Corsage Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Corsage Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 18, 2023

The mysterious and complex life of Hapsburg Empress Elisabeth of Austria has produced various biographies as well as diverse films and TV series. In 1936, Josef von Sternberg directed the Columbia musical The King Steps Out, which starred Grace Moore as Princess Elisabeth. Romy Schneider not only portrayed "Sissi" (as Elisabeth was known) in a trilogy produced in the mid to late 1950s, but also reprised the role in Ludwig (1973), Visconti's four-hour epic about the Bavarian king. In the last few years, the German miniseries Sissi has chronicled Elisabeth's life through the perspective of her closest confidants. Director Marie Kreutzer's fictional biopic Corsage (2022) focuses on one year of her reign as empress when she was unhappily married to Emperor Franz Joseph I (Florian Teichtmeister). The film is set in 1877 when Elisabeth (Vicky Krieps) turns forty, the age at which “a person begins to disperse and fade,” as she describes in the film. Elisabeth yearns for more agency and independence in her life as an aristocrat. She has grown tired of the traditional royal duties. For example, she seems to faint intentionally when she's given a customary greeting by a large group after stepping out of a carriage. In addition, she gives the middle finger to her husband and guests, and then abruptly departs this royal dinner. She takes trips to Bavaria and Northamptonshire, including a party she attends at the English estate of María Christina of the Two Sicilies (Lilly Marie Tschörtner). Elisabeth develops a friendship with Louis Le Prince (Finnegan Oldfield), a fictional character who invented the motion picture camera. When she appears to have a budding romance with riding instructor Bay Middleton (Colin Morgan), her son Rudolf (Aaron Friesz) notices. Rudof is very loyal to his father and concerned about the long-term effects that a tryst could have on his parents' marriage and, more importantly, the royal family. Elisabeth also observes Franz flirting with a much younger woman. She seems to release her frustration when she takes up fencing.

Kreutzer fills Corsage with several anachronisms. For example, there are metal panic bars on doors at the exits of one of the spacious rooms. In addition, there are songs heard from another century. (These are briefly discussed in the "Audio" section.) Furthermore, the royal physician recommends to Elisabeth that she take heroin to alleviate her physical ailments. Heroin was not introduced until over two decades later. While I admire Kreutzer's attempt to make an unconventional biopic, I thought she could have gone bolder in her narrative choices for Elisabeth. For instance, she could have elaborated on how Elisabeth was such a fashion trailblazer. Since Kreutzer invents a climatic event that actually did not happen, she could have conceived other fictional instances about how Elisabeth goes to battle with a male-dominated world and how she asserts her own authority.

Corsage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

IFC Films has released Corsage on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25 (disc size: 23.96 GB). The movie appears in its original exhibition ratio of 2.39:1. The Eastman Kodak Co. website did a feature on cinematographer Judith Kaufmann, detailing her and Kreutzer's decision to use KODAK 35mm film. "The choice of shooting on 35mm film was neither faddish nor a gesture of opposition against the prevalence of digital cinematography," the Kodak site quotes Kaufmann. "Rather it was because there are unique qualities to the celluloid image, especially the richness of skin tones and the depth of colors, which you cannot readily create with digital. Another beauty of film comes from the smoothing softness of the grain, and the greater latitude of exposure in highlights and shadows, and we both felt they were of the greatest importance to this production." According to the site, Kaufmann shot Corsage in 3-perf utilizing an ARRICAM LT camera with Leitz Summilux spherical lenses. Vienna-based ARRI supplied the camera and lighting package. Kaufmann chose KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 and VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 5213 for the majority of the shoot. She also used EASTMAN DOUBLE-X Black & White Negative Film 5222 for the scenes in which Elisabeth is filmed by her friend Louis Le Prince (see Screenshot #20). Film processing was conducted at Studio L'Équipe in Brussels. Kodak states that the film was scanned in 4K. The DI grade was completed at ARRI Munich with final colorist Traudl Nicholson. Kaufmann filmed in the Hofburg and Schönbrunn Palaces in Vienna as well as the castle and town of Eckartsau in Lower Austria. Additional filming took place at the castles in Luxembourg and a villa in France. Kaufmann also shot historic sites around Belgium and the city of Ancona, on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

IFC's transfer does a solid job of reproducing the granularity of the Kodak film. The lay viewer should be able to discern from this transfer that the picture was shot on 35mm and not digital. Technical authoring and compression could have been better, though. The movie lasts nearly two hours and would have benefited from a BD-50 and a much higher bitrate. IFC has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of only 20994 kbps. Still, viewers will appreciate the sumptuous landscapes and wide panoramic shots that Kaufmann lenses. Red and lavender have a nice sheen to them.

IFC includes eight chapter stops, which can only be skipped to while the film is playing. No scene selections are included on the menu.

Corsage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dialogue on the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (3335 kbps, 24-bit) is spoken in German, Hungarian, French, English, and Italian dialects. There's an audible difference in pitch when words are delivered in Hungarian and German compared to when they're uttered in English, for instance. I had a rather hard time clearly hearing all the English dialogue so I turned the volume up quite high. Varying pitch levels may have been intended by the sound design team but I felt that music and f/x were clearly the most well-pronounced on the sound track. There are musical pieces by Beethoven and Hayden, but also anachronistic ballads. For instance, Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" is played on a ukulele. A harpist delivers a rendition of the Rolling Stones' "As Tears Go By" for a royal gathering. There's also an original score by Camille. (Fifteen minutes of Camille's music appears on the digital album.) Footsteps are nicely accented in the royal halls.

Regular English subtitles, English SDH, and French subs can be selected while watching the feature. The subs appear in a white font that's a little smaller than what studios typically include on their subtitle tracks. They are legible and readable, though.

Corsage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes of Corsage: The Corset (2:02, 1080p) - Vicky Krieps explains what it was like to wear the corset and also its symbolism in the film. This mixes in clips. In English, not subtitled.

• Behind the Scenes of Corsage: On Playing Empress Sisi (0:38, 1080p) - Krieps very briefly explains and describes her character of Elisabeth. In English, not subtitled.

• Behind the Scenes of Corsage: The Mystery of Empress Sisi (0:33, 1080p) - Marie Kreutzer and Krieps tell a little bit about the empress. In English, not subtitled.

• Bonus Trailers (1:47, 1080p) - trailers for Undine, Official Competition, and Benedetta. These load in succession prior to Corsage's menu.

Corsage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Corsage is an unorthodox biopic that I wish would have taken bolder steps to develop Elisabeth's character more than it does. It will appeal to fans of Marie Antoinette (2006), The Favourite (2018), and Spencer (2021). IFC's Blu-ray is a pretty standard edition with a very good 2K transfer and a good lossless audio track. Extras consist of minimal EPK mini-featurettes. RECOMMENDED.