Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Faces of November 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.

With nary a word that can be clearly heard (by intention), Faces of November delivers a gut punch of arresting imagery, all culled from the aftermath of the devastating events of November 22, 1963. This brief but viscerally affecting piece begins and ends with gunshots, again obviously by design, but the bulk of the interior portion is shots of people reacting to things like Kennedy's funeral cortege being taken to the Capitol, or walking by his casket in the rotunda. Anyone who was alive for these events is sure to have a lump in their throat watching this footage, but even those born well after the days of "Camelot" will probably be able to feel the shock, sadness and overbearing grief that afflicted our nation.

Faces of November Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Faces of November 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

This is probably the best overall looking documentary included in this set, at least in terms of overall consistency of clarity and especially grain resolution. While there are moments of fairly chunky looking grain, especially in some shots of the sky (some filled with flags at half staff), for the most part the grain looks natural and encounters no real resolution issues. The bulk of the piece is framed either in wide shots or midrange shots, and as such fine detail can be minimal at times, but generally speaking things look fine. There is occasional damage that can be spotted, but nothing like some of the scratches seen in Primary.

Faces of November 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.

Faces in November has a rather interesting sound design, one which begins and ends with thunderous gunshots (I'm assuming from Kennedy's 21 gun salute), but which then has an almost impressionistic array of ambient environmental sounds and the kind of low level clatter of crowds. There's a brief scene of what looks like Warren Burger giving some kind of address where his muffled voice can be heard but not really be made out, but otherwise this doesn't have "dialogue", per se. Fidelity is fine, though there is some attendant hiss that can be heard in the quieter moments.

Faces of November 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.

Faces of November Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Faces of November is an extremely moving piece of filmmaking, something that's all the more remarkable given that there's no narration or even much in the way that's actually spoken in the piece. Instead, this almost dreamlike assortment of people reacting to one of the most gut wrenching tragedies imaginable manages to convey tons of emotion without one word being uttered. Technical merits are generally strong, and Faces of November comes Highly recommended.