6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Based on Pat Conroy’s memoir about his difficult if uplifting days as a teacher on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina. The idealistic young Conroy (Jon Voight) finds a largely illiterate population of black children, ill-equipped for life in the outside world; he determines to help them, combining love, energy, and sheer imagination in an extraordinary effort to pique their burgeoning interest in life off-island.
Starring: Jon Voight, Paul Winfield, Madge Sinclair, Tina Andrews, Antonio FargasDrama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Martin Ritt was a director who was not shy about wearing his rather liberal heart on his sleeve. While some of his films evince a trenchant cynicism (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), many of Ritt’s films from the late sixties through the late seventies looked at several hot button issues like the treatment of Native Americans (Hombre), race relations (The Great White Hope, which couched the subject in a biographical context), workers’ rights (The Molly Maguires), the plight of poor Southern blacks (Sounder), the Hollywood blacklist (The Front), and workers’ rights (again), this time with an emphasis on unionization (Norma Rae). It’s easy to see, then, why Conrack appealed to Ritt—it’s an unabashedly sentimental film that depicts the heroic efforts of a young teacher named Pat Conroy (Jon Voigt) to educate a group of isolated black students who have lived their entire lives on an island off the South Carolina coast without having learned even the most rudimentary of subjects like counting or the alphabet. It’s the sentimentalism that gets in Conrack’s way, though, and is perhaps unexpected from a director who tended to deal more in a kind of truculent approach that as often as not seemed to be figuratively asking the audience, “Can you not see how unjust this situation is?” Conrack is often a moving film, but it’s also problematic at times, casting characters in black or white categories, certainly an ironic situation considering the film’s potent subtext of the inequalities suffered by the indigenous population of the fictionalized Yamacraw Island (the film was based on Pat Conroy’s memoir The Water is Wide).
Conrack is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.37:1. While this is generally a very pleasing looking high definition presentation, there are some minor contrast fluctuations that affect the dimly lit interior scenes at times. Otherwise, though, colors are well saturated and accurate looking, and close-ups and midrange shots are decently detailed. The overall look of the film isn't overly "sharp" in today's parlance, but this is a faithful recreation of the often diffused lighting style that Ritt and Alonzo opted for in the film. There is absolutely no sign of either denoising or digital sharpening and this transfer retains a very natural organic appearance.
Conrack features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (mono) mix which captures the film's dialogue, ambient environmental effects, and John Williams' almost Randy Newman-esque folksy score with excellent fidelity. There's not a whale of a lot of depth here, but things are well prioritized and the track has no issues of any kind to report.
Conrack, maybe a little like its titular teacher, may try just a little too hard to win over its audience. Ritt really wears his heart on his sleeve in this outing, without the more cynical subtext that sometimes informed his other more caustic outings. The film provides a great showcase for Voigt, who is extremely lovable in the title role, but it may be Sinclair's work that will remain with many viewers the longest. There's an almost palpable feel for the time and place of the story, and, while a bit hackneyed in its tone and execution, Conrack's heart is obviously in the right place and its intent is purely noble. Recommended.
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