Jacob Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Jacob Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 6, 2017

Note: This film is available as part of the box set The Bible Stories Collection.

That oft quoted adage “the book was better” might never be more appropriate than in adaptations culled from the Bible. How can mere mortals hope to compete with what many believe is a Divinely inspired collection of writings? That of course hasn’t stopped a lot of mere mortals from trying, and Biblical stories have been a staple of first film and, later, television outings virtually from the time these media were invented. While the big screen Biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s were often kind of silly ( David and Bathsheba), or alternatively overly reverential and therefore kind of stodgy (The Greatest Story Ever Told), they typically (though not always) brought audiences in to delight not just in the pomp and circumstance, but also perhaps to blandish any qualms of conscience that not going to church and/or shul “religiously” (so to speak) may have engendered. One of the more interesting films to come out of this adaptive fervor was the 1966 effort The Bible: In the Beginning..., a John Huston directed effort which presented several iconic tales from Genesis and which was initially planned as just the first installment for a whole series of Biblically oriented tales culled directly from scripture. Its failure at the box office put the kibosh on that plan, but several decades later, a similar plan was put into production, albeit on a much smaller scale, with a series of made for television films (many marketed as miniseries despite not being all that lengthy) that offered various Bible tales, usually with at least one marquee star attached. Many of the made for television entries included in this set were part of a series which ran on various Ted Turner owned networks starting in the 1990s, and some at least have long been favorites of those who like their Biblical adaptations on the more intimate and less epic side of things.

One of the kind of interesting things about some of the treatment of scriptural tales in The Bible Stories Collection is how certain events seem to echo, if perhaps only subliminally, other sagas culled from the Holy Book, though of course some Bible scholars have built their entire careers out of pointing out similarities between various passages dealing with otherwise disparate characters. The made for television version of Abraham features segments (culled from scripture, albeit “tweaked” at times) which seem to presage Jesus’ lonely trek into the wilderness as well as Moses’ attempts to lead an unruly brood out of captivity. At least somewhat similarly, Jacob tends to revisit some of the sibling rivalry that was addressed fairly fitfully in the Cain and Abel segment of Genesis: The Creation and the Flood.

Speaking of Biblical tropes that recur regularly, some may remember a now legendary Life Magazine cover from 1971 that had a classical painting of the “first woman”, next to which was a photograph of a “modern” female holding a sign emblazoned with the accusatory adage “Eve was framed”. I can tell you from personal experience that there are whole movements in modern Jewish Torah study that seek to deconstruct the supposed “Patriarchal” bias that ancient scripture probably undeniably reveals, and some of that element certainly plays into the Jacob story, with a kind of disquieting sequence in this miniseries devoted to the subterfuge that Jacob’s mother Rebekah (Irene Pappas) engineers in order for Jacob to “usurp” the firstborn blessing from his father Isaac (Joss Ackland), a blessing that of course properly belongs to Esau (Sean Bean). While some contemporary feminists may object to the way Rebekah is depicted as the "guilty" party, it's accurate in terms of its source material and the miniseries actually does a nice job of adequately detailing the guilt that both Rebekah and especially Jacob himself feel about the situation.

While this is one of the shorter so-called miniseries in the Bible Stories collection, clocking in at barely an hour and a half, there’s still a slightly padded feeling to the middle section, where Jacob sets off on his adventures and ultimately meets Leah (Juliet Aubry) and Rachel (Lara Flynn Boyle). There’s a nice little “what goes around comes around” element in this part of the story that proves whoever (or Whoever, as the case may be) wrote this tale had a good sense of “karma”, or whatever the correct Biblical terminology might be.

The padding in the middle section may prevent a bit of impact from accruing in the film’s final moments, where the big family reunion doesn’t really tug at the heartstrings as much as might be expected (in fact in this regard, the reunion of siblings in Joseph is probably more affecting and effective). But performances are quite naturalistic and as with many of the offerings in this series, the locations are also quite evocative.

Jacob Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All of the films in The Bible Stories Collection are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1. While most (perhaps all) of these efforts were broadcast in the United States in 1.33:1, it looks from scouring through the IMDb that many (perhaps all) of them did in fact have theatrical releases in various foreign markets, meaning they were most likely all shot with "safeties" and/or "shoot and protect" regimens in mind. That said, those who have seen the 1.33:1 versions which were released on videotape and DVD will no doubt notice quite a few "tighter" framings, framings which often tend to lop the tops or bottoms off of heads and/or faces, at least intermittently.

Jacob's transfer shows the same high frequency roll off that the first two films in this series had, but it affects detail and especially fine detail levels a bit more for whatever reason. Close-ups can still give sufficient information on things like fabric textures or facial pores, but this transfer has a more digital and at times less detailed overall look. There are also some odd anomalies, like a weird ghosting effect at circa 54:21 that are either source based or signs of odd compression problems.

Jacob Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jacob's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track derives most of its surround activity from the score as well as a lot of the outdoor material, where ambient environmental sounds enter the fray. Otherwise, like many others in this set, the mix is pretty front heavy, delivering dialogue clearly but without a ton of directionality. Fidelity is fine, and as with the other films included in this set, there's also a much less forceful sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix offered as well.

Jacob Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There is no supplementary material of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Jacob Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jacob has one of the more moving stories in this set, but this teleplay is a bit uneven, offering decent performances clashing with those that aren't especially artful. Despite clocking in at one of the shorter running times of the Bible Stories collection, this particular adaptation seems to be trying for too much extraneous information in its middle section, something that perhaps deflates the hoped for emotional denouement.