arty pretension, in fact there is a very
strong storyline and thematic thread running throughout. Tthough
sometimes confusing, if you pay attention, by the end it all
comes together with the intense satisfaction of completing
a really complex jigsaw puzzle.
If you are
unfamiliar with the story of The Wall, or have never even
heard of Pink Floyd (and believe, me, there are plenty of
kids today who haven't, not that I'm that old yet!), I think
anyone who can appreciate the abstract and visceral, you'll
be taken in by it. The film's story is told in a somewhat
nonlinear fashion with no conventional dialogue-driven narrative,
instead a mix of flashbacks, strong symbolic imagery and unreal
situations. What is most impressive about the film is that
it works at all, as on paper the idea of a rock musical about
alienation and isolation sounds rather doomed to failure.
However,
Director Alan Parker, working closely with Pink Floyd's auteur
Roger Waters and animator/designer Gerald Scarfe, crafted
a truly dramatic film that successfully integrates the songs
and highly-stylized dream sequences which don't distract or
stop the film dead in its' tracks. Though I'm not a big fan
of all Mr. Parker's work, it is interesting to contrast the
creative success of The Wall with what I saw as the horrible
failure of his other pop "opus," Evita. In that
latter film the constant montages grew monotonous and the
whole thing quickly collapsed under the weight of its own
pompousness, coming off like a bad two-hour MTV music video.
With The Wall, however, Parker is able to balance the chaotic,
quick-cut performance pieces with quieter, reductive passages
to create a constant pushing forward and pulling back of the
pacing. It is a tough highwire act to tap, but the filmmaker
pulls it off. Special mention must also go to star Bob Geldof
(we 80's kids, of course, fondly remember him as the leader
of Boomtown Rats), who imbues the character of "pink"
with a real humanity instead of just coming off as some rock-star-as-actor
casualty.
For me,
what could have been an indulgent star trip on the psychiatrist
couch becomes a musical tour de force, and certainly remains
the "rock film" by which all others are judged.
Also interesting is the historical impact the film had, and
one need look no further than the imagery and theatrics of
current acts like Marilyn Manson (who all but ripped off the
Nazi-esque imagery from some of the later sequences in the
film for his concert tour) to see the connections. And now
with this new top-flight Columbia Music DVD, we can hope more
of today's audiences get a chance to acquaint themselves with
the film, and those of us who already know it can now revisit
it in a presentation that is better than ever.
Video: How Does The Disc Look?
Nearly
a year in production, this new anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer
from a high-definition is
the best the film has yet looked on video. A new print has
been struck, and though intentionally grainy and marred by
an occasional nick or scratch, Columbia has done a fine restoration
job on the picture. Colors are strong (the bloody reds particularly
stand out) and fleshtones accurate (which is a nice change
from the previously poor video versions), though the film
still has a slightly dated appearance. Personally, I like
that "70's look," though comparing the image with
today's pristine blockbusters may not impress some critical
viewers. But, I've always felt you should rate a transfer
in relation to the age and intention of the original film
element, and I was pleased with the transfer here. Kudos must
also go to Sony's HD Center for a terrific authoring job,
as despite the grain in the picture, there is nary a compression
artifact to be found.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
The
Wall comes with two new soundtracks, a first-ever 5.1 Dolby
Digital surround mix, as well as a new PCM 2.0 Stereo version
from the original master tapes. I found the 5.1 mix to be
good if not quite great, with somewhat subdued surround activity.
However, the dynamic range and overall frequency response
is very, very good, and the low frequencies (LFE) were also
stronger than I expected, if not earth-shattering. The mix
levels were very good, with dialogue prominent in the mix
and not obliterated by the music or effects. A very good track
that is only held back by the age of the source elements.
Still, a fine job by Sony.
The
PCM 2.0 Stereo track sounds as good as the CD release, as
would be expected of an uncompressed mix. Purists may prefer
this version, though for me since this is a theatrical experience,
not simply a record with some video attached, I enjoyed the
increased ambiance that the 5.1 mix provides. Still, it is
great of Columbia to include the 2.0 option, and it is wonder
how they fit it along with the 5.1 mix and all the supplements!
No foreign language tracks are provided.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? Fans
have been waiting (and waiting) for years for a special edition
of Pink Floyd The Wall on laserdisc or DVD, and now that it
has finally arrived, is it worth the wait? I can unequivocally
say that in my opinion, yes! There is substantial extras here,
and it is obvious considerable care and concern went into
the supplements here.
First
up are the animated menus (very nicely done by artist
Storm Thorgerson and his design team), which feature a short
sequence form the film for the main menu and each submenu.
