7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
A documentary about two pet cemeteries in Northern California and the people involved with them. The film details our relationships to our pets, each other, and ourselves.
Director: Errol MorrisDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of
Gates of Heaven / Vernon, Florida.
Errol Morris remains one of the most distinctive voices in the annals of contemporary documentary film, and in a way it’s maybe just a little
surprising
that it took him until 2003 to finally win an Academy Award, an Oscar bestowed for his riveting piece on a former Secretary of Defense in the John
F. Kennedy and
Lyndon B. Johnson
adminstrations, The Fog of
War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. This appealing release from The Criterion Collection aggregates two of Morris’
early pieces, including Gates of Heaven, the film
which
initially brought him considerable attention and which famously led to the inimitable Werner Herzog literally eating his shoe as part of a bet he
made
with Morris to encourage Morris to get his film made despite any funding or other production obstacles (the Blu-ray disc includes a nice
supplementary
documentary detailing Herzog’s “adventures in cuisine”). If one of Morris’ most famous pieces, The Thin Blue Line is, along with the McNamara documentary, probably accurately perceived as
having a noticeable point of view, both of the films in this set are kind of curious “fly on the wall” offerings whose only “perspective” may be the
general sense of disbelief that people like the ones found in both of these pieces actually exist. Gates of Heaven has more of a
narrative thrust than Vernon, Florida (as will be discussed in the reviews of each film), but together they make for a hugely entertaining if
often downright weird viewing experience.
The accordion style foldout included with this release (in lieu of an insert booklet) lumps both films together in its verbiage about the transfers:
Gates of Heaven is presented in the director's preferred 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. Vernon, Florida is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 [sic]. On standard 4:3 televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On standard and widescreen televisions, black bars may also be visible on the left and right to maintain the proper screen format. Supervised by director Errol morris, these new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on Lasergraphics film scanner from 35 mm color reversal internegatives. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise management.I was actually kind of surprised to read this and its "sibling" on this released were sourced from CRIs, since the color here is actually rather good, all things considered. The element does still show occasional signs of damage (watch at the very beginning for a kind of orange bleached streak running down the right side of the frame), but detail levels are quite commendable, helped by Morris' tendency to frame things either with close-ups or midrange shots. Grain generally resolves naturally, but can occasionally look a bit on the gritty side (see screenshot 15).
Criterion's accordion style fold out contains the following verbiage on the soundtracks for both films in this set:
The original monaural soundtracks were remastered at 24 bit from the 35 mm magnetic tracks. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated worstation, and iZotope RX 4.Gates of Heaven features an LPCM Mono track that offers good support for the many first person confessionals that make up the bulk of this piece, but also for some rather nice music that shows up late in the film courtesy of one of the sons in the family operating a pet cemetery, a guy who is very gifted guitar player and is shown playing a couple of tunes (one on acoustic, one on electric). Fidelity is fine and there are no problems with dropouts, distortion or other damage.
Some pet lovers may join me in thinking "the rainbow bridge was never like this" as they watch this intriguing piece from Errol Morris. Both moving and at times rather unexpectedly hilarious (some of the comments from a guy running a rendering facility are unbelievable), Gates of Heaven may have you snuggling with your "fur babies" a little more closely. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplements very enjoyable. Highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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