7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In Genoa in 1943, Emanuele Bardone is a rascal and swindler pretending to be a colonel in the Italian army in order to extort money from the families of people jailed by the Nazis. Once caught, the Gestapo bargain with him: he will stay alive if he agrees to impersonate Generale Della Rovere, a leader of the Resistance who the Nazis have just shot. They propose to put him in a political prison where he will then identify another Resistance leader.
Starring: Vittorio De Sica, Hannes Messemer, Sandra Milo, Giovanna Ralli, Anne VernonForeign | 100% |
Drama | 20% |
War | 2% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
By 1959, a decade and change after he made his name with the neorealist war movies Rome, Open City and Paisan, Roberto Rossellini
was in both a creative peak and a commercial slump. His five domestic Euro-dramas with star-turned-mistress-turned-wife Ingrid Bergman were
compelling but nonetheless box office failures, and he had just returned from India after simultaneously shooting a breathtaking 10-part documentary
miniseries and a still underseen narrative film, India Matri Buhmi. As the director's one-time assistant and protege François Truffaut put it—in
his essay, "Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life"—"In the end, Rossellini's work is accepted by the public and the critics only when it is about the war."
As an illustration, Truffaut offers Il Generale della Rovere, Rossellini's "only recent success," which won the Golden Lion prize at the 1959
Venice
Film Festival. Superficially, the film would appear to be Rossellini's return to his neorealist roots—it's set during the war, and it even stars fellow
neorealist Vittorio De Sica, director of Bicycle Thieves—but on closer examination, Il Generale della Rovere knowingly embraces a
heightened sense of artificiality in a sly commentary on how fictions can be just as powerful as truths.
Charmer
When the Criterion Collection's DVD of Il Generale della Rovere suddenly went out of print not too long ago, it was sure sign that another
distributor
had picked up the release rights. That distributor was RaroVideo, and their Blu-ray release, billed as a "new HD transfer from original 35mm negative,"
may be divisive because of how Raro has opted to matte the film. Or not matte it, rather. To preserve all of the image captured in-
camera, Raro has windowboxed the 1.37:1 frame—including the rounded corners of the film gate—inside a 1.78:1 container, leaving some black space on
the top and bottom along with the black bars you'd expect on the sides of the frame. Criterion's DVD was windowboxed too, it should be noted,
and it was also slightly cropped to remove the round corners, losing some detail from all four sides of the picture in the process. Raro's transfer,
then, is a more complete reproduction of the 1.37:1 image captured on the original negative, but there might be some who argue that the film
should be presented on video as it was most likely projected in European theaters—in 1.66:1.
It's a question of both directorial intent and viewer preference, and opinions are sure to be varied. (You could even argue that presenting the image
rounded-corners-and-all, which suggests the artifice of moviemaking, is appropriate to the film's themes of truth and fiction at odds and at one.) Sticking
with what can be objectively described, however, Raro's high definition presentation of the film has more pros than cons. The level of detail, as you'd
hope, has been greatly improved from Criterion's standard definition edition, with finer textures visible not only in the actors' faces and clothing, but also
in the film's 35mm grain structure, which is unhindered here by any digital noise reduction or other filtering. The image's grayscale has been balanced
nicely as well—with no crushed shadows or blown out highlights—and print damage is limited to small specks and the occasional hairs stuck to the edge of
the gate.
The only oddity in this "Director's Cut" remaster is that the scenes not present (or not fully present) in the theatrical version come from a
different source—a safety positive—that's significantly lower in quality. Contrast is flatter, grain is much heavier, and there are some strange digital-
looking pulsations in four or five of the prison scenes, where macroblocking is visible in the background grain patterns. In the supplementary materials,
restoration specialist Aldo Strappini describes the difficult work entailed in getting these two sources to match as closely as possible—including a good deal
of digital repair work—so it's likely that not much more could be done here. Overall, though, if you can get past the framing and the noticeable dips in
appearance during the six minutes of director's cut material, Il Generale della Rovere is a pleasure to watch on Blu-ray.
Less controversial is the disc's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track, which—barring an occasional low-level, barely noticeable hiss—is entirely free from distractions or quality issues. The Italian and German dialogue is clear and well-balanced, and the foreboding score from Rossellini's brother, Renzo—who scored many of the director's films, including Paisan, Germany Year Zero, and Rome, Open City—sounds wonderful. The disc includes optional English subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.
Though dealing with the same subject matter of his earlier, neorealist films, Roberto Rossellini's Il Generale della Rovere embraces an intentional blending of artifice and reality, with soundstage sets, rear projection sequences, and repurposed newsreel footage from the war, all of which works together to to complement the story's theme of truth and fiction in conflict. Anchoring the film is a rascally charming—and, ultimately, moving— performance from Rossellini's former neorealist compatriot actor/filmmaker Vittorio de Sica (Bicycle Thieves), in one of his best roles. RaroVideo's high definition presentation may prove controversial to some—because of its windowboxed framing—but it easily bests Criterion's now-out-of-print DVD. Additionally, the disc includes nearly two hours of supplementary material, including interviews and a thoughtful video essay. Recommended!
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