7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.7 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Longing to burst free from the repression of British upper class manners and mores, Lucy Honeychurch must wrestle with her inner romantic longings to choose between the passionate George and the priggish but socially suitable Cecil. A brilliant adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel.
Starring: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-LewisDrama | 100% |
Romance | 72% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.67:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
James Ivory's "A Room with a View" (1985) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; new interviews with director James Ivory, cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts, costume designer John Bright, and cast members; and an excerpt from an archival episode of NBC Nightly News. The release also arrives with an illustrated leaflet featuring critic and author John Pym's essay "English Hearts and Italian Sunshine". In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
Surprise, surprise
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, James Ivory's A Room with a View arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the leaflet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"A Room with a View is presented in the director's preferred aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Supervised by director James Ivory and cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts, this new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative. It's believed that when the negative was originally processed, it was removed from the final "fixation" bath too soon, resulting in chroma hue shifting across the entire feature. Frames were slightly different even within the same shot, causing distracting color imbalances. The restoration process involved the manual removal of thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps using MTI's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used to address the chroma hue shifting, small dirt, grain, noise management, flicker, and jitter.
The original 2.0 surround soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the 35mm magnetic tracks. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation, and iZotope RX 4. Please be sure to enable Dolby Pro Logic decoding on your receiver to properly play the Dolby 2.0 surround soundtrack.
Transfer supervisors: James Ivory, Tony Pierce-Roberts, Lee Kline.
Color grading: Stephen Bearman/Deluxe Digital London.
Scanning: Goldcrest, New York."
The film looks very healthy and enormously lush and vibrant. Rather predictably, the outdoor footage boasts striking depth and clarity, but the darker/indoor footage is also wonderfully balanced and natural. Contrast levels remain stable. Some partial traces of the chroma hue shifting mentioned in the quoted text above might be possible to spot during a few of the daylight sequences, but I could not see any anomalies to report in our review. (A whiff of the chroma shift appears to be present in the upper end of screencapture #11). Generally speaking, colors are stable, impressively saturated, and natural. There are no traces of compromising degraining or sharpening adjustments. Transitions are excellent and there are no distracting warps or edge flicker. Debris, cuts, damage marks, and stains have been removed as best as possible. All in all, this is a very beautiful restoration of A Room with a View which should remain its definitive presentation on the home video market. My score is 4.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.
Clarity, depth and balance are excellent. Richard Robbins' soundtrack effortlessly enhances the period atmosphere, but it never feels like it was mixed to impress. It is just part of the overall experience the film offers. The dialog is stable, clean, and exceptionally easy to follow. There are no audio dropouts, pops, or digital distortions to report in our review.
I've always found it difficult to like A Room with a View for the same reasons most people admire it. I do understand what makes it attractive -- it is a very beautiful film -- but I find its elegance too sterile and the majority of its characters unbearably dishonest. The film ends with a positive message, but it isn't difficult to imagine that in Edwardian England young women like Lucy rarely walked away from their safe choices. Most of them had to settle for someone like Cecil Vyse and then endure a life of awful compromises. Naturally, I think that as a condemnation of the system that tolerated the dishonesty the film is far more effective. Criterion's new Blu-ray release is sourced from a brand new 4K restoration of A Room with a View that should remain its definitive presentation on the home video market. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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Matrimonio all'italiana
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