They are pretty trippy, and maybe next time I'll have to drop
acid before popping the disc in. Anyway, though cool initially,
it did become tiresome to have to wait for the animation to
cycle before being allowed to access the menu. However, this
is certainly endemic of many DVDs lately. Thankfully, though,
The Wall is set up so that after the first animation sequence,
if you access that menu again, you do not have to wait for
it to cycle again, i.e., once the first animation is done,
it becomes a static menu until you begin a feature or stop
the player.
Though
most discs have one main feature to highlight, The Wall has
plenty! First up is the A Saucerful Of Extras section,
which features a screen-specific audio commentary track
by ex-Pink Floyd member and conceptualist Roger Waters as
well as designer/animator Gerald Scarfe. I was a bit hesitant
when I first heard of the commentary track, because being
unfamiliar with Mr. Waters demeanor, I wondered if he'd be
a dry, harsh type of presence on such a track. Luckily, my
fears proved unfounded, and the track is quite informative
and both participants have quite a bit to say about the production
and the concepts behind the film. Mr. Scarfe's comments were
very interesting, as his animation is quite disturbing and
highly sexual, but beautiful as well. A good track and sure
to be a delight for Pink Floyd fans.
Also
included in this section are two documentaries in three
parts. First is a 1982 25-minute documentary called The
Other Side OF The Wall. Putting today's "featurettes"
to shame, this (gasp!) actually talks about the production
in detail, complete with behind-the-scenes footage and talks
with the filmmakers. Though the full frame print is grainy
and quite aged, it is a good starting point to learn about
the film, especially since it was made at the time of production.
The
other documentary, simply titled Retrospective, is
presented in non-anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen, and broken
into two roughly 20-minute parts, Looking Back At The Wall
Part 1 and Looking Back At The Wall Part 2 (clever,
eh?). Though it may seem odd at first that this is broken
into two parts, Part 1 focuses more on the creation of the
original The Wall stage show, which served as the basis for
a lot of the film. Thus Part 2 then builds off that, chronicling
how the show was adapted into a movie, as well as how the
animation was integrated in to the film.
Documentarian
Bob Bentley did a very fine good here, and was able to get
very candid recollections from all the participants. Thankfully,
it is not a fluff piece, and all the difficulties and disagreements
are not glossed over. In addition to new interviews with Roger
Waters and Gerald Scarfe, Director Alan Parker, Producer Alan
Marshall, Director Of Photography Peter Bizou and Music Producer
James Guthrie are also featured. And since there were generous
amounts of animation and production footage available, the
documentary does not suffer from the excessive "talking
heads" syndrome. In all, both the new and 1982 documentaries
add up to a really nice package.
The
Oddities section contains a number of additional features.
Included is the largely-unseen Hey You deleted sequence,
which for me would have worked fine in the film, but the film
works fine without it, too. But, a great addition for completists.
There is also the original 1982 Another Brick In The Wall
Part 2 music video directed by Gerald Scarfe. This is
a very cool addition as it is pretty hard to see on MTV these
days! Also in this section is the original theatrical trailer,
as well as two still galleries, one with production
photos, as well as another featuring Gerald Scarfe's animation
concepts and drawings. Both are clearly laid out and with
easy-to-use navigation buttons (which is sadly unusual lately,
as most of these galleries tend to have nearly-invisible buttons!).
A
very nice touch on the disc worth mentioning are two other
sections. Any Title You'd Like offers access to the
individual songs in the film, as well as access to either
English Captions or English Lyrics, the latter
of which only highlights the subtitles during the songs (what,
no Pink Floyd karoake!?). Strangely, though, the lyrics don't
display with the Captions feature on, i.e., it seems if you
are hearing impaired you would have to manually switch the
lyrics on during the songs, and then switch back to the Captions
for the dialogue scenes. Weird, but hopefully it was just
my Panasonic A310 that does this. French and Spanish
subtitles are also provided.
The
next section is the Set The Controls menu, which allows
you to choose between the 5.1 and 2.0 PCM tracks. However,
there is another option for System Set Up, which offers
an nice introduction to setting up your 5.1 surround system,
including test signals and a detailed explanation on speaker
placement. A thoughtful addition by Sony to the disc.
Lastly,
though, I should mention that in all the menus there are these
small little clickable boxes, one per screen, that contain
weird sound effects. Though I couldn't reach them on my DVD-Video
player, I could on my DVD-ROM drive, and when I clicked on
them strange sounds would play. I'm not sure the significance
here, but certainly different enough. Perhaps you hardcore
Pink Floyd fans know what they mean....?
As
you can tell, a bountiful number of extras here that will
take hours to go through. Both Sony and DVD producer James
Guthrie have done a truly fine job with this disc.
Parting Thoughts
Though
somewhat strangely priced at $31.95, this disc delivers in
every department: video, audio and features. Long-in-development
and the victim of many street date postponements, it was worth
the wait. Fans of the film should have no hesitation to pick
this one up, and if you are curious, it is certainly worthy
of at least a rental. Highly recommended.
|
