6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
An impressionistic and musical meditation on a pets death with prelude by the artist Laurie Anderson, who enjoyed a very deep relationship with her dog, with following soundtrack.
Starring: Laurie Anderson, Julian SchnabelDocumentary | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
You may have heard of Keyboard Cat, a YouTube “phenomenon” whose original “performance” has racked up literally tens of millions of views on that site. However, Keyboard Cat is evidently not the only “piano playing animal” in the universe (taking into consideration, of course, that Keyboard Cat may not in fact really be playing), at least as evidenced by parts of Heart of a Dog, Laurie Anderson’s alternately gonzo and profound exploration of issues surrounding death and perhaps less drastic transitions, all within the frame of a remembrance of her beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle. Anyone familiar with Laurie Anderson may already be aware of how this multimedia performance artist has always tended to push the envelope in various ways. What has made Anderson such an enduring presence, though, is not just her often bracingly acute way of looking at things, but the fact that she doesn’t seem to be taking herself all that seriously, at least in the sometimes smug, self important way that “artists” (or perhaps more accurately “artistes”) can. That at least relatively unpretentious and maybe even self effacing quality really helps elevate Heart of a Dog, a film that should appeal instantly to "dog lovers" (like yours truly), but should also speak to anyone who has experienced love and loss.
Heart of a Dog is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.78:1. The insert booklet contains the following information on the transfer:
Heart of a Dog is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. On standard 4:3 televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On widescreen televisions, the image should fill the screen. The majority of the footage in this film was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II; additional footage was shot using an iPhone, a GoPro HERO3 Silver Edition, and a Parrot AR Drone 2.0. The opening animation sequence was hand drawn by director Laurie Anderson, shot frame by frame on the Canon 5D, and animated in After Effects. Final color correction was done using DaVinci Resolve 11. The production was completed in a fully digital workflow.With an understanding that this is a typically dense and intentionally heterogeneous looking offering from Anderson, Criterion has provided another excellent transfer. The film has a huge variety of visual styles, including some brief animated sequences, and a ton of tweaked, distressed looking imagery. That, coupled with what looks almost like 8mm or 16mm home movies, can keep fine detail at bay at times, though there are really sharp and precise looking moments as well, as in the crosshatched animation that starts the film (see screenshot 3). Close-ups of various animals can also provide abundant fine detail in terms of things like fur and even little blemishes on their noses, but some of the footage seems to have had its aspect ratio either squeezed or broadened, another stylistic tweak that Anderson seems to like to indulge in. There is both color and black and white imagery here, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying the review. The black and white imagery is often quite lustrous looking, with gorgeously deep blacks and a good accounting of gray scale. Some of the color imagery can look a bit blanched, something else I'm assuming was by design. Though the presentation here is progressive, it's obvious that some of the footage was culled from an interlaced source and can have "baked in" combing artifacts, and some other footage looks upscaled, with some noticeable "stair stepping" (see screenshots 18 and 19 for a couple of examples of these issues).
The film features a fully digital soundtrack. The 5.1 surround audio for this release was mastered from the original digital audio master files using Pro Tools HD.
Heart of a Dog features two soundtracks, one in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 which offers the original HBO version with music and narration, and another track, perhaps unfortunately presented only in lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, that removes the music but keeps other elements intact. That "perhaps unfortunately" hedges a bit because the track is rather unusual, whether it has music or not, in that aside from Anderson's near ubiquitous voice and some ambient environmental effects (which are relatively plentiful), there's not a ton "to" the sound mix, and so a lossy offering may well suffice even for some audiophiles. The lossless track with music is quite interesting, with regular engagement of the surround channels, though Anderson's voice tends to remain front and center throughout. There are some minor variances in audio quality when archival video with its attendant audio is utilized, but fidelity is fine throughout and there are no signs of any overt damage or distortion.
- "What the Mind Sees - Secret Pictures of the Tibetan Sky" (1080i; 1:47)
- "On the Way to Jerusalem" (1080i; 1:06)
Some Anderson fans may be aware of a 1993 documentary called The Sensual Nature of Sound, a piece which explored the lives and work of four (then) New York based female composers, including Anderson and Meredith Monk. Anderson and Monk have always (maybe strangely) been linked in my personal mind, for reasons I can't really explain, other than that I caught videos of each of them for the first time probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s within quick succession of each other. Like Monk, Anderson loves to stretch our preconceived notions of what a "movie", "video" or even a "concert performance" might mean, and Heart of a Dog is a kind of sweet but at times melancholic rumination on life and death (and dogs) that may not in fact be a traditional "film" or "documentary", but which has a rather bracing and even supercharged intellectualism at its core that helps to anchor sometimes freewheeling imagery. This won't be a release for everyone, but for Anderson fans, Criterion has provided a worthy release with excellent technical merits and some interesting supplements. Recommended.
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