A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 27, 2019

1966 was a pretty epochal year for playwright Edward Albee. The film adaptation of his massive hit Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? debuted in June of that year and quickly became a box office sensation, ultimately bringing home Academy Awards for Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis, though its total of 13 nominations includes the interesting datapoint that it’s one of only two films that managed to score nominations in each and every category for which it was eligible. (It also won three additional statuettes in “below the line” nominations in addition to the two acting honors it received.) But in September of that year Albee scored a moderate success with the original Broadway staging of A Delicate Balance, a play which didn’t light the Great White Way on fire quite the same way the original stage version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had several years previously, but which was acclaimed enough to bag Albee an honor that even Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? couldn’t — a Pulitzer Prize. In several ways, A Delicate Balance is kind of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on steroids, at least insofar as it offers a gaggle of folks stuck together in a fairly claustrophobic environment where liberal supplies of alcohol may help to free up an Id or two.

While it wouldn’t open on Broadway until 1967, the Harold Pinter play The Homecoming, which had already graced the West End of London in 1964, has some similarities to A Delicate Balance, albeit perhaps in some “meta” characteristics rather than actual plot mechanics, even if the Albee play does feature a “homecoming” of errant daughter Julia (Lee Remick), returning to the tony home of her parents Agnes (Katharine Hepburn) and Tobias (Paul Scofield). There’s a really interesting chapter in William Goldman’s great book about the 1967-68 year on Broadway, The Season, where he discusses Pinter (more with regard to The Birthday Party, which opened that season, but with some mentions of The Homecoming as well), where Goldman specifically links Pinter with Albee in terms of their attempts to somehow “quantify” some unknowable entity courtesy of allusive dialogue, which Goldman has some curmudgeonly qualms about, since he finds such artifices intentionally obscuring (there's a hilarious "reveal" in this chapter which takes, um, critics to task). In other words, Goldman takes Albee and Pinter to task for being overly high-falutin'.

That enigmatic aspect comes into (this) play with regard to two other folks who show up at Agnes and Tobias’ home, Harry (Joseph Cotten) and Edna (Betsy Blair), who are seeking refuge from some unseen and unidentified menace. Rounding out this well dressed if still motley crew is Agnes’ hard drinking sister, Claire (Kate Reid, who subbed for Uta Hagen in the original Broadway production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?).

This sextet of characters moves through some dense Albee material which seeks to elucidate fears, both real and imagined, and various interrelationship dysfunctions. Perhaps because there are six characters, instead of the more compact focal quartet in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, this play may be at least slightly more vignette driven and therefore not have the devastating narrative arc that the earlier Albee piece does. The fact that the story plays out over a few days rather than the confines of one evening perhaps gives the piece a more languid quality that doesn't necessarily mesh with some of the overheated material. That said, it’s as visceral an “actor’s piece” as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, although in an arguably more emotionally tamped down manner. Tony Richardson wisely concentrates on the performances rather than trying to “open things up” or provide much in the way of camera flourishes, and the result is a really forceful interpretation of a raw Albee work.

There are some kind of interesting echoes here for those who may have seen another Ely Landau production, the 1962 film version of Long Day's Journey Into Night, in terms of the emotionally fragile, perhaps mentally unbalanced, characters that Katharine Hepburn plays in both films. For fans of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the fireworks here are probably due less to any marital friction than to some outside forces (though there is marital friction of course). Kind of interestingly (and minor spoiler alert here), both George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Agnes and Tobias in A Delicate Balance are dealing with the (ostensible in one case) death of a son, though their responses to the tragedy are manifestly different.

A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Delicate Balance is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Classics, an imprint of Kino Lorber, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.84:1. While generally offering a decent viewing experience, this is another variable looking presentation of an American Film Theatre offering, with some noticeable differences in clarity and detail levels. That said, this has a generally "unified" looking grainfield, without much of the pixellated, splotchy look that has occasionally afflicted some of Kino's other AFT release, though a close parsing of the screenshots accompanying this review should show the kind of mottled, rough hewn appearance this transfer offers. That said, this is often a pretty soft looking presentation, with only close-ups really providing ample amounts of fine detail. The palette also looks pretty wan and tilted toward brown some of the time. There is prevalent but minor age related damage like flecks and specks. My score is 3.25.

A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There's not a lot of "wow" to the sound design here, and so the LPCM 2.0 mono track is perfectly capable of supporting what is for all intents and purposes a "talk-fest". Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation, with no apparent signs of age related wear and tear.

A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This release repeats some of the supplements found on other Kino Blu-ray versions of the American Film Theatre series.

• Interview with Edward Albee (480i; 21:59) is a really engaging piece from 2003, with Albee unashamedly getting into his "control issues" with regard to cinematic adaptations of his plays.


• Interview with David Watkin (480i; 24:26) is another archival piece which has some interesting information on the challenges Watkin faced with this shoot.


• Interview with Edie Landau (1080i; 26:16) is an extremely engaging sit down with Ely Landau's widow, with both general background information on their producing careers as well as some fun anecdotes about American Film Theatre's relatively brief existence.


• Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera (1080i; 6:30) is a perhaps unintentionally funny promotional piece that Landau evidently filmed to show subscribers at the end of the first season. Let's just say that it's obvious what a showman Landau was from even this brief piece.


• AFT Trailers

  Butley (1080i; 2:58)

  
  

  A Delicate Balance (1080i; 3:25)

  
  

  Galileo (1080i; 3:30)

  
  

  The Homecoming (1080i; 2:36)

  
  

  The Iceman Cometh (1080i; 2:38)

  
  

  Jacques Brel is Alive and Well. . . (1080i; 3:26)

  
  

  Lost in the Stars (1080i; 2:10)

  
  

  Luther (1080i; 2:31)

  
  

  The Maids (1080i; 3:06)

  
  

  The Man in the Glass Booth (1080i; 2:44)

  
  

  Rhinoceros (1080i; 1:55)

  
  

  Three Sisters (1080i; 2:43)

A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's frankly kind of surprising to me that Albee won the Pulitzer for this play rather than Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, though the Pulitzer may have been a recognition of the playwright's titanic talents beyond one particular piece. A Delicate Balance certainly has aspects that fans of the earlier play will recognize, even if they're tweaked here in some notable ways. The performances are the real calling card here, and they make the intangible but still weirdly palpable feeling of unease that informs a lot of Albee material. Video is somewhat problematic but certainly watchable, but audio is fine and the supplements exclusive to this release are excellent. Recommended.