Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie Review

A star is manufactured.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 13, 2011

There’s a salient lesson about the vagaries of fame in the music business in Breaking Glass, and it’s not just the one actually portrayed in the film. This 1980 film might be subtitled A Rock Star is Born, and it portrays the rise and fall of a neo-punk Kate, a sort of distaff version of the “angry young man” who populated British films a generation earlier than Breaking Glass’ depiction of the underground London music scene. But the really salient lesson about the vagaries of fame in the music business has to do with Breaking Glass’ star, Hazel O’Connor. Many of you are probably asking “Hazel who?,” but at the time of Breaking Glass’s release O’Connor was a much talked about singer-songwriter, one who had at least a couple of major chart hits from the Breaking Glass soundtrack, and many expected her to be a worldwide sensation. In fact when she toured in support of her first smash singles, there was a little known band that was thrilled to be her opening act. That band? Duran Duran. While O’Connor proved to be something of a flash in the pan, in both her music career and her nascent film and television performances, Duran Duran of course went on to a long run of huge album and single sales and did in fact become a worldwide sensation. (It's more than a little ironic that Duran Duran spearheaded a New Wave movement which was pretty antithetical to O'Connor's proto-punk leanings). Breaking Glass was similarly at least a minor sensation when it was released and it managed to get a screening at 1980’s Cannes Film Festival, albeit outside of competition. Looking at it now from the vantage point of thirty years, it’s an interesting if pretty predictable dissection of rock superstardom, one made compelling mostly by its fascinating recreation (or creation, since it was filmed at the time these cultural aspects were colliding) of the intersection of punk and more right wing elements like neo-Nazis and skinheads. While the “here today, gone tomorrow” aspect of the music business is alluded to, the U.S. cut of the film included on this Blu-ray cheats the audience by omitting a key scene which ended the original British version of the film and which makes the precipitous descent of O’Connor’s character Kate more chilling than the questionable and ambiguous freeze frame which ends the film in this version.

Kate is a struggling singer-writer in London’s bristling underground scene, and in fact as the film starts, she’s literally underground, singing directly to the camera while riding a subway. Breaking Glass repeatedly breaks the fourth wall that way, and while the bulk of those elements are in concert sequences, it gives the film a very visceral feel where viewers may feel Kate is about to reach through the screen and throttle them for their perceived Bourgeois tendencies. Kate meets Danny (Phil Daniels) in an alleyway where she’s busy plastering up posters advertising her upcoming performances. Danny is a grunt working for an agent, consigned to such tasks as buying hundreds of singles by the agent’s latest artist signee in order to guarantee some chart action. Danny of course wants some action of his own and he senses in Kate a kindred spirit, and one with some protean gifts which he can mold into rock superstardom.

Breaking Glass is almost completely predictable in its portrayal of a hardscrabble artist who comes up from the streets to attain success. The film alludes to Britain's then recent "winter of our discontent" as the neo-socialist government's economic failures were just giving way to the ultra-right wing Thatcherites. We have a long, at times just slightly melodramatic, sequence of events where Kate gets a new band (courtesy of Danny), goes on the road, falls in love with Danny, and manages to wow a crowd where Danny has managed to have a number of music industry bigwigs in attendance. Guess what happens next? Yup—that multimillion dollar record contract that every wannabe rock star dreams of. The film doesn’t exactly break new ground in its portrayal of the next phase of Kate’s career, when she’s “made over” into a rock goddess, supposedly signing away her artistic soul to those heartless bean counters who want Top 10 hits by the bushel full.

The film may be a bit trite in its overarching story and its cut and paste plot elements, but in some of the details it’s really quite interesting. Breaking Glass is one of the most compelling depictions of late-70’s early-80’s England in contemporary film, at least with regard to the youth culture and several disparate cultural elements which were literally smashing into each other in the city’s burgeoning nightclubs. Anarchists like Kate, with their left leaning sensibilities, are at cross purposes with the city’s violent ultra-right jackboot wearing skinheads who may love Kate’s music but can’t stand her “namby pamby” politics. It’s in this clash (no punk pun intended) of societal factors where Breaking Glass really comes fully alive and offers its most compelling vision to viewers.

Fans of the film may be disturbed to find out that this Blu-ray is the edited U.S. version which cuts a key sequence which provided the film with a chilling coda. When Kate takes the stage in a drug induced zombie-like performance (made up to look like a character out of Tron), this version simply ends with a questioning freeze frame that accomplishes nothing and actually creates more questions than anything. In the original British version, Kate suffers a harrowing (if briefly depicted) breakdown, followed by an equally brief rapprochement with Danny. Why some film executive bean counters thought that this version was preferable is anyone’s guess, but it deprives the film of a suitable wrap up to a story which may not have any ultimate winners, but which doesn’t need to have this bizarre truncated ending which casts Kate as the ultimate loser.

Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Breaking Glass arrives on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is a dark and gritty film which was filmed under verité conditions and shows it. The film is quite grainy most of the time, with a soft and not especially well saturated image. A lot of the dark scenes are hobbled by fairly bad crush, and the grain is so omnipresent in some scenes that the darker sequences tend to drift toward digital noise territory. Contrast is often quite low, though some scenes seem to indicate it was pushed slightly, giving a slightly effulgent glow to some lighting sources. Olive Films, as is its wont, has done absolutely no restoration or digital scrubbing of the print. What that means is that DNR-phobes have nothing to complain about with this release. What that also means is there is a fair amount of specks, flecks, dirt and other damage which dots the frame pretty consistently.

Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Somewhat surprisingly, Breaking Glass's lossless LPCM 2.0 soundtrack doesn't really bristle with much energy, and in fact sounds kind of narrow and boxy a lot of the time. There are some synch issues, and not only with regard to the musical performances, which tend to point to this film having undergone some serious post dubbing, which may account for some of the anomalies. While O'Connor's music sounds at least acceptable, it never really bursts forth the way it should, and while the low end is there, it certainly isn't at head banging levels. Dialogue fares quite a bit better, with good to very good fidelity. Everything plays out within a very narrow soundfield but most elements are prioritized well and while this track never really reaches for the stars, it manages to at least get airborne a time or two.

Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are presented on this bare bones release.

Breaking Glass Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hazel O'Connor may have never become the lasting star critics expected her to be, but Breaking Glass proves that she was a force to be reckoned with, and she gives a remarkable performance in the film. Her music is similarly compelling, alternately rage filled and lyrical. The film itself never quite gets to the intensity of O'Connor herself, and she seems like a soul adrift in a too traditional scenario that plays like a B-movie version of A Star is Born. Even more troubling is the use of the edited U.S. version of the film, which literally just ends with no rhyme or reason. Still the film does offer some great peeks at what that time in the underground London music scene must have been like, so fans of punk may want to check it out for that reason if for nothing else.