Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Adventures on the New Frontier Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 2, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates.

You’ve probably heard of DirecTV, but have you heard of Direct Cinema? This subgenre of documentary filmmaking evidently owes its genesis, or perhaps at least its moniker, to Canadians, but among its best remembered proponents were American Robert Drew and his so-called Associates, a group which also included future documentarian luminaries D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. Drew and his cohorts revolutionized the American political documentary with a series of works that “starred” John F. Kennedy, first as a candidate in Primary, and then following him in his Presidency as he addressed various crises, including forced integration of schools. While perhaps not as pressingly “relevant” today as they were when they were originally released, the four films assembled in this set are remarkable achievements, and give a visceral peek into the freewheeling world of American politics in general and the Kennedy years in particular.

Adventures on the New Frontier sought to give a kind of “fly on the wall” account of the Kennedy presidency, and in what is probably one of its most defining characteristics, Drew was able to capture Kennedy and his confidants in the Oval Office discussing a whole host of material. The documentary actually includes a long prefatory section that is culled mostly from Primary, before moving on to the result of winning that primary (and others), not to mention the presidency itself. While some of the ruminations Kennedy goes through on a whole host of issues are undeniably fascinating, at least to armchair historians, it’s actually in some relatively tangential asides, as in John Steinbeck’s assessment of Kennedy’s inaugural address, that the documentary really gets some of its best flavor.

Adventures on the New Frontier Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Adventures on the New Frontier is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the transfers:

Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis, and Faces of November are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. These new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on a Scanity film scanner. Primary and Crisis were created from Academy Film Archive preserved 16 mm fine grain positives; Adventures on the New Frontier from an Academy Film Archive preserved 16 mm fine grain positive and the original Drew Associates 16 mm fine grain positive; and Faces of November from the original 16 mm A/B camera negative. Preservation of the three Academy Film Archive fine grain positives was done by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in collaboration with The Film Foundation. 2K digital restoration was undertaken by the Criterion Collection. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI's DRS, which Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, noise management, jitter, and flicker

As mentioned above, a lot of the opening section of Adventures on the New Frontier is lifted directly from Primary, and those sections feature some of the pretty heavily grainy and at times fairly badly damaged footage that I mentioned in our Primary Blu-ray review. When the documentary moves on to the "new" footage, there's noticeably less damage, especially in pretty much non-existent scratches, though occasional blemishes do tend to dot the proceedings. Grain is again pretty widely variable, at times resolving rather well but at other times, notably late in the piece in some interior scenes, looking noticeably chunky. Detail levels again are somewhat variable as well, depending on framings and even mundane things like focus pulling. As with some others in this set, there's occasional observable flicker. My score is 3.75.

Adventures on the New Frontier Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

All of the documentaries included in this release feature LPCM Mono tracks. Criterion's insert booklet contains the following information on the tracks:

The original monaural soundtracks were remastered at 24-bit. Primary was remastered from a 16mm magnetic track; Adventures on the New Frontier from a 16mm optical soundtrack print; Faces of November from a 35mm optical soundtrack print; Faces of November from a 35 mm optical soundtrack print; and Crisis from the original 35 mm soundtrack negative. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX 4.

While there are some amplitude differences in this track as there are in Primary, this has a lot of narration, which comes through very clearly and is always prioritized on top of the "background clatter". Some of the on the fly discussions are a bit hard to make out, at times because participants evidently didn't want to be heard. There's no real damage to report, and the repeated use of "Hail to the Chief" as a musical calling card of sorts sounds fine. My score is 3.75.

Adventures on the New Frontier Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements directly tied to this film. See our The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Blu-ray review for some of the supplements offered on the disc.

Adventures on the New Frontier Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This doesn't quite have the impact of Primary, but for those interested in the day to day machinations of the Kennedy White House, this may well be ummissable. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.