7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
In 1917 California farm country, two brothers contend for the favor of their strict, Bible-quoting father. Unbeknownst to the father, the wife who left him when the boys were small has returned to the nearby town, where she now runs a successful brothel.
Starring: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey (I), Burl Ives, Richard DavalosDrama | 100% |
Period | 18% |
Coming of age | 12% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.55:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 3.0
German: Dolby Digital 3.0
Italian: Dolby Digital 3.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono (Spain)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Czech: Dolby Digital Mono
Polish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
(Note: This review is based on the James Dean Ultimate Collector's Edition, which contains the same Blu-ray disc with different packaging.) James Dean's status as a cultural icon extends far beyond the three films he made in his brief career. Of those three, Rebel Without a Cause remains the best known, but the critical consensus holds that East of Eden contains Dean's finest screen performance. Part of the success of Dean's work as Cal Trask, the angrily inarticulate son of a California farmer, is due to the perfect match between actor and role. Upon first meeting Dean, novelist John Steinbeck, who based the character on one of his brothers, is reported to have exclaimed, "My God, he is Cal!" But certainly major credit for Dean's performance must go to director Elia Kazan, who picked Dean for the part (over another unknown named Paul Newman), then steered him through production as he steered so many other actors through legendary performances on the screen and stage. East of Eden was one of Steinbeck's most successful novels, a sprawling and complex story set in the Salinas Valley of Northern California where Steinbeck grew up. Kazan had screenwriter Paul Osborn (The Yearling) adapt the latter portion of the book, which transposed the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel to 1917. As many of his fans have observed, Steinbeck had a unique gift for reinventing grand old tales in contemporary and ordinary circumstances (or so they seemed), as if these familiar stories were happening next door. But in Steinbeck's hands, what started out as ordinary assumed mythic proportions. The challenge for a film adapation was to find a visual equivalent to Steinbeck's narrative voice that would make the story resonate with honest emotion instead of descending into melodrama. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Ford used stark black-and-white imagery and the solemn, open face of Henry Fonda (among other things). In East of Eden, Kazan used Dean's unique energy, which literally bursts off the screen, to suggest the larger dimensions of a conflict that extends far beyond one family, one father and one pair of brothers.
Kazan requested Warner cinematographer Ted McCord, whose versatility extended from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to The Sound of Music, to shoot East of Eden in the format then known as "Cinemascope". McCord's widescreen vistas of the Salinas Valley, as well as the streets of Monterey (and portions of Mendocino, standing in for Monterey), are essential to the sense of place and time that give East of Eden its feel of authenticity. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, created from a 4k scan of the original camera negative restored by MPI, Warner's on-site post house, reveals depth, detail and luster that haven't been seen in East of Eden probably since the original release prints. The subtleties of the colors, especially the predominant green of Salinas, but also the earth tones of the Trask household and the bright lights of the carnival visited by Cal, Aron and Abra, are noteworthy, but so too are the blacks and dark shadows of Kate's establishment, either deserted in daylight or in full swing at night. (Kate herself prefers solitude in her office.) The sequence of townspeople marching in celebration after the U.S. declares war on Germany pops with patriotic hues, but darker tones prevail when the citizens turn on one of their own who emigrated from Germany and is now treated as a symbol of the enemy. The only flaw in the presentation is a slight and occasional hiccup at dissolves between scenes, presumably as a result of MPI's efforts to maintain image quality while simulating electronically an effect that, in 1955, would have been achieved optically. It's a minor flaw that many viewers will not notice. A fine but unobtrusive grain pattern is visible throughout. MPI is one of the top facilities in film restoration. One would not expect to encounter noise reduction, high frequency filtering or artificial sharpening, and I saw none. Nor did I encounter any compression-related issues. This is a gorgeous, film-like image.
East of Eden was released in both mono (optical) and four-track stereo (magnetic) formats. The Blu-ray features a 5.1 remix prepared for Warner's 2005 special edition DVD, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA. Although the multi-channel format allows for a full-bodied presence, the mix remains largely front-oriented, which is to be expected for a film of this era. The sophisticated sound editing registers with genuine impact, e.g., the racket caused by the ice blocks that Cal impulsively dumps from an ice house in a rage over witnessing his brother and Abra in a romantic moment, or the din in the bar at Kate's establishment. The dialogue is always clear, even with Dean deliberately muttering many of Cal's lines. The film score by Leonard Rosenman, his first after his friend James Dean recommended him to Kazan, is the ideal complement to Dean's performance; it's direct and unsubtle, but there's nothing trite about it. The Blu-ray track's presentation has good fidelity and remarkably broad dynamic range for a 1955 recording. (Rosenman would later win Oscars for Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory.)
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2005 two-disc special edition of East of Eden.
Even if East of Eden weren't notable for being James Dean's screen debut, it would still be a worthy film for its effective adaptation of a major work by a Nobel Prize-winning author and its searing portrayal of sibling competition for the love and approval of a stern partriarch. Combine all these elements with the breakthrough performance of a unique talent that was cut short just as its owner was beginning to explore where it might lead him, and you have one of the essential works of American cinema. Warner has provided a superior treatment on Blu-ray. Highly recommended.
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