7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
A documentary about the personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry of renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Based in part on his best-selling book of the same name, the film tells Hawking's incredible story through the voices of his colleagues and loved ones, while making dynamically accessible some of his theories.
Starring: Stephen HawkingDocumentary | 100% |
Biography | 16% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Winner of Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Errol Morris' "A Brief History of Time" (1991) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include exclusive new interviews with director Errol Morris and cinematographer John Bailey. The release also arrives with a 32-page illustrated booklet featuring David Sterritt's essay "Macrobiography", a chapter from Stephen Hawking's 2013 memoir "My Brief History", and an excerpt from his book "A Brief History of Time". In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
"Why do we remember the past but not the future?"
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Errol Morris' A Brief History of Time arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"Supervised by director of photography John Bailey, this new digital transfer was create din 4K resolution on Northlight film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, flicker, and jitter. The audio for this reelase was mastered at 24-bit from the original 4-track magnetic tracks using Pro Tools HD.
Transfer supervisor: John Bailey, Lee Kline.
Colorist: Gregg Garvin/Modern VideoFilm, Burbank, CA."
The technical presentation of this truly outstanding documentary film is excellent. The clips from the original interviews boast outstanding depth and clarity. Sharpness and contrast are also very well balanced. Light and colors are used in a variety of unique ways to illustrate some of the key points in Stephen Hawking and these sequences look fantastic. Additionally, there are absolutely no scratches, debris, cuts, stains, or warps. Image stability is terrific. Lastly, there are no compression or encoding issues to address in this review. To sum it all up, this is a very solid organic presentation of A Brief History of Time which more than likely will remain the film's definitive presentation on the home video market. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.
A Brief History of Time is complimented by an outstanding orchestral score courtesy of Philip Glass which benefits tremendously from the lossless treatment. Indeed, there is an excellent range of nuanced dynamics that dramatically change the tone of the film as intended (typically between descriptions of Hawking's theories where different illustrations are used to highlight key points). The dialog is exceptionally clean, stable, and very easy to follow. Also, there are absolutely no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or distortions.
One does not have to be an expert in physics or astronomy to be seriously intrigued by the questions the great Stephen Hawking asks and then attempts to answer in Errol Morris' documentary A Brief History of Time. After all, who wouldn't want to know if time, as we know and understand it, would one day come to an end? Recently Hawking has corrected a number of his theories, but the manner in which they are presented and discussed in this film is absolutely fascinating. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